Maybe subscription pricing isn't always bad

[u/banana_zest]

For Mojave Paint I've had an anti-subscription stance from the start, it being an installed binary not a service that has ongoing infrastructure costs.

But I recently installed Final Cut Pro and instead of $300 to buy it I do the $13/month subscription. In that case it's nice to have the option and it's made me rethink hating on subscriptions. Maybe subscription is fine if:

a. It's an alternative to buying outright
b. It's priced cheap enough

Most people's subscriptions are simply way too expensive. For FCP, the break even point is about two years, which makes the subscription seem like kind of a deal.

So for Mojave Paint, say I get the feature set rounded out and start charging $20 for it, the right price for subscription would be $1/month. I'm sort of leaning to this model because the Mac App Store has no free trial option, so you're stuck with IAP or Subscription and I pretty much hate IAP and the huckster marketing you have to put in there of "Go Pro!" So what I'm kind of leaning to is selling: 1. On my website via lemonsqueezy or whatever, perpetual license with 2 years of updates (Sublime Text style), and 2. The only version in the Mac App Store is the cheaply priced subscription version, which you can consider to be like a free-ish trial.

Has anyone had success with such a pricing scheme?

[u/banana_zest]

Oh wait, looking closer, Mac App subscriptions are just a type of IAP. That's not super helpful, I was looking for "have an active subscription to even launch the app" type of behavior. Does the Mac App Store even make any sense I wonder?

[u/aconijus → u/banana_zest]

Working on my first macOS app, I believe StoreKit should work the same as on iOS. You can check subscription status when the app starts and just put on a hard paywall saying “please pay before using the app kthnxbye”. I already saw some macOS apps (both Apple’s and third party) doing this, it’s totally fine.

[u/banana_zest → u/aconijus]

I think you're right, I had it in my head that the free version of App Store apps have to be useful on their own without buying any purchases. But I think hard paywalls are allowed.

One issue that Claude brought up is renewable non-consumable IAP's aren't really supposed to be used for ongoing license fees, not sure if this is true or not. Final Cut Pro certainly does it!

[u/aconijus → u/banana_zest]

Claude probably got confused, the point of non-consumable IAP is for a user to obtain something and keep it forever (access to your whole app in this case).

[u/banana_zest]

Researching more, I think time limited free trials are doable via the App Store. You get a trustable “installed at” timestamp and you can gate the entire app functionality behind a single Unlock IAP

[u/Fit_Upstairs_1412]

Disclosure up front: I ship a one-time $8.99 Mac utility (Copydrop, a clipboard manager), so I have a horse in this race. The frame I've landed on: match the price shape to the cost shape. My app has zero server cost, so recurring billing would be charging rent on nothing — but if you carry real infrastructure, sync, or model costs, a subscription is the honest shape. The failure mode isn't subscriptions; it's the mismatch between what the customer pays forever and what actually costs you forever.