Why Structured Is Moving to Subscriptions?

TLDR; Structured is now offering a yearly and monthly plan, in addition to the existing lifetime plan. Everyone who has bough Structured Pro in the past, will keep their lifetime plan for life (the life of the app, not your life). The new lifetime plan will be more expensive, but it remains at the current price until September 7, 2022.

Until now, Structured Pro always was a one-time purchase. You pay once and can use all features forever, including all updates. This has worked very well for the past two years, and I’m now able to work full-time on the app. Nevertheless, I believe subscription to have some benefits, and it’s now time to evolve the business model. Let me explain.

More sustainable

What if, sometime in the future, people stop buying Structured Pro because everyone who needs it, already has it? I’d have to stop developing Structured ☹️

Basically, just having a “buy-once, keep forever” plan is unsustainable eventually, as it continually requires new people to buy the app to keep funding its development.

I want to continue to improve Structured for the foreseeable future. I maybe would like to hire some people, build and Android or web app and try out new apps. All this is only possible, when I know some people will pay again in a year.

Better incentive

My main goal is to build a good app. I’m not looking to maximize profits or scam people into buying something they don’t need. But money does play a role, when planning what to focus on. Without subscriptions, you could argue, that once the user bought, you can forget about them. Most people buy the pro version within a few days, so why care what the app does after a month of use.

I’m not saying, that I don’t care about this right now. But it certainly helps, if know it’s worth improving the app for the long-time user, as they won’t renew their subscription otherwise.

More choices

As Structured gains more features, it naturally because more valuable to people. I always try to make the price reflect the current value of the app. Therefore, with increasing value, I also have to increase the price from time to time.

At a certain point, a lifetime plan might be too expensive for some people, especially if they only need it for a limited time (like an exam period).

With subscription, I can offer different plans for different needs. If you just need to for a short time or just want to try it, you can opt for the monthly subscription, but if you know you’ll use it for a long you can buy the lifetime plan.

What changes?

First things first. If you’ve already bought Structured Pro in the past, nothing changes! You’ll keep the lifetime plan and will not have to pay again.

If you’ve not yet upgraded, you can still buy the Lifetime plan for the old price until September 7, 2022. After that, the price for the lifetime plan will increase, but people can still choose to pay once, instead of entering a subscription.

The new yearly plan will be a bit cheaper than the old lifetime plan and the monthly plan will cost around 1/4 of the yearly one (I’m not writing exact prices here, as they differ from country to country).

Looking at other apps in the market, I believe this is still a fair price, and it reflects the recent improvements to the app (e.g. today's new icons!).

For all those, who cannot afford the pro version for any reason, I’ll continue to offer an upgrade free of charge. You simply have to request a discount through the app.

Also make sure to check out my blog post over the other changes in Structured 2.3:

Meanwhile, I hope you all understand this move, and enjoy the new update. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know!

Best,

Leo