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Comment by atwebb | Hacker News Reader

It amazes me that you've completely missed out on some of the reasons for people complaining about the cost. My comment is one you're railing against and I think you're off base. Even going by your factor of time, I have to bet $1,000 that this product will be worth both that money and the time that I have to put into learning and dealing with it. There's no VS trail (as far as I know). So other than going off of blog posts and advice, I have to pay at least $300 and then learn both the tool and it's IDE or gamble an extra $700 that it will be useful in an IDE/environment I'm already familiar with.

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Being honest, there will be very little learning curve going from VS to Xamarin Studio. They tried to make that switch as painless as possible.

You are right, there is a factor of learning that needs to be baked into your consideration but there comes a point where you put a little trust in people who came before you and tell you 'I have done this, I have been where you are - follow me and you will be fine'.

On the flip side, Nat Friedman is incredibly approachable. I am sure if you simply email him and tell him your concerns he will accommodate you with a longer trial period or some kind of money back guarantee, that just how he is.

Great, now I feel like my reply was way too snarky. I'll give the XS IDE a try and I want to be clear to any Xamarin/dev folks reading here, I in no way think all this stuff should be free. I just see that as a limiting barrier and, judging by the comments here and elsewhere, so do others. I appreciate your reply and insight, thanks!

We recently introduced pricing for SMBs and Start Ups. You can shoot an email to hello@xamarin.com if interested.

How does one become Xamarin certified from Australia/Malaysia?

Even purchasing a business license (allowing you to use visual studio) for two platforms would still be cost effective at $1998 per year. Given that you're developing one code base instead of two, I'd guess the productivity increase would be at least 50%.

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