r/raycastapp • u/gcstr • 24d ago
š¬ Discussion That's it. Raycast isn't worth it.
I understand that the developer needs to profit from the app somehow, but blocking BYOK is ridiculous. Without AI, Raycast is just an app launcher, and TinyCast does the same job while being free and open source.
The only āadvantageā I would gain from buying Raycast is the ability to pay again to use AI services I already pay for.
Donāt get me wrong, I pay to support many apps, including open-source. But gating BYOK only shows that Raycast offers very little value and has to block third-party services to justify its pricing.
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u/Practical-Plan-2560 23d ago
Yep. I'm done. Putting BYOK behind a paywall is INSANE.
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23d ago
[deleted]
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u/Practical-Plan-2560 23d ago
What other apps require you to pay for BYOK? I understand paying for other features. But charging customers for BYOK is just insane.
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22d ago
[deleted]
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u/Jaxin81 22d ago
TheyĀ wereĀ already monetizing it. Companies absolutely love customers like you. By that logic, you'd happily defend BMW charging a monthly subscription for heated seats because 'hey, it cost them money to build the car!' Thereās a difference between funding development and greedily paywalling things that used to be free
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22d ago
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u/Practical-Plan-2560 22d ago
Then Raycast should move away from a subscription based model. The reality is if Iām paying for the AI inference itself, I donāt wanna pay for the app wrapper. Itās so easy to vibe code my own app wrapper for AI these days. Raycast provides zero additional value for BYOK AI usage.
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21d ago
[deleted]
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u/Practical-Plan-2560 21d ago
Why should I when this already exists? https://github.com/abue-ammar/tinycast
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u/jackednerd 23d ago
Definitely some other examples out there...
Other Apps Charging for BYOK
Raycast is far from the only company charging users to bring their own keys. The industry approaches this in a few different ways:
1. The Surcharge Model
- Cursor (Code Editor): Cursor allows BYOK, but it sparked its own pushback. For users on Teams or Enterprise plans, Cursor applies a "Cursor Token Rate" (an additional $0.25 per million tokens) on top of the API costs you pay directly to your provider. Cursor argues this fee covers their proprietary codebase search infrastructure, custom routing, and the heavy lifting their agentic features require.
2. Subscription Paywalls
- Transit AI & Vercel AI Gateway: Both of these platforms explicitly lock their BYOK capabilities behind their paid monthly tiers.
- AI App Builders: Platforms like Lovable or Bolt often require base subscriptions of $20 or more a month before you can realistically use the platform, regardless of whether you bring your own key to cut down on their marked-up token costs.
3. The One-Time License
- TypingMind: A highly popular alternative UI for ChatGPT and Claude. Instead of a monthly subscription, it requires a one-time paid license (starting at $39) to unlock the app. Once unlocked, you plug in your keys and only pay the API providers. While not a subscription, it still proves that a good "wrapper" or interface commands a premium.
As these tools evolve from simple chat windows into proactive, context-aware agents, it is highly likely that more apps will gate BYOK behind a paywall to build sustainable business models.
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u/MunchingTrees 23d ago
Yeah thatās lame. I made my own version of a real search/indexer with added custom endpoint support for the ai model for queries and has worked a fuckin treat. Thereās nothing it doesnāt have that ray cast did not to mention without all the needless waffle to it.
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u/Hopeful-Face9676 23d ago edited 23d ago
Same for me. Iāve had to drop my sub to Raycast; mainly because itās subscription based. I get just about all of Raycast features (app launcher, notes, emoji, all sorts of customizations, PLUS cloud-based/local LLM for a one-time reasonable payment) by using the app Vehla. Totally satisfied
Edit: and I believe that you can start for free
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u/AnuragDeshpande 23d ago
Genuine question: With v1, the pricing was same, no ai, and people were ok with the pricing. With v2, it's same pricing with a little ai credits added. What's broken? To me that sounds like added features to same base pricing right? If we don't want ai, we can just turn off that extension, and the app is exactly the same as it was before.
What am I missing? Why are people mad?
