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I sell perpetual licenses but I charge for updates beyond the first year. I do get 2-3 emails every day reporting bugs and general feature requests.
I have some other apps for iOS as well but they are all subscription based.
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Thanks for stating this. Some customers (who are often the vocal minority) don't like SaaS likely due to subscription fatigue but most don't realize the amount of manpower it requires to continuously update software that will atrophy without them, not to mention adding more features. The business reality is often not understood by the users and that's why every company is moving towards SaaS, it allows the company de…
Some users do not want updates. I understand that updating software takes manpower. Same for running servers for sync or online information or similar. But I might rather pay once for something that works on my machine as it is now. I need no servers or sync. If I need an upgrade later, I’ll buy it. I do buy some software as a service but for other software if there’s a subscription I just don’t buy.
Every time I updated macOS I find that some program stopped working and I just have to update it and it works again.
As well as the fact that most software these days has an online component that has an ongoing cost to provide.
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Thanks for stating this. Some customers (who are often the vocal minority) don't like SaaS likely due to subscription fatigue but most don't realize the amount of manpower it requires to continuously update software that will atrophy without them, not to mention adding more features. The business reality is often not understood by the users and that's why every company is moving towards SaaS, it allows the company de…
Some users do not want updates. I understand that updating software takes manpower. Same for running servers for sync or online information or similar. But I might rather pay once for something that works on my machine as it is now. I need no servers or sync. If I need an upgrade later, I’ll buy it. I do buy some software as a service but for other software if there’s a subscription I just don’t buy.
Yes, I did so for 10+ years, about 15 years ago. It launched my business (which then evolved to include a lot of consulting). I charged for major version upgrades that introduced substantial new functionality (discounted for existing customers); minor version upgrades were free. I was probably too generous with support, but it resulted in very satisfied customers and a solid reputation that paid in spades with the mo…
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Even when you buy a game by disc nowadays, you are forced into waiting an hour to install cloud updates.
We need to get tape storage more accessible to the average folk. Its so mind shattering just how dense tape is even without compression. Tape isn't even that expensive compared to SSD storage or the old reliable rust, its the tape reader that costs an insane amount. Their are tops of DVD, CD, and vhs readers but somehow we can't make affordable LTO tape readers that don't cost less than a PC or a GPU.
The issue is that one time purchases have perpetual costs. Software has become complex enough where the subscription model is all but required in todays day and age to serve happy customers - and can even be cheaper to users rather than rolling customer LTV into a one time purchase.
It used to work back when the software market was growing exponentially. You could take care of old customers using revenue from new customers, because you always had more new customers than old ones. Upgrade cycles also used to be much shorter, and nobody cared about security bugs. So you didn't really have to maintain old versions for long. It was a Ponzi scheme of sorts, and it worked for a while. Obviously it can…
At some point adobe has sold photoshop to basically every person who wants to buy it.
I've been building a break reminder app for mac since slightly more than a year and it's been growing really well - mostly through word of mouth. It currently nets $5k a month. I sell perpetual licenses but I charge for updates beyond the first year. I do get 2-3 emails every day reporting bugs and general feature requests. I have some other apps for iOS as well but they are all subscription based.
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Unfortunately even in this area there is now a strong push towards subscription models.
I'm very well-versed in the field, what DAW(s) are you referring to? Cubase, Ableton, FL Studio, Logic Pro X, Bitwig, Reaper, etc. are all flat fees. Studio one has a subscription model but it's tied to access to splice assets and it's completely separate from their one time fee model.
Reason is pushing a subscription model hard.
Online services like Splice are sub based for sounds & samples.
Bitwig is a yearly fee. You don't have to upgrade but you're probably going to have issues with newer OS versions before long if you don't.
Overall I agree it's sill a better space than most for software you actually can own.
I follow the “perpetual license with one year of support/updates” model. So far it’s working great. My customers love it as they’re in control of the software. Some users can run BoltAI entirely offline.
But I’m adding the subscription soon as this model is not sustainable when I’m adding other cloud features such as cloud sync and other collaboration features.
I think the pricing model should reflect the value and cost of the product. If it’s more on the software side (think winzip or other smaller desktop widget where there is no or low operational cost), it should be one time payment. If it’s more on the service side (cloud sync, collaborative features, fast changing niche where you need to update the product constantly…) then it makes more sense to charge a subscription.
But the tricky part here is that potential customers might not see it that way. Many assume it’s just like another desktop app, therefore it has to be one time payment. So in my experience, I’d start with no cloud feature and offer a perpetual license. Then I’ll add a subscription and with other cloud features. Basically 2 different offerings.
[1]: https://boltai.com
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Some users do not want updates. I understand that updating software takes manpower. Same for running servers for sync or online information or similar. But I might rather pay once for something that works on my machine as it is now. I need no servers or sync. If I need an upgrade later, I’ll buy it. I do buy some software as a service but for other software if there’s a subscription I just don’t buy.
Photoshop 6 does everything I ever want Photoshop to do. I wish Adobe would continue to sell a one time purchase copy of PS6 instead of forcing everyone to SaaS. Fortunately I own a physical copy of the PS6 disks that I purchased years ago, so I don’t have a problem acquiring PS6 on any new machines by various means.