Logos Is Too Expensive

Joel Reed said:

Please tell me if I'm way off base here ... but I'm sure there are many of you out there who have experienced the same thing.

You are way off base. I have spent way over $600 for my library and every penny has been spent wisely. Sure, there are a few resources I do not use and probably never will in my library. But I use my library for a ton of reasons and every penny I have spent I would do again. It is very simple. If you do not like the prices, do not buy the product. Do not count me as one who has experienced the same thing. You get what you pay for. If you want a cheaper product then go somewhere else and get it.

I always seem to wish things could be purchased cheaply.  That usually doesn't happen and when it does, I end up with buyer's remorse.  Why?  Because the best costs more.  After all, it's not the exact same product!  It's better.  More features, etc.  The coding in Logos books is technical and time consuming.  Someone(s) is making a living doing that for each book!

I have learned to look at this as an investment.  Just as a mechanic may spend money on "cheap" tools, he soon learns that was a mistake.  Logos gives us the ability to buy what we can afford and even offers payment plans.  By the way, I now own the Portfolio version.  I certainly didn't start out with it, but I am glad I was able to work my way up to it.

Logos does have to renegotiate with publishing companies.  And, sometimes they are not able to.  That means occasionally some  books aren't able to stay in the packages.  But, if you own them now, you will get to keep them.  It is best to "move up" as you can, in the best Bible software out there . 

I think a lot of people aren't knowledgeable enough with all the bells and whistles (and I mean, really neat features), that they don't understand how far Logos is advanced compared to the competition.  Logos is far more than a compilation of books.  I appreciate that difference and invest in it.

Also, consider you can use Logos on PC, MAC, iPad, iPhone, Android, etc...no extra charge.  If other companies are moving that way, it is because Logos has lead the way and ultimately forced the market to move to our advantage.  Logos has been very generous in their "use" policies.

Someone say, "AMEN!"

I do not feel that Logos is overpriced at all. You are NOT paying for JUST books. You are paying for the software itself. If you look at how much an Operating System is (Windows and OSX and Linux), you see that they are priced differently. Linux is basically free because the people who are writing code are not necessarily getting paid doing it. Windows and OSX are not free because the people working on them have no other job. They have to be paid. When it comes to most software (including games, etc.) you really do get what you pay for (usually). Some free things are great, but they are usually very limited. The same is USUALLY true of vehicles (but not always). USUALLY, more expensive cars are more expensive because of 1) how they are designed, and 2) because of the parts they use. The cheaper the parts (and fewer "bells and whistles") the cheaper the car. The more "bells and whistles" and the better quality parts, the more expensive the vehicle will be. For specific fields of work, the workman (or woman) NEED specific tools, and the more expensive the tools, the better quality they usually are, and the longer they usually last.

When it comes to Bible Software, it is VERY similar. Logos and Accordance were designed with the Scholar in mind (hence the searches for the different languages, such as Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Coptic, Ugaritic, Syriac, and many modern languages) and to have all of those font styles takes work (some are not even free). So they have to pay someone to create the code so it searches English and every other language that Logos supports, so that it finds exactly what you are looking for. There are free Bible programs (such as e-Sword), but you can't really search in Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic or any other Ancient Language (I know, I have used it), and I have found the program to be MORE frustrating for what I am trying to do. Plus, Logos is designed that when you buy it, you can download it to Mac or Windows, without having to worry about it working on the platform. So they have to have developers make it work on Windows XP, Vista, 7, and now 8 (a lot of work), and OSX Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion, and now Mountain Lion (also, a lot of work). Plus, the cheaper Bible Programs (cheaper than Logos and Accordance, Accordance is similarly priced), tend to NOT have Sytax or Morph Searches (which is MORE coding). If I went through everything they have to code, we'd find MANY specific areas of Logos that have to be coded (that you probably won't find in cheaper or free Bible Software programs, such as E-Sword, which you can only search for English or your specific Modern Language). So Logos have many teams for the features they are making better AS WELL as the NEW features that we KEEP asking for. All of that takes time and money and building space. So, when you buy the Logos Software, you are paying for all of the bells and whistles. Which include (but is not limited to) the ability to click on a verse in ANY book, commentary, bible dictionary, bible encyclopedia, Biblical language dictionary, Lexicon, etc. and it will take you to the verse in your preferred Bible. They have to pay people to do that so that you can hover your mouse cursor over the verse and it will give you a pop-up of the verse. Very few of the cheaper bible Software programs will have exactly those features. The free ones, you have to go to the bible and type in the bible reference yourself.

