4 ms·

Tell HN: I'm tired of the one-time purchase model

2 points by alin23 5y ago

Every day I hear people complain about subscriptions to apps, that they want a one-time purchase and a lifetime license. I also thought that's the way to go but man.. it's so exhausting. Basically, the only way I can keep earning money is by selling to more and more people, and bringing more people increases the customer support work by a lot more than the money I'm making. I'm creating Lunar, an app for controlling displays through DDC. Since Lunar's XDR Brightness feature (https://lunar.fyi/changelog#5.5.1) came out, I'm doing customer support full time, answering to emails about: Lunar brightens my HDR pictures!! (it does not, people don't understand how EDR works on macOS and that it always did that even without Lunar) Discord messages about: my monitor is black!! I can't turn it on (people that never touched the monitor physical buttons) ...and Twitter DMs on: my license no longer works, why did you disable it? (people that don't see the huge red text that appears on an upgrade released outside their free-update period of the license and want free updates forever) FAQ's don't work, the license model is explained in detail for nothing because no one has time to read that, and I'm sure the most debated comments on this will be attacks on the confusing license model I chose because why can't I do what Parallels or Bartender does? I'm not converting Lunar to a subscription model. But I'll seriously reconsider before doing anything similar to Lunar for the next app. There's only so many hours in a day, and I got tired of wasting it on answering emails.

codeptualize 5y ago
It sounds like you have some usability issues. You have a Sketch like lifetime current version + 1y of updates model? I don't think the model is confusing, but it probably it isn't very clear (at least on the website). The only place I see it mentioned is in small print on the checkout. I would look into: - How you can better inform people about the license before they purchase - How to better inform people at the time of updating/end of license You are correct in that a message generally isn't sufficient. There are many alternatives, for example prompt them with three options: renew license, switch to free, cancel. Then reconfirm, for example "are you sure to downgrade, you will loose features X, Y, Z". Check out how others do it, and maybe do some user testing. If people actually want updates forever, a subscription model might just be better. I think the complaints about subscriptions on hackernews are not per se representative, nor reasonable. Personally I prefer subscriptions (if reasonably priced of course). Why not just charge $23/year? It seems like a fair price.
- alin23 5y ago
  Thank you for the thoughtful comment! Why not just charge $23/year? It seems like a fair price I believe you'll get downvoted for this soon unfortunately. People balked at my $23 per lifetime license, I can't imagine what they'd say for $23/year Yes, I have a serious problem with conveying the license model to the average user. Having had more wording on this on the website, led people to complain about too many words and not reading them at all and advising me to just write Lifetime license + 1 year of updates which I did. Now this seems too little. I think the best way forward for me is to stop doing large apps like this one, and only work on small apps where support is minimal and a one-time purchase makes sense (similar to https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd)
  - codeptualize 5y ago
    Bring on the downvotes! But I don't think they will downvote, my experience is that people are open to reasonable arguments even if they might disagree. It sounds like you have customers, so you should talk to them! Use the people who contact support to ask them if they would pay $23/year, if they mind a subscription, if it was clear how the license works, etc etc. Those are the people who matter, who cares about downvotes on hn, you have customers! As to info; Yes, very hard to get right. You should think about it in layers; big bold one line, then details somewhere else. In places where action is required; force it (for example like I mentioned before). Try, test, improve. Maybe also consider going through a service like https://setapp.com/developers https://setapp.com/developers (I have no experience with them from the developer side, but I am a happy customer!)
    - alin23 5y ago
      Yes, I tried Setapp but they turned Lunar down saying they need to: balance the number of applications on the platform with the number of paying subscribers to ensure revenue growth Then proceeded to add a competitor of Lunar called DisplayBuddy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'll ponder on your advice. It's true I mostly heard the negative side because the happy users don't have a reason to talk about their expectations.
mytailorisrich 5y ago
If I see the description "lifetime license" I would also expect free updates forever, otherwise what does "lifetime" mean? If that means traditional licensing whereby people buy the current version then you would not have any issues explaining this if you described it as "Buy Lunar Pro <version number> for $x (includes one year of free updates)". Then, do not notify of updates after free update period but rather say "Upgrade now to Lunar Pro <version number + 1>"
- alin23 5y ago
  In Lunar's model, lifetime means that you can activate the license forever on the versions released within the 1 year of free updates. The website and app state this everywhere possible, so users that pay must be aware that they're buying the app as it is now for lifetime, not my future time.
  - mytailorisrich 5y ago
    So that's basically what I described, which is something people understand because that's how it usually works. So again, I would drop "lifetime" and do as I suggested. > The website and app state this everywhere possible Hmm, I went to the website, clicked "buy lunar pro", got the pop-up that says "lifetime license + 1 year of free updates" without any further explanation. If you need to explain your licensing then you're doing something wrong, anyway, when your product is aimed at the general public.
    - alin23 5y ago
      So this is where I start to lose my mind.. The text previously didn't say lifetime license. That was added because another Lunar user, which was also a previous Apple engineer, didn't understand the model. And after a long discussion, his advice was I would definitely add Lifetime license to make it clearer. Hmm, I went to the website, clicked "buy lunar pro", got the pop-up that says "lifetime license + 1 year of free updates" without any further explanation. There really isn't much space to write more in the Paddle checkout popup, nor would people read more from my experience. I've explained the model in more detail here: https://lunar.fyi/pro https://lunar.fyi/pro I may be doing something wrong, but if after a year I still can't figure out what, I'll just leave it as it is. I think I'm gonna go pet a dog or something because this doesn't feel like what I want to do for the rest of my life.

