We are excited to announce the launch of Simplenote Sustainer, a new subscription option designed for fans of Simplenote who want to help support the app and its continued maintenance and development. This is a completely optional paid tier, and you can choose to opt-out and continue using Simplenote for free.
At Simplenote, we believe in offering a free and accessible experience for our users. However, in order to continue providing high-quality service and support for Simplenote, we need to find a way to generate revenue. Subscriptions are one avenue we’re exploring.
We understand that not everyone will want or be able to support Simplenote financially, which is why we are still offering the same great free experience. Simplenote Sustainer is an attempt to gauge the level of support and interest in the app from our community, and to find a sustainable way to continue providing the best possible service to our users.
Thanks for your support and for choosing Simplenote.
FAQs
How much do the Simplenote Sustainer plans cost?
The current Simplenote Sustainer plans are $19.99/month or $199.99/year.
What do you get with Simplenote Sustainer?
There are currently no additional features or benefits associated with the paid plans, other than the happy feeling you may get for supporting an app you care about. When you upgrade the banner goes away. In the future there may be other special perks and benefits for subscribers.
What is my money going toward?
When you purchase a Simplenote Sustainer plan, you’re supporting the ongoing maintenance and development of Simplenote. Simplenote has provided free notes and cross-platform sync to hundreds of thousands of users for over a dozen years, and we hope to do so for decades more. We replicate notes to multiple datacenters around the world and have many layers of backups to ensure nothing is ever lost.
Does this mean Simplenote’s future is in