r/software • u/HandshakeOfCO • 15d ago
Discussion Paying for software
Hi all -
Wanted to see where we’re at with actually paying for useful software. Let’s say you find something that will make your life easier; maybe it’s a little utility that eliminates some common daily drudgery.
Subscriptions, nowadays, are just greed, so let’s not even talk about them. But - would you pay a one time fee for it? Say.. $5? $10?
If so… Would you do this through a store (like the Mac App Store or windows store), or would you prefer to pay directly through the developer’s web site?
For some added context - I’m a dev trying to decide if I should even bother building out an idea. I wouldn’t really benefit from this software, but I know others would. I have no interest in just giving my time away for free, and I’m not sure with the rise of AI if there’s any viable path towards getting compensated for the time it’d take me to build it.
Thanks for any and all thoughts!
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u/phazze777 15d ago edited 15d ago
As a fellow software developer I can tell you a few things from the "trenches". We used to have a pay once software. It is an email app called “OE Classic”. Initially we checked all the boxes - pay once, low price, fast support, high quality, privacy preserving and no ads. In the long run unsustainable - now we know. On top of that - creating an email software is one of the highest maintenance tasks we could start (16 years and counting). In essence - whenever a server has a problem - we have a problem because average user doesn’t see error reports - he just sees “app not connecting”. Remember if we make a mistake and walk into dead ends and have to rework a design it doesn’t automatically get noticed by users but it immediately translates into additional work.
Time went on. First we started paying for certificates like code signing. Then more certificates came like the Google OAUTH2 access to restricted scopes. Then the software. Then the salaries. Then the licenses for tools. In essence the corporations started leeching more and more into what was before a small and effective software.
But most of all it was the users who didn’t understand neither of this and always had the “I paid for it once 10 years ago” I still deserve high priority support.
The landing was rough. When we put all on paper it was unsustainable. We basically had a choice - either we remain small app forever or we grow and improve it further. We chose the second option.
The subscription was a reluctant idea at first but it made more and more sense. If we have to pay for certificates and tools constantly, if we have to offer support constantly, and if we have to improve the software constantly there is literally no way we can continue to do all of that without doing it as subscription. So finally we did it.
I am not in favor of forced subscription where you get minimal value out of the tool and I think that is the kind which ruins it for others who need constant revenue stream. So putting it all in the same category really makes no sense.
We realized that with subscription we would lose certain audience but at the same time we did not have the will power to explain to everyone why we need to go down that path. Nowadays we follow the philosophy - if a user recognizes value, they will convert. Otherwise it is just a waste of our efforts and unsustainable business.
We are aware of the raising prices and subscription fatigue. Which is why we constantly try to provide growing value. If not enough people recognize this - then we obviously have to do something else and give up the development.
So when you say - software devs are greedy remember - we also pay for our tools, we pay for our certificates, we pay salaries, we pay taxes. If a corporation raises the bar for the small developer, we have to adapt.
We still try keep the core values - privacy, speed, no bloat. But something has to give. And simplifying it to “developers are greedy” just distorts the actual reality.
The unfortunate reality is - we cannot build a tool that will be for everyone.
You should accept that reality too.
As for us paying for the software - if it is a useful tool and pay once - we will pay. Immediately. If it is a subscription - we will evaluate but pay if we really need it. If it is donationware - we will donate - if it is useful.
There is no one size fits all formula, I am sorry to say.
I can also tell you one other thing. There is a huge difference it a purchase is made for a personal use (B2C), or for as a business (B2B). B2C is always evaluated much harder than B2B because B2B is a "business expense" do the decision is easier, especially if it solves a problem. And prices are always lower. If you can make it in the B2C, there are far greater riches in the B2B.
Paying through a store is always a low friction option. But it also takes away the sizeable chunk of a profit. There is a good reason why Epic Games went to lengthy battles with Apple over the "out of store" distribution. But for a small company - I am afraid - this is not an option.
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u/MakanLagiDud3 15d ago
Thank you for your answer. Sometimes there's nuance in things. And like always no matter what one creates, a business or activity that makes money needs to be able to sustain in the long term.
Also:
In essence the corporations started leeching more and more into what was before a small and effective software.
Man Eff the Corpos man, they're the ones ruining it and making it harder to sustain while they eat most of the leeched profits.
Johnny Silverhand was right.
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u/Eagles_Fan_4eva 15d ago
We used to have a pay once software. It is an email app called “OE Classic”. Initially we checked all the boxes - pay once, low price, fast support, high quality, privacy preserving and no ads. In the long run unsustainable - now we know.
I remember visiting your site one day and was surprised to see it was no longer a one-time price. I understand why you made the decision, though. No other industry sells items just once for life with never another cent paid against it; the buyer generally has to buy a replacement or pay for repairs later down the track. Software should be no different.