2 points by alin23 5y ago

codeptualize 5y ago

It sounds like you have some usability issues. You have a Sketch like lifetime current version + 1y of updates model? I don't think the model is confusing, but it probably it isn't very clear (at least on the website). The only place I see it mentioned is in small print on the checkout. I would look into: - How you can better inform people about the license before they purchase - How to better inform people at the time of updating/end of license You are correct in that a message generally isn't sufficient. There are many alternatives, for example prompt them with three options: renew license, switch to free, cancel. Then reconfirm, for example "are you sure to downgrade, you will loose features X, Y, Z". Check out how others do it, and maybe do some user testing. If people actually want updates forever, a subscription model might just be better. I think the complaints about subscriptions on hackernews are not per se representative, nor reasonable. Personally I prefer subscriptions (if reasonably priced of course). Why not just charge $23/year? It seems like a fair price.

alin23 5y ago
Thank you for the thoughtful comment! Why not just charge $23/year? It seems like a fair price I believe you'll get downvoted for this soon unfortunately. People balked at my $23 per lifetime license, I can't imagine what they'd say for $23/year Yes, I have a serious problem with conveying the license model to the average user. Having had more wording on this on the website, led people to complain about too many words and not reading them at all and advising me to just write Lifetime license + 1 year of updates which I did. Now this seems too little. I think the best way forward for me is to stop doing large apps like this one, and only work on small apps where support is minimal and a one-time purchase makes sense (similar to https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd https://lowtechguys.com/rcmd)
- codeptualize 5y ago
  Bring on the downvotes! But I don't think they will downvote, my experience is that people are open to reasonable arguments even if they might disagree. It sounds like you have customers, so you should talk to them! Use the people who contact support to ask them if they would pay $23/year, if they mind a subscription, if it was clear how the license works, etc etc. Those are the people who matter, who cares about downvotes on hn, you have customers! As to info; Yes, very hard to get right. You should think about it in layers; big bold one line, then details somewhere else. In places where action is required; force it (for example like I mentioned before). Try, test, improve. Maybe also consider going through a service like https://setapp.com/developers https://setapp.com/developers (I have no experience with them from the developer side, but I am a happy customer!)
  - alin23 5y ago
    Yes, I tried Setapp but they turned Lunar down saying they need to: balance the number of applications on the platform with the number of paying subscribers to ensure revenue growth Then proceeded to add a competitor of Lunar called DisplayBuddy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'll ponder on your advice. It's true I mostly heard the negative side because the happy users don't have a reason to talk about their expectations.

mytailorisrich 5y ago

If I see the description "lifetime license" I would also expect free updates forever, otherwise what does "lifetime" mean? If that means traditional licensing whereby people buy the current version then you would not have any issues explaining this if you described it as "Buy Lunar Pro <version number> for $x (includes one year of free updates)". Then, do not notify of updates after free update period but rather say "Upgrade now to Lunar Pro <version number + 1>"

alin23 5y ago
In Lunar's model, lifetime means that you can activate the license forever on the versions released within the 1 year of free updates. The website and app state this everywhere possible, so users that pay must be aware that they're buying the app as it is now for lifetime, not my future time.
- mytailorisrich 5y ago
  So that's basically what I described, which is something people understand because that's how it usually works. So again, I would drop "lifetime" and do as I suggested. > The website and app state this everywhere possible Hmm, I went to the website, clicked "buy lunar pro", got the pop-up that says "lifetime license + 1 year of free updates" without any further explanation. If you need to explain your licensing then you're doing something wrong, anyway, when your product is aimed at the general public.
  - alin23 5y ago
    So this is where I start to lose my mind.. The text previously didn't say lifetime license. That was added because another Lunar user, which was also a previous Apple engineer, didn't understand the model. And after a long discussion, his advice was I would definitely add Lifetime license to make it clearer. Hmm, I went to the website, clicked "buy lunar pro", got the pop-up that says "lifetime license + 1 year of free updates" without any further explanation. There really isn't much space to write more in the Paddle checkout popup, nor would people read more from my experience. I've explained the model in more detail here: https://lunar.fyi/pro https://lunar.fyi/pro I may be doing something wrong, but if after a year I still can't figure out what, I'll just leave it as it is. I think I'm gonna go pet a dog or something because this doesn't feel like what I want to do for the rest of my life.