The free books you pay for so that someone can put them into electronic format and make them searchable for every word and bible reference, etc. The rest of the books, bible commentaries, bible dictionaries, etc. that you can STILL find on the publisher's site, have set prices. Those set prices come from the publisher. Logos cannot sell them for cheaper than what the Publisher tells them to do. They give discounts to Pastors, academic teachers, and academic students when the Publisher allows them to do so. (Zondervan, for instance, does not allow such discounts. The only discounts you can get for Zondervan books, etc. is through the Pre-Publication Specials, which are ALSO set by the Publisher). The books that you find cheaply online (such as through Amazon.com etc.) are usually used books, or books sold outside of the Publisher, so they can set the prices they want. The electronic books that Logos get (especially if the electronic forms come directly from the publisher) tend to have a price set already (by the publisher). (Plus, Logos adds books, commentaries, encyclopedias, etc. every week or every month, which also costs money). Here is something else to think about: the more expensive the Base Product, the more books/commentary series/dictionaries/etc. it has that are NOT free OR cheep. Look those ones up on Logos and (especially) the publisher's website and compare the books in print versus what you are getting in Logos. For example, in the Gold Edition, ONE of the Commentaries you get is the New International Greek Testament Commentary. DIRECTLY from Eerdmans.com, the entire series is $834. You can get it by itself for $445.95 from Logos or in the Gold Edition!! If you totalled up all the expensive resources in the Gold Edition and checked out the prices from the Publisher, you could get a price OVER $1379.95! (I know, I have priced this stuff up before). (I'm sure there are some books, etc. that Logos sets, but I believe that MOST of the prices you see come from the Publishers and not Logos).

Everything you pay for in Logos is WELL worth the money. I am still buying up Bible dictionaries, Bible commentaries, etc. from Logos and they are streamlining my research and personal studies. Logos might have more bells and whistles than you will use, so you might be content with cheaper Bible Software (that don't necessarily have all of the same features and books, commentaries, dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc as Logos). For me, Logos has been exactly what I have been looking for. I actually wish I had found it sooner.

Here is a suggestion for you: You might want the Scholar's Edition or higher, but if you don't have the money, I'd suggest starting out smaller and upgrading. When you upgrade, you don't have to pay for the whole price of the next one up. For Example, say you begin with the Christian Home edition ($149.95). If you upgrade to the Bible Study Library it will be (no joke) $115 (instead of $264.95)! (That is 264.95-149.95). If you decide to upgrade Leader's Library it will be $60! (324.95-264.95)! Then let's say you decide to go to the Original Languages Library, it will cost you $91 (415.95-324.95)! Then let's say you decide to go up from there to the Scholar's Library; that will cost you 214 ($629.95-415.95)! I began with the Scholar's Library (I was in College so I was able to get a Student discount, plus I used a payment plan for 12 months), and I later upgraded to the Gold Edition. To upgrade to Gold it was $750 (but I was still in College so I again got a Student discount, down to $615 or thereabouts). I added up all the NEW expensive series and dictionaries that I was getting and it would have cost more OVER $1000 to buy each of those resources individually....through Logos. But if you went from Scholar's to Silver it would be $370, and from Silver to Gold it would be $380, and from Gold to Platinum it would be $310, and from Platinum to Portfolio would be $2600.05. But, if you were add up all of the commentaries and collections and books that you get and all of the collections that you would be getting (that are found in Portfolio but not in any other  Base Package), you'd be getting in excess of $7000 worth of books (going from Platinum to Portfolio that is), if you were to buy them individually. Plus, there are some books that are not available individually (that is, outside of the Portfolio Edition). Plus, with all the ways of searching (including looking up Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, etc Languages [without having to know Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, or Latin]), and copying and pasting to Word processors (and Logos footnotes everything you copy and paste for you), etc., you are getting a lot for your monies worth. Plus, after buying them, if you have to get a whole new computer, you do not have to re-purchase everything. You can just go to Logos.com, and download either the Mac or Windows installer, sign in, and everything downloads to your computer.