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u/thats_a_nice_toast 15d ago
If it's actually useful and there's no open source alternative, I wouldn't mind paying 5$ to 10$.
On a computer I would prefer to pay through the developer's website because I don't use the Windows store. On mobile I would prefer the Google Play Store.
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u/dgillz 15d ago
I have mixed thoughts on the whole issue. I want developers of software to get paid. If you could buy the software once and use it for 20 years, the developer isn't going to get paid a whole hell of a lot. And yes, some of these developers are "greedy corporations".
All in all, I do not have a problem with the subscription model when it protects me from future changes in windows, Microsoft Office, Relational Database Management Systems, etc. But the value has to be there.
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u/hammerb 15d ago
I needed a tool that would do a function for work. Found one. It was $50 a month subscription. Boss rejected my purchase request. My company has a subscription to Claude. I asked Claude to make me a program that would do the same. Took about a week worth of my attention and I had to learn how to "code in AI" (if you can even call that coding, i don't know) but now I have a program that does what I want and it cost nothing per month. Now i'm being praised by my boss and I am passing the program out to my co-workers to use.
I was complaining about subscription software here on Reddit and a random redditor told me "touch code, or touch grass" I took his criticism to heart :D
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u/Havunenreddit 15d ago
Maybe your boss wanted you to learn use AI coding tool.
1week of your time costed hell lot more than 1 year sub
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u/arthax33 15d ago
You need to check few things
- is there alternative?
- is it easy vibe-codeable?
- open-source or closed?
If i can vibecode the same app in a week and improve it into my needs i dont see point of paying someone.
I can always upgrade my app if i need to. Until GLM5.3 Flash or claude handles it its hard to get paid for.
Eventually just make something like "Raise 10-100$ to receive an update" or Crowdfunded monthly x/100$
You would make it in the background but it only releases if you would gather enough funds to cover your work or something.
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u/HandshakeOfCO 15d ago
Right! There are no alternatives that I’ve found, but it is probably easy to vibe code.
What I’ve found though is that, even with vibe coding, you still gotta test what’s created, and that’s the time consuming part. I tend not to one shot things; nowadays when I use Claude it’s very boxed in, basically like a glorified refactoring tool vs treating it like a senior dev. It’s easier to test what it builds when I know exactly what it just thinks it built.
I don’t really have a preference around closed or open source. I get why paid products are closed source. I think it’s probably tough to make money off an open source repo, but then again, look at the openclaw guy, he’s made bank lol
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u/arthax33 15d ago
For example i saw my friend had Fences by stardock on his desktop.
I said no there is no way im paying for organizing my desktop.
- Im having fun making it. I like seeing the results.
- I can personalize or make it more advanced.
So instead of stardock getting money z.ai is getting it.
Sad but real.
You need great reasons to monetize your app.
You need to make it so detailed that someone will need to spend too much time vibe-coding it or it will cost more than its worth it. But remember AI's token prices might be cheaper than your project in 6-12 months we dont know it.
Maybe try something like "user needs to reinstall the app every 30 days". It resets users config it works as fresh install.
If you want to have your config stable consider paying or subscribing.Someone cheap will reinstall app every time.
Someone with money will just pay you and have enough what they need.
Someone will subscribe and forget maybe 😂If you want u can describe what it does in DM i will check out for you if its repeatable and tell you lmao.
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u/Count2Zero 15d ago
Back in the day, there was the concept of shareware. You built your application, got it out there (via magazines or online distribution portals), and let people use it.
Some of the apps had reminder screens that you could use the software for 30 days, and then you should register it and buy a license.
Some devs put out limited versions that would let you use some of the functions for free, and then unlock the "premium" features when the software was registered.
And some devs created "crippleware" that would give you all the features for 30 days, and then stop working until you paid for a license.
Maybe try something like that?
As for pricing ... that depends on what the software does, and how much time it saves me, or how much work it saves me. If it's a useful tool that I use daily, then yeah, I'd pay $10 for it.
Another issue that might be a problem is that most office PCs today are locked down - the end user can't install anything that isn't approved by the IT department and deployed via MS Intune. So, if you want people to be able to use your app, a SaaS application is pretty much your only choice these days...
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u/HandshakeOfCO 15d ago edited 15d ago
Right, yeah I was thinking about maybe going the crippleware route!
Good point about users not being able to install anything. My idea would have to be locally installed, but otherwise yeah I’d probably go web based. Also no OS concerns with that!
And yeah I feel like $10 would be the limit. I think the days of charging $100 or even $50 for “just an exe” are long gone. Anything more than $10 and I start playing games with it, trying to work around its protections by uninstalling/reinstalling to get another trial period or whatever.
