After the first couple hundred "free" plugins you will find that you pay in other ways - this is the same in anything that supports a plugin.
In any system I manage the cost of the plugin simply isn't an issue - if it's worth the money, it's easy to justify paying. But if it's free, and it becomes critical to the workflow, and in a year's time the author has abandoned it, then the "cost" is that we assume the responsibility for maintaining it forever, or we retool the workflow, or in some other way, it's very expensive. So paradoxically paid-for plugins are a much easier sell and requests for free stuff are shot down straight away.
"Maybe next year we'll have time to look into your plugin."