Hey everyone 👋
I’ll be submitting Bean to the App Store today and have finalised the pricing for Bean Pro launch.
Bean Pro is completely optional and gives you access to the following:
- Multiple accounts
- Push notifications
- Grouped communities
- Premium themes
- Accent colour options
- Comment themes
- Custom app icons
- More font options
Pricing will be as follows:
- $1.99 / month
- $14.99 / year
- $49.99 / lifetime with a discount to $29.99 for the first week
I know pricing is difficult and subscription fatigue is a real thing but hopefully I’ve got a good balance of pricing and features with much more planned including mod tools, widgets, and more customisation options.
Thank you to everyone who has helped test Bean and get it to where it is. I couldn’t have done with without you! ❤️
If I’m being honest, the pricing might be a bit too high for an unproven platform like Lemmy. Obviously, I’m not against monetization and you should be rewarded for your work, but I do wonder how many people are gonna be willing to pay for Pro if (for example) Lifetime costs more than the first release of Apollo Ultra.
I for one think it’s very reasonable pricing and I‘m also convinced that a high quality app like Bean is going to be the key to making Lemmy a successful platform.
I mean, that’s fine and all but a lot of people can’t justify dropping $50 (or $30 for now) on a platform that, I’m sorry to say, just isn’t quite there yet; especially on an app that isn’t quite as proven as Apollo was (which, again, started out substantially cheaper).
Lemmy is unproven, but i think apps like Bean will go a long way towards making it viable long-term. I’m willing to take that gamble to help support the platform. Thats how I’m thinking about the pricing.
Yes, the subscription supports the app developer, but its also an investment in something I desperately want to succeed at the platform level.
I guess that remains to be seen. Even with Apollo, a far more feature-complete app for a far more robust platform with a more certain future (at the time), Ultra had been a hard sell for many.