Pricing · Empirical study using software-firm data on intertemporal product versions and upgrade pricing.
New Features Free of Charge? Intertemporal Product Versions and Pricing in the Software Market
Marketing Science · 2023
Summary
The paper empirically documents how firms decide whether to give new features free or charge for upgrades (the publisher abstract identifies the study as an empirical software-market study).
For your marketing
Possible founder application
Use the study to frame a pricing or packaging hypothesis and identify outcomes to measure; estimate effects with your own customer mix and willingness-to-pay evidence.
Reported result
What the study found
The paper empirically documents how firms decide whether to give new features free or charge for upgrades (the publisher abstract identifies the study as an empirical software-market study).
Research question
What the authors investigated
When should software firms make new features free versus use paid upgrades across product versions?
Design
Empirical study using software-firm data on intertemporal product versions and upgrade pricing.
Sample and setting
Software industry; firm-level product/version and upgrade-pricing decisions.
Scope and transfer
Limitations to keep in view
Context is one software industry setting and observational firm decisions; the abstract does not establish universal effects across SaaS categories.
Research sources
INFORMS/Crossref metadata gives exact title, author, year, journal and describes it as an empirical study of intertemporal versioning and upgrade pricing. Direct publisher-page retrieval was recorded on 2026-10-09; this profile uses the publisher abstract/metadata and does not claim independent review of unavailable full text.