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0 pointsfit2rule11y ago0 comments

Can you justify the subscription model? To me this is a major turnoff.

0 comments

Not arguing with fit2rule--he/she can buy what he/she chooses--but I think a subscription model is Just Fine.

If I'm making money or even pursuing a hobby, $300/yr is completely worth it.

But FWIW, I'd be happier about having $40/month-billed-monthly and $300/yr options.

The advantage of subscription is that everyone is always running the latest and greatest. Typically software will instead charge for major version releases in the future which segregates your users and increases support costs. This is not good for anyone. Interested why this is a turnoff for you though. What would you like to see instead?

fit2ruleOP11y ago

I'd like to buy it once for a fixed price, use the heck out of it, and purchase an upgrade offered to me as a loyal customer, when it happens, if I want to.

Milking money out of me on a regular basis, adding to a line-item in my budget, feels predatory - as a developer, this turns me off because it doesn't actually benefit me in any way - I'm paying for your inability to fund yourself through multiple iterations of software development cycles. Put a fixed price on the product, charge for upgrades when - and most importantly: if - they happen, and it would be a done deal in my case. But right now, I don't want to have to deal with your regular charge against my credit card. Too much hassle, and you haven't been in business/released enough software, long enough for me to believe its going to be worth a year of charges.

xenophon11y ago

When you buy software for a fixed price, you've just bought a depreciating asset (relative to upgrades) with no way to adjust spend and fine-tune your ROI based on anticipated or unanticipated changes to your usage.

What I'm trying to say is that your "return" from this product is obviously contingent on how much you use it/what you make with it. If you have 95% confidence that you'll produce enough to net a positive ROI over and above the fixed price, then yeah it's more convenient to buy it once. But especially for a new product like this, I much prefer a subscription model because I have more control over my costs and I can't yet anticipate my true benefit. It's a win-win: software maker gets to push frequent updates and ensure a constantly improving experience, and user gets to check-in frequently and re-consider if they're not getting enough value.

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brianlash11y ago

To offer a counterpoint to fit2rule's comment, I'm probably smack in the middle of your target demo (currently employed as a business analyst, technically competent but not a programmer, have entrepreneurial ambitions, etc...) and I think your price point and subscription model are abundantly fair. I've paid a lot more for a lot less over the years. Don't see myself shirking at $25/mo when it's (potentially) core to my business.

I haven't tried PencilCase yet, but it looks like a great product with solid implementation. Good luck to you guys.

interstateone11y ago

Hey, I'm another one of the developers, thanks so much for the kind words! I agree, it sounds like PencilCase would be a perfect fit :) We definitely want anybody to be able to use PencilCase: Studio, even if you aren't a programmer.

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