These prices are set by the extension development companies that create these extensions, so the reasoning isn't always exactly the same, but here are some factors that make Adobe Commerce (aka Magento Enterprise; Magento Commerce; Magento EE) extensions more expensive than Magento Open Source (aka Magento Community Edition; Magento CE)"
- Adobe Commerce comes with additional modules. Extension developers need to test and debug their extensions for conflicts with these modules.
- Most Magento users are on Magento Open Source. With Adobe Commerce, extension developers need to recoup their costs and turn a profit with a much smaller user base.
- Supply and demand. If a company can afford an Adobe Commerce license, chances are that they can afford to spend more on their extensions. (Side note: They also may not need quite as many extensions because of the extra modules that are included with Adobe Commerce, so even with the price increases, their budget for Magento Extensions may be lower than Magento Open Source users.)
- Adobe Commerce is likely to be used by bigger businesses. These businesses may have higher expectations when it comes to technical support. For instance, an online store with annual revenue of $200 million is likely to expect very quick response times for support tickets, because an issue could be very costly to their business. Comparatively, a business doing $5 million in annual revenue may be more willing to wait a few days. Everyone wants fast support, but there are economies of scale at play.
These are just some of the main factors.
As of today, there are 4,140 Magento Open Source extensions in the Magento Extension Marketplace. There are only 2,040 that are compatible with Adobe Commerce... and only 1,492 of those are compatible with Adobe Commerce Cloud.
Even though they can hypothetically charge a premium, it's often not lucrative enough for developers to make their extensions compatible with Adobe Commerce, or not feasible or worthwhile to make extensions to work with Adobe Commerce Cloud.
If it wasn't for the premium pricing, it's fair to assume that there would be a lot fewer Adobe Commerce extensions.
