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I love this honest and straight model of purchase regarding a 7-day trial and one time purchase with 12 months updates, while letting the user keep whatever the

I love this honest and straight model of purchase regarding a 7-day trial and one time purchase with 12 months updates, while letting the user keep whatever they have or upgrade only if they want to. Will give it a try.

wsinks 5y ago
That was my biggest takeaway as well, I thought that was really interesting!
alin23 5y ago
Yep, I feel it's the best of both worlds between subscription and one-time purchase, while also supporting the dev when a high-effort upgrade is needed. I've done the same for Lunar (https://lunar.fyi https://lunar.fyi) but people were very confused at first and didn't understand the model. I had to respond with "It's not a subscription." and a lengthy description of how it works more than I'd have liked to.
mortenjorck 5y ago
It's honestly a breath of fresh air. I wish Apple made it easier for developers to adopt this business model instead of having to choose between an unsustainable one-time purchase and an unpalatable rent-forever subscription. I wonder how much work went into building the framework to enable a "subscription to new features" on iOS. Perhaps it's even something the developer might be interested in open-sourcing so more developers can go this route?
- rhizome 5y ago
  I don't know how the purchasing gets set up, but couldn't all of these just be separate products? 7-day trial, permanent version license, upgrades for two years...all with different prices? Does Apple prevent you from applying more than one to a single app or something?
  - TheJoeMan 5y ago
    Because the 12 months are from purchase date not development cycle, so you’d have to track features available to each user.
- interpol_p 5y ago
  It's ridiculously hard to adopt this model on iOS I started implementing it for my app, Codea (https://codea.io https://codea.io) because it was released in 2011 and I have been updating it ever since. So I'm still working pretty hard to support customers who purchased it for $8 over ten years ago! I got as far as enumerating features (classing them as "Free" and "Pro"), adding a system to the codebase to check if a feature has been permanently activated based on the most recent receipt. But then I went to implement NON-autorenewing subscriptions — i.e., subscriptions that don't renew automatically — and discovered that Apple doesn't even support StoreKit testing for this type of subscription. So it would be a nightmare to test with having to manually create a ton of non-reusable sandbox accounts for every scenario It's unsupported, under documented and just neglected. You have to work harder NOT to automatically take your customers' money after each renewal period! I'd still like to go this route, but it took weeks away from working on actual useful features. And since it's a hobby project it seemed sensible to shelve it for now Edit: the worst part is you have to litter your codebase with checks for features and whether they are active. Gracefully handle them not being active. If Apple let us simply sell version upgrades this would all go away
jjcm 5y ago
As a counter to this, Sketch uses similar pricing and it was one of the things that made migrating off of it to a competitor at my last company so easy. Since Sketch licenses were permanent, it was a no brainer of a decision. We could continue ongoing support at the last version of Sketch we had licenses for while embracing the new product, at no cost. As a consumer I love it, but it's a risky strategy from a stickiness standpoint.
- delgaudm 5y ago
  >As a consumer I love it, but it's a risky strategy from a stickiness standpoint. And why we should support Sketch and similar companies with buy-once licensing and shun those that force you into the subscription hell model.
  - mortenjorck 5y ago
    Sketch, unfortunately, no longer offers this model to new customers. Legacy customers can still buy a new year of updates, but anyone new to Sketch can only rent the software.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- Larrikin 5y ago
  If the product does everything you want why should you be forced to pay for updates forever for features you don't want? I would love to pay for Acrobat from like 7 years ago. There's been no value add for me.
  - ygjb 5y ago
    That's a fair assessment, but I can tell you that if you run an Acrobat from 7 years ago, you are gonna have a bad time from a security perspective :) I hate subscription models too, but maintaining software takes time and money.
pizza234 5y ago
IntelliJ offers a similar pricing: if one subscribes for at least an year - which has a fair price - they'll get a perpetual license.

wsinks 5y ago

That was my biggest takeaway as well, I thought that was really interesting!

alin23 5y ago

Yep, I feel it's the best of both worlds between subscription and one-time purchase, while also supporting the dev when a high-effort upgrade is needed. I've done the same for Lunar (https://lunar.fyi https://lunar.fyi) but people were very confused at first and didn't understand the model. I had to respond with "It's not a subscription." and a lengthy description of how it works more than I'd have liked to.

mortenjorck 5y ago

It's honestly a breath of fresh air. I wish Apple made it easier for developers to adopt this business model instead of having to choose between an unsustainable one-time purchase and an unpalatable rent-forever subscription. I wonder how much work went into building the framework to enable a "subscription to new features" on iOS. Perhaps it's even something the developer might be interested in open-sourcing so more developers can go this route?

rhizome 5y ago
I don't know how the purchasing gets set up, but couldn't all of these just be separate products? 7-day trial, permanent version license, upgrades for two years...all with different prices? Does Apple prevent you from applying more than one to a single app or something?
- TheJoeMan 5y ago
  Because the 12 months are from purchase date not development cycle, so you’d have to track features available to each user.
interpol_p 5y ago
It's ridiculously hard to adopt this model on iOS I started implementing it for my app, Codea (https://codea.io https://codea.io) because it was released in 2011 and I have been updating it ever since. So I'm still working pretty hard to support customers who purchased it for $8 over ten years ago! I got as far as enumerating features (classing them as "Free" and "Pro"), adding a system to the codebase to check if a feature has been permanently activated based on the most recent receipt. But then I went to implement NON-autorenewing subscriptions — i.e., subscriptions that don't renew automatically — and discovered that Apple doesn't even support StoreKit testing for this type of subscription. So it would be a nightmare to test with having to manually create a ton of non-reusable sandbox accounts for every scenario It's unsupported, under documented and just neglected. You have to work harder NOT to automatically take your customers' money after each renewal period! I'd still like to go this route, but it took weeks away from working on actual useful features. And since it's a hobby project it seemed sensible to shelve it for now Edit: the worst part is you have to litter your codebase with checks for features and whether they are active. Gracefully handle them not being active. If Apple let us simply sell version upgrades this would all go away

jjcm 5y ago

As a counter to this, Sketch uses similar pricing and it was one of the things that made migrating off of it to a competitor at my last company so easy. Since Sketch licenses were permanent, it was a no brainer of a decision. We could continue ongoing support at the last version of Sketch we had licenses for while embracing the new product, at no cost. As a consumer I love it, but it's a risky strategy from a stickiness standpoint.

delgaudm 5y ago
>As a consumer I love it, but it's a risky strategy from a stickiness standpoint. And why we should support Sketch and similar companies with buy-once licensing and shun those that force you into the subscription hell model.
- mortenjorck 5y ago
  Sketch, unfortunately, no longer offers this model to new customers. Legacy customers can still buy a new year of updates, but anyone new to Sketch can only rent the software.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Larrikin 5y ago
If the product does everything you want why should you be forced to pay for updates forever for features you don't want? I would love to pay for Acrobat from like 7 years ago. There's been no value add for me.
- ygjb 5y ago
  That's a fair assessment, but I can tell you that if you run an Acrobat from 7 years ago, you are gonna have a bad time from a security perspective :) I hate subscription models too, but maintaining software takes time and money.

pizza234 5y ago

IntelliJ offers a similar pricing: if one subscribes for at least an year - which has a fair price - they'll get a perpetual license.