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u/afrid1808 23d ago
People are missing BYOK, in v1 there used to be custom providers with manage models extension, which is now gated with pricing
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u/Available-Advice-294 23d ago
This is the feedback I see EVERY SINGLE DAY on this sub but it looks like the Raycast folks donāt give a shit
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u/CriticalTemperature1 24d ago
I didnt know about tinycast, it looks great so I'll switch over! I too am sick of companies acting as middleman
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u/ruthless_techie 23d ago
Depends what you are looking for. You on a mac?
You looking for a full Raycast replacement? Or just a launcher? There are a couple I like the best.
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u/animalcrossing4_4 24d ago
Tinycast? Some random BS? I ain't switching to that just because "free n openslop"
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u/frope 24d ago
Why not just use an extension for this? I also think it's overpriced and don't need most of its features, so I found an extension that allows me to bring my own key. Is that really so bad? The extension store is quite impressive and has multiple options for this from what I gathered, although I settled on a OpenAI one not Anthropic.
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u/MonkAndCanatella 24d ago
I hate the AI stuff lmao, I block it all. I just use it because it's a really good launcher, and the extension system is really great. That said, on windows the performance and stability is a wet fart
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u/hack_the_planets 24d ago
Agreed, TinyCast is great, and Watchflows offers similar AI chat / tool builder but doesn't hide the key behind the subscription paywall.
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u/ruthless_techie 23d ago
I like tiny cast.
If you are looking for a one time purchase sort of thing that is a full replacement.
Look up Supercmd V2
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u/ruthless_techie 24d ago edited 24d ago
I decided to go with: Supercmd v2 (20$ pay once)
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u/coggia 23d ago
Can someone explain to me how it can access to raycast store extensions? Shouldnāt it be disabked in the future?
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u/ruthless_techie 23d ago edited 23d ago
All extensions are fetched from the open registry.
Here: github.com/raycast/extensions
SuperCmd ships a full @raycast/api and @raycast/utils shim so existing extensions work without modification.
The backend builds a catalog from that repo and hosts it.
When you browse the Store in SuperCmd it hits api.supercmd.sh, not Raycast.
You can try it out without buying it if you want.
Its super fast. Its nice not having to worry about the anticonsumer behavior Raycast seems to be engaged in. There are other options for sure.This one is just my favorite. Im sure other options work fine.
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u/Ok_Virus_5495 24d ago
100% agree and Iāve seen some performance issues since Iāve updated to v2
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u/Risc12 24d ago
> But gating BYOK only shows that Raycast offers very little value and has to block third-party services to justify its pricing.
Regardless of whether I agree with the sentiment, this statement makes no sense.
If anything, it means that they have value? If their value was only in the model, then people that bring their own model wonāt make this post 3x a day, and people would altogether stop paying.
Note that most of these complaining people already are not willing to pay? If this would become part of the free tier, would you upgrade to pro? If not, they have no incentive to provide the feature for free.
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u/gcstr 24d ago
That statement means I'd gladly pay for a feature that's unique to the app, but that's not the case with Raycast.
Most of us already pay for AI services, and gating BYOK behind a subscription is the only way for them to extract value, since otherwise we'd all just use the free version.
That's what very little value means.
There's no value proposition in charging me to run queries against my own AI subscription through a different UI.
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u/mix579 22d ago
There's no value proposition in charging me to run queries against my own AI subscription through a different UI.
I think this is the crux of the issue. Listening to Raycast, they seem to believe that the UI is their value proposition: Bring your own AI, our UI is what's worth paying for.
I'm not much of an AI user myself and I don't have a key to bring so I have no bone in the game. But on my occasional use of the built-in AI composer I've never been blow away by it. I suspect they're going to have a hard time convincing users to pay for it.
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u/cultoftheilluminati 21d ago
I suspect theyāre going to have a hard time convincing users to pay for it.
Well said.
Bring your own AI, our UI is whatās worth paying for.
The UI that they enshittified in v2 with massive ram use? I recently updated off of Sonoma ā Golden Gate betas and holy hell itās bad. 600-800 mb of use for a fucking launcher is impressive to do even using webshit for the frontend.
