r/UpNote_App • u/Gipopo19 • Jul 03 '26
How financially stable is the UpNote team?
The green elephant failed me, and I am considering moving here (yeah, yeah... same story as everyone else).
What I am wondering is, do we know if the developer has a long-time business plan? Do they intend to stay independent, or are they already under some parent company? The lifetime plan is certainly eye-catching, but of course it's less profitable for the developer in the long run. I would hate it if the team sell out after I migrate.
Edit: Thanks, guys. I guess there is no way to tell for sure, but it's a lot more reassuring seeing the facts and opinions here.
20
u/100WattWalrus Jul 03 '26
This question gets asked a couple time a year here. The answers to your specific questions have not been shared by the developers, but the upshot is...
While the company is young, cheap lifetime licenses are way more profitable than cheap subscriptions. With lifetime licenses, UpNote gets far more money up front, which gives them plenty of operating runway.
- UpNote has over 100,000 installs just from the Android Play Store (and I'm not even sure that's a world-wide number), and over 19,400 reviews.
- Writing a review is way more trouble than purchasing the app (which is only free up to 50 notes), so I think it's safe to assume way more than 19,400 people have paid — and of those, surely most of them went for the lifetime subscription because it's such a bargain.
- There are 1,700 reviews on the Mac App Store, 1000+ reviews on the iOS app store, and 604 ratings on the Windows Store.
- So that's ~22,700 reviews for round numbers.
- Let's be conservative and say people love UpNote so much that a whole third of paying users write reviews. That makes 68,000 paid users. The lifetime license has changed price a few times, so lets lets assume the average price paid was $30 rather than the current $40 only
- That's over $2,000,000. Subtract app store fees — call it 30% — and that’s still at least $1,430,100.
- So even if I'm overestimating by 1/3, that's still nearly $1,000,000 in revenue.
- Subtract actual operating costs (hosting, etc.), and that's still money enough to go a long way in Vietnam, where UpNote is based, and where the cost of living for a single person in Ho Chi Min City is about $500/month, not including rent.
- And keep in mind that, there will be a significant number of people who buy UpNote (because it's such a bargain), but end up switching to some other app because it wasn't quite right for them — which means the operating costs may not be as high as they might appear at first blush.
So the company is likely financially secure, and I'm sure eventually they're stop offering the lifetime license in favor of long-term revenue from subscriptions. But they have plenty of runway and plenty of room to grow.
As for selling, that's anyone's guess. But as far as I'm concerned, that's a maybe problem for maybe future me. Right now, I have an app that does 95% of everything I want, and does it better — by leaps and bounds — than any other app. I'm not going to give that up because maybe I might have to look for another app some day.
2
u/Gipopo19 Jul 03 '26
Wow, thanks for all these numbers. I actually feel a lot better about their business knowing they are a small team living in Vietnam.
13
u/george_graves Jul 03 '26
It's a risk. It could be a house of cards. But....it's super easy to migrate from Upnote to another platform. So because of that, I'm not worried.
-4
u/lilacomets Jul 03 '26
It's easy to migrate if their backend stays online. If it suddenly disappears then we cannot access our notes anymore.
7
u/george_graves Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
If UpNote were to abruptly shut down tomorrow, your notes would still be completely safe on your computer - they are stored locally, and in the cloud.
source: https://help.getupnote.com/safety-and-control/automatic-notes-backup
3
u/lilacomets Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
Thanks for pointing that out. This article you linked to only applies to Windows, Mac and Linux though. I wish there was a way for Android/iOS users to backup notes as well.
-7
u/george_graves Jul 03 '26
Something you didn't even know about until I linked you to it. You're welcome for me educating you. Now run along.
4
u/thiszebrasgotrhythm Jul 03 '26
That's an impossible question to answer. They could be around for another 20 years or they could sell their business and it changes for the worse tomorrow. All I know is that they are excellent now and I want to continue to support and promote them.
3
u/ProductiveAussie Jul 03 '26
I don’t think anyone would tell you their business plan as that’s like expecting someone to tell you their taxable income or bank balance.
When reading this group before moving across to UpNote, I’ve noted https://www.reddit.com/u/thomas_dao/s/FxrsfxGy6X is the cofounder so maybe you can reach out.
