We went through the exact same dilemma with our product [1]. For desktop apps, one-off with a defined support window just feels right.

Users get certainty, and you still have a clear path to future revenue when that window expires.

Subscription makes a lot more sense once you’re in cloud/collaborative territory which we've just entered. Sounds like you landed in a good place with this split.

[1] https://dbpro.app/pricing

What was your justification for the monthly fee in the first place?

There is a model that worked for decades: If you spent a _significant_ amount of work enhancing an existing tool you'd release a new major version. The would be a discount for license holders of the old version. Why reinvent the world over and over again?

What bothers me ain't the subscription, but the lack of transparency. I'm asked to pay for future updates and support here, but I don't know what that would be.

Some visibility into the roadmap and operations (an anonymous LLC doesn't really say "Trust") is needed for me to feel good about typing my credit card number into the form.

Awesome that you were receptive to feedback. I hope most of the people who commented find out and don't just memory-hole the project.

I personally prefer the monthly payments of a nominal amount where $2-8/month is my usual small app tolerance. It feels like I’m supporting the development of useful tools while having the option to discontinue my patronage when the tool is no longer relevant or useful to my workflow. This gives products a natural lifespan and aligns the developer incentives to keep the product functional and continue developing new features.

Old guard will say what they will about software licensing but at the end of the day it’s all the same.

Given how many developers here use LLMs daily, how do you think about defensibility? Tools like this seem relatively easy to reverse-engineer and replicate with enough time and LLM assistance. Did that influence your decision to charge a subscription or the change to a personal license?

Feedback from a potential customer: I despise 2-device limits. I used DEVONthink for a decade but dropped it because of that exact thing.

At home, I have a Mac Studio[0] set up in my office with my music stuff, and I'm writing this on my MacBoor Air[1] here on my lap in the living room. I also have a work laptop, although it's safely tucked away in my backback right now. My wife has an MBA, too, but that's hers and I don't mess with it. So I'm elbow-deep in Macs that are used solely by me, and I bounce between them regularly.

The 2-device limit is a dealbreaker for me. It's where I stop reading. I don't care if it cures cancer: I won't buy an app that makes me pick and choose which of the devices in my care I can use it on. I'm sympathetic to why vendors pick that limit. I get that you don't want me to buy a single license and spread it around my friends and work circles. That's completely reasonable and understandable. And yet, it completely breaks my use case. I bet I'm far from alone in this.

[0]A previous job let me keep it when I left.

[1]I bought to hack on personal projects instead of using [0], which was work-owned at the time.

[dead]

C'mon, why not just open source it? Do you really expect to gain a sizeable following to get substantial cash flow? Most shareware went the way of oblivion.

If you'd open source it then there is at least the chance of gaining a community. And you'd be giving back to the community that you have benefitted from for decades.