Why we sell our tools as one-time purchases

Why we sell our tools as one-time purchases

Software subscriptions are everywhere. For a service that runs on our servers, that model makes sense: every month costs us money, so every month should cost you money too.

But a desktop tool is different. Once it is installed, it runs on your machine, using your CPU. There is no per-user server cost for us to recover.

The problem with renting tools

• You never own anything. Stop paying and the tool stops working, even if it still does exactly what you need.
• The meter never stops. A tool you use twice a month costs the same as one you use every day.
• Price creep. Monthly prices quietly go up, and you re-approve them forever.

What buy-once means for us

We price a tool once, and that price covers building it, supporting it, and shipping updates within the same major version.

Buy once. Use forever. Pay again only when a genuinely new major version ships.

This keeps the incentive aligned: the only way we get paid again is by shipping something worth paying for.

How we keep the lights on

1. New major versions are paid upgrades for existing customers — usually at a discount.
2. Bug fixes and minor improvements inside a major version are always free.
3. No ads, no telemetry, no "phone home" licence checks that block your work.

Is this sustainable?

It is, as long as we keep making tools people actually want. That is the whole business model — and honestly, it is the one we prefer.