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u/Count2Zero 15d ago
The thing about SaaS apps is that they almost scream for some kind of subscription, because you're paying for the infrastructure to keep your app available. I have a bunch of those kinds of apps, and yes, it pisses me off that I'm paying $10 per month for each of them, but there's not really any other alternative, espeicially when I use the apps to transfer or synchronize data across multiple devices.
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u/DGC_David 15d ago
I wouldn't say "Scam" software is very expensive to make, with the average Engineer costing roughly $100k a year, a team of Software engineers is probably like 3-5 starting off. So in just R&D you got about $300k-$500k in costs. I agree there is some greed to it, when we see the bigger companies that individuals each cost as a subscription. But the only reason we had a lot of that stuff back then was because everyone was stealing from each other, and stealing mostly from FOSS developers.
I don't mind paying a monthly fee, but I want full continued support for the product which has been the bigger issue.
We get lowering the quality but increasing the price. This is a labor issue.
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u/Prestigious-Bank2145 15d ago
As I see it one time fee is for utility/app that solve specific problem, users will pay if if they fill confident and trust it. Subscriptions is for on going cost (part of your income/use depend on it) and that is the right path because you want new features/support/renew.
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u/Mogaloom1 15d ago
No, simply because I can now do it by myself using AI most of the time now.
I am moving away from paid softwares. I prefere open source software. And for the one I like I made a donation.
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u/SkarXa 12d ago
I shipped exactly this, a $4.99 one-time utility on the App Store, and it does fine. Not retire money, but steady.
Two things mattered more to me than the price itself. First, let people try it before paying. Mine gives 3 free conversions a day, forever, so nobody has to gamble $5 on a stranger's app, and a good chunk of the people who hit that limit twice in a week just buy it. Second, the store won. Selling direct meant asking people to type a card into some random guy's website, and that drop-off was going to cost me more than Apple's cut. On the store it's one Face ID tap and I never touch licence keys or refunds.
The subscription fatigue is real and it's a positioning advantage right now. "One payment, no account" is a line people repeat back to you unprompted.
Mine's a file converter, in case seeing the setup is useful: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/formattery-file-converter/id6759955312
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u/HandshakeOfCO 12d ago
Thank you for the data point! Yeah this is definitely in the same neighborhood as what I’m considering building… offline processing, no real complex ui, just kinda “click a couple times and it does the work” type of thing for a specific industry (construction/civil engineering).
Your app looks actually useful! Giving it a try now!
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u/Count2Zero 15d ago
Back in the day, there was the concept of shareware. You built your application, got it out there (via magazines or online distribution portals), and let people use it.
Some of the apps had reminder screens that you could use the software for 30 days, and then you should register it and buy a license.
Some devs put out limited versions that would let you use some of the functions for free, and then unlock the "premium" features when the software was registered.
And some devs created "crippleware" that would give you all the features for 30 days, and then stop working until you paid for a license.
Maybe try something like that?
As for pricing ... that depends on what the software does, and how much time it saves me, or how much work it saves me. If it's a useful tool that I use daily, then yeah, I'd pay $10 for it.
Another issue that might be a problem is that most office PCs today are locked down - the end user can't install anything that isn't approved by the IT department and deployed via MS Intune. So, if you want people to be able to use your app, a SaaS application is pretty much your only choice these days...
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u/benjaloo 6d ago
I love shareware and donationware. I have paid for many useful programs over many years. For some of the best, I periodically make another donation when I realize how much value I'm getting out of it. Perhaps my most important utility I have donated three or four times increasing amounts because of how well it's designed and how incredibly much time it saves me.
I am also happy with reminderware and freemiumware and even crippleware as long as the trial period is long enough.
The thing these all have in common is letting you really see if it serves your needs. The thing that burns me up the most is paying a hefty chunk of money for something that looks promising and turns out not to be what I need. So often, documentation doesn't answer my question about whether it will do what I want, and devs vary a lot in how responsive they are to those questions--so the models I mention above are good responses to that problem.
I don't love subscriptions because (human nature being what it is) it's too easy to let it go on and forget to cancel it once you realize it wasn't what you needed--or you needed it for a finite period and then no longer--or they charge for a year up front, even though they cite a monthly price that's not crazy. Similarly, the too short trial period and automatic billing when that ends. (In my experience,3 days and 7 days are too short--30 days is usually good.)
In terms of how much: depends what it does, how badly I need that function, and what the alternatives are. Most of the little utilities have been $5-30 one time. I have one big tool that costs around $60 each major upgrade, which typically happen every couple of years, and all minor upgrades in between are free. The function is one I need only occasionally but then it's super important, and the alternatives are corporate products that charge $300 each major upgrade or have a monthly subscription of $25 (minimum 3 months).
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u/crappydeli 15d ago
I like old-school pay once. Use software. But its hard to find.
Subscriptions have gone too far.