Louisville, KY -- (SBWIRE) -- 05/03/2011 -- In its first-quarter review, Louisville, Ky.-based software firm Halfpricesoft.com announced a 60 percent increase in sales over the first three months of 2010. The company credited this remarkable gain to a unique marketing strategy in which customers use the company's software for free.

After several years of lackluster sales, software developer Halfpricesoft.com discovered TrialPay. By partnering with TrialPay's advertisers, Halfpricesoft.com customers get free download and license key for the company's most popular software titles when they purchase goods and services from the advertisers. The advertisers pay for the software and license keys.

"We were confident that the TrialPay partnerships would be good for business, but we had no idea that it would achieve such monumental results," said Halfpricesoft.com founder Dr. Ge. "A 60 percent increase in sales is just phenomenal."

Halfpricesoft.com launched in 2003 with a focus on creating business software for small businesses that is easy to learn and affordable for small businesses yet full-featured. The company found it difficult to market software as a start-up, since customers were unfamiliar with the company, and sold only a handful of copies from http://www.halfpricesoft.com site in its first year.

With the knowledge that their software offered features and capability comparable to high-end business software, Halfpricesoft.com offered a 30-day free trial period for its products believing that when users tried the software, they would realize the value offered by Halfpricesoft.com and purchase the full-use license. While the free trial period did increase sales, they remained far below expectations.

In 2008, the company produced a "Lite" version of its ezCheckPrinting software, with limited capabilities on some features, such as custom check designing. The company offered the new product for free on software download sites and supported it with an intense press release campaign.

"Everyone likes free stuff," said Dr. Ge. "When we launched ezCheckPrinting Lite for free, we suddenly started getting hundreds of downloads each month."

But while downloads of the free software were plentiful, conversions to the full-featured paid version were minimal. The search for an effective marketing solution continued.

Seeing that free software was popular with small-business customers, Dr. Ge and his team looked for a way to utilize this powerful marketing tool that would result in sales for their premium products. The answer came in late 2008 when they discovered TrialPay.

With TrialPay, Halfpricesoft.com is able to offer the full-featured premium version of ezCheckPrinting and its other software titles for free when customers purchase a product from another company. In 2009, the company ceased to offer the "lite" version of ezCheckPrinting and used TrialPay to offer the product for free. TrialPay advertisers pay for the software when customers purchase their products or services.

"We sell thousands of copies each year now," said Dr. Ge. "It's a win-win-win-win situation: the customer gets free product, we make sales, the TrialPay advertiser makes sales, and TrialPay gets commissions."

Currently, Halfpricesoft.com offers several products for free through TrialPay, including:
- ezCheckPersonal personal check writing software
- ezTimeSheet, computer-based time clock software for tracking employee hours
- blank check stock for use with ezCheckPrinting, ezPaycheck and ezCheckPersonal software
- stock for printing W2, W3, 1099 and 1096 forms

About Halfpricesoft.com
Based in Louisville, Ky., Halfpricesoft.com is a developer of tax and financial software for small business that is affordable and easy to use, requiring little to no learning curve. Halpricesoft.com titles include ezPaycheck, ezCheckPrinting, ezCheckPersonal, ezTimeSheet, ezW2, and Accu2000 Barcode Printing Software. The company website at www.halfpricesoft.com also contains resources and links to help small businesses with their payroll, accounting and tax reporting needs.