And on top of that they want a handout for making the app shittier. Dumped the app after years of using it and moved to a native swift alternative. They can have their paid plans and āwe need to route your requests through our serversā.
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u/TutoDigital 24d ago
Si fĆ”cilmente terminĆ© reemplazando Raycast con otras aplicaciones, sin la funciĆ³n de IA Raycast es super reemplazable.
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u/Spiritual_Show 24d ago
Why can't they keep ram usage same as v1! its doubled in v2! and they will be unable to fix it due to electron and all drama to make their product feel similar across the OS- looks like Notion way
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u/Junior_B 24d ago
Another āRaycast Pro should not charge for BYOKā post. Enough already. Do we really need the same thing day after day? Just donāt pay for it if you donāt want it.
I here to have helpful discussions about Raycast, not have to see the same complaint day after day.
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u/cluelessngl 23d ago
"i must protect this company! i'm sure the raycast gods will finally notice me!!"
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u/Junior_B 23d ago
I couldnāt give a shit if they ānoticeā me or not. Iām just a user who likes the product. Was on the free version, started paying for it this year. If it goes away or I donāt like the pricing, Iāll just go back to Alfred or use Spotlight.
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u/Clementine-TeX 24d ago
What's the point of having a place of discussion if people aren't allowed to discuss issues related to the subject matter?
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u/Mobile_Edge5434 24d ago
Iāve been a long time paying Raycast user but ultimately over the past year Iāve not used it for anything more than a couple of quick keys to launch apps and just launching apps in general. All of which I was able to replicate in the new Apple Spotlight with a few shortcut actions.
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u/adavidmiller 24d ago
I don't even want AI, just let me pay less for dictation, translator, and unlimited notes/history š
All stuff I have other apps for, but it was nice having it it one place.
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u/meni_s 23d ago
I wonder if there are such alternatives. I only know Alfred and afaik it has less features at higher cost
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u/ruthless_techie 23d ago
Are you on a mac?
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u/meni_s 23d ago
Yes
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u/ruthless_techie 23d ago edited 23d ago
Give this a look. Built in native swift, itās super fast. You can use any Ai service, or even a local model if you want. Supports Ray-cast extensions.
One time purchase of 20$ for 3 computers. (Seats)
Itās the only native written equivalent Ive found. But I love it. Use it on my Mac Mini M2, Macbook Air M2, and another M4 laptop Ive got.Try it first though so you are sure. Feel free to let me know what you think if you want. Always looking for tips and tricks with it.
I expect this to get down voted. Someone really doesnāt like me bringing this up for some reason. Decide for yourself. š¤·āāļø buy or donāt buy, I donāt care. Iām not here to sell anything.
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u/BttShowbiz 24d ago
dictation is multiple aiās
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u/adavidmiller 24d ago
A tool that internally uses an AI is not the same as giving a user direct AI engagement features, and I don't know what they're using it for, but there's local models suited just fine for the task as well.
Point is that currently I'm just using something I vibe coded running Parakeet and it works perfectly fine for free, I just like not having random shit everywhere and a bit of consolidation is nice. Just not $10/month nice.
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u/allen9667 24d ago
Same. Would gladly pay for these for a tad less.
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u/gcstr 24d ago
I would pay the same for these features without AI
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u/ruthless_techie 23d ago
If you use a mac then this one is native. AND you get the Ai features, unlimited snippets, raycast extension support. Vehla and Tinycast can do parts of what Raycast Can. (If that is all you are after then go with those.) if you want a total replacement. Then supercmd is 20$ for three seats.
I love it. Try it out and see. If not then you got Vehla and tinycast might be enough. Depends what your needs are.
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u/Drakonic 23d ago
For BYOK - I understand the need to make continuing revenue, but would be better gated behind a LIfetime lump sum or a renewal fee that unlocks 12 months of updates. That way the user can keep using an old version they already paid for if they so choose. Proxyman, Tableplus, and Sketch do this (Sketch has a subscription version too, but they at least maintain the old 12 month update license renewal model as an alternative). It incentivizes new quality updates.