Should You Never Mention Another Product

Apparently I rubbed Carl Hancock the wrong way when one of my routine posts that promote Formidable Pro WordPress plugin mentions that it is less expensive than Gravity Forms for an unlimited site license.

So I wondered and thought about when talking about products readers need to be aware of alternatives.  Gravity Forms is popular for sure, but readers may not realize that you can get 90% of the features of Gravity Forms in Formidable Pro for a faction of the cost, especially when features that include some of the Paypal and Mailing List integrations are part of the standard $47 purchase of Formidable Pro but are only included in the $199 version of Gravity Forms.

Now the single license version of Gravity Forms is only $39 but it’s functionality is much more limited than the $47 Formidable Pro.  Gravity Forms does have some features that Formidable Pro does not, such as the ability to hook an action like publishing a post only after confirmation of Paypal payment received.  Formidable Pro can only redirect and send user to the payment screen for payment but cannot confirm the payment if user cancels and leaves.

Still, overall I work with many many bloggers and 99% of the functionality of forms they need is met by Formidable Pro at a fraction of the cost for multiple site license.  The few that need the advanced functionality for the developer license of Gravity Forms are likely to be small businesses that have that exact need for that functionality and have the budget to not break a sweat to pay just about $300 for the license.

But asking someone to not compare a product based on price is like asking someone not to showcase an Apple iPad, or Kindle Fire HDX compared to a Google Nexus 7, they are both Android tablets, one has a faster processor, and more features than the other.  You can compare anything to anything as long as what you point out is true and you are raising awareness.  It prevents people from being stuck thinking that only 1 product exists and raises awareness for alternatives.  It can be a selling point, and also it can cause people to open up debate and arguments or conversation.

I have no problem defending my statements, but let the product sell itself goes against the nature of blogs that specifically do reviews and comparisons of products, comparing products and showcasing differences is what we do.