If I were you, either a) stop complaining and budget for what you want and then buy it, or b) slowly purchase what you want, whether once a month or more often or less often (depending on your finances of course), or c) go elsewhere.

Are there things that DESPERATELY need to be fixed and/or vastly improved? Of course. All software have both great things and not so great things. But you will have to choose whether or not paying for all the extra bells and whistles of Logos will be worth it. In my humble opinion, Logos is higher end than "Cadillac". So,  in my humble opinion, you will get your monies worth.

Well, it's just my opinion, but if Logos can be compared to a Cadillac, I'd say a very high end one....I don't pay much attention to cars, so I wouldn't know what model. I was thinking Ferrari, but I'm sure someone would say that a Ferrari is too high end for comparison purposes.

Accordance always seemed to ben more expensive to me, whereas bibleworks more or less equals in pricing.

Where do you find this huge differences in price?

For me Logos could priced their books cheaper, I know their books are indexed BUT since they have their "indexing software" up & running already.. Why don't reduce the price??

I'm sure they paid off their overhead for their indexing software..

If logos books were priced 40%-75% cheaper... I'm sure Logos would profit be the same amount of end net income.

Plus, one of common sale tactics is "people's financial negligence" or getting the advantage of people carelessness in making decision. So IT IS should be tough to begin with to buy books at these price for most common Christians....(at least for me)

Again, the demographic audience target for Logos are Christians (I wasn't raised in the "western", so the way I view at how Christian's sales is completely different)

I'm sorry I didn't mean it sound offensive..

What I'm saying is .. Their indexing software is so far advance (look at how fast CP books and Pre-Pub books come out) unlike us here who edit our PBB books very slow.

Now... if only their indexing software is somewhat open source .. so we can help... :P

(yea, I'm dreaming)

mike said:

holy moly..

"Logos profit margin was just about 0.38%" ... reading that makes me wanna spend more to support Logos!

hmmmmmmmmmmm... I wonder with that low margin, I'm just thinking Logos must be paying good money for their employees!

(again, if he's saying 0.38% ... from how much volume is he talking about? .. 100million? cuz 0.38% out 100million is $380k) *I'm exaggerating

.

.

ok people .. move those wishlist contents to the cart now! help Logos preach the Word!

Yeah, that's a pretty pitiful profit margin.  Rosie says there aren't currently any opportunities to invest in Logos, but I would be interested—not in the hopes of making a lot of profit (better not at that rate), but simply because I like the product and want them to continue.

In context that 0.38% was were they were before they released L5. The financial cycles of an upgrade driven software company will ebb and flow. 

IOW I would be pretty sure that it's not the same right now. But by the time the L5 cycle completes it will likely be again.

disclaimer: I really don't know what I'm talking about. [;-)]

mike said:

I myself spent close to 5k in last 3 months. Hopefully Logos gets the message by "lowering the price" and "better sales" ... I spend more.

"Lowering the price" ? My average price is still less than $5 per volume. I am happy with that.

"Better sales"? Logos has just about trained me to wait for the big bundles. Individual titles don't seem to be discounted much. I got an email for Hebrew resources this week that was discounted from $51 to $49.99...... a savings of $1.01.

Lee said:

I personally find Logos expensive too, but I wouldn't use "too expensive". But if it is an expensive tool, and it gets the job done, then it's worth it. The burden is always on the buyers to buy responsibly.

Yes, Snap-On tools are expensive too, but almost all mechanics use them rather than something they could pick up cheaply at Pep Boys.

I have a very substantial investment in my Logos library- but to be honest I have modified my purchasing- I have 3 other programs I use as well- one where one product in Logos is $600, the other $150, I have found with dual monitors I don't have to spend the $600, this is just one example.

I have also found the other programs have additional material, that I don't need a purchase plan, in some cases they are 60-80% less- no they don't integrate with Logos but I have found that is not an issue, I can use side by side and save a whole lot a cash. 

This is not to belittle Logos- lets be practicable, $$$ are hard to come by- while I have made a MAJOR investment in my Logos library- I have to buy according to my ability and the worth of the product they offer- I set that those perimeters not Logos.   

While Bob and Logos have a goal by which they operate- every customer has the same criteria for their personal finances and goals.