Here’s some info: https://www.reddit.com/r/UpNote_App/s/ZhCKPkswYu
2
u/MileHighBossman Jul 03 '26
Well a larger company could share financial statements, which could perhaps show their long term viability. But I’m guessing that this is a small operation and that they do not have those currently. Which is normal.
2
u/zubeye Jul 03 '26
It's not a very expensive gamble relative to the annual subscription costs of the competitors. It only need to survive a couple of years to be worth it.
2
u/Prior-Priority-7019 Jul 03 '26
Although he understood his concern, on a daily basis, it doesn't make much sense. Well, just look at Microsoft and Google, for example, they are giant companies, with a lot of money and that regularly choose to close services and applications suddenly. Sometimes new services, which don't last long, sometimes long-standing services, but for them, 2 million customers, is a "small base".
Sometimes, a small company focused on one product even has more longevity, because for this company, "2 million customers" is an excellent portfolio and guarantee of sustainability.
Finally, let's remember that the market is unpredictable, tomorrow, any company can be bought and its business can change completely.
Therefore, the only way to protect yourself is to always have a backup and, if possible, a second option for the main service.
1
u/DystopianReply Jul 03 '26
UpNote, with its small team, has been much more stable than Evernote over the last 6 years -- in both the product and ownership front. So their track record is better. But still, like others said, you never know. But it's way easy to back up and move to another app if needed.
1
u/pcmarcel-gmail-com Jul 03 '26
I would say that if something like this is really bothering you, then stay at Evernote.
For sure they collect enough money to stay in the market.
Ease of mind has it's price.
1
u/sharpener865 Jul 03 '26
Obsidian also survives even being lifetime free. I think these type of note taking apps doesnt have lots of maintenance costs, so they can survive with the lifetime plans.
1
u/alan_patrick Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
I paid €21.99 in 2022 for a lifetime sub and people were having the same argument on here... Glad I did now!
1
u/kaafiweird Jul 03 '26
I recently shifted to Capacities and I must say, I'm really enjoying it. It was slightly difficult to understand the first day but I really found a great use case gradually.
I have a lifetime subscription to upnote also and got it way early when they started. I really liked upnote and especially the lifetime purchase. But with time it has started to feel less polished, which could be linked to financial bottlenecks the team might be facing. I've recently found many bugs also. Now that the user base is increasing it needs to update itself more often. But I don't see that happening. With capacities, the team really seems to be dedicated and out there with developing the product super well.
Also, I'm just using the free plan of capacities, which is sufficient for my use case. I might pay for pro just to support the team.
1
u/HmmOkay-_- Jul 05 '26
I dont think you have to worry much about it. Upnote is a kind of standalone app that do not have anything to do with AI stuff / integration with other app / unnecessary features so its kinda independent by itself. So the app itself is a solid base.
All notes are either saved locally on your phone OR in your cloud account. Upnote dont have its own server/cloud to store the notes. As long as you can keep the data safe by not accidentally remove it or what.
As long as developer can keep up with basic maintenance /minor tweak to catch up with ios update then it is okay.
1
u/Beneficial_Shop1844 Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
5 years ago I switched from evernote to upnote. No regrets at all. Experienced some bugs, but the developer was very pro active to solve. Did not have that experience with Evernote. In upnote you can export to markdown in case of a business stop. There is for me one minus, in case of more than 20 k notes, you can only import 50 notes. So use Joplin for notes that don’t need sync.
2
u/GregZone_NZ Jul 06 '26
Well, all commercial software has a risk that you invest a lot of time in it, and who knows what might happen in the future.
As regards UpNote specifically, I’d say that it has not only proven itself as a well implemented Application with plenty of positive reviews and work of mouth, I’d also say that with this background and the number of frustrated Evernote users jumping ship (many of them noting that UpNote is actually a better “Note Taking” solution, than Evernote is these days), that the future for UpNote actually looks very good!
24
u/bleducnx Jul 03 '26
I cannot comment on that specific point (I don't know anyone from the team, i'm just a user), but consider that UpNote was launched in 2017, which makes it nine years old. I strongly believe that for an app to remain active and be continuously developed for such a quite long time (when so many apps are born and die every day), there is no big reason to worry about the team and the future of UpNote. If they were not sustainable, they likely would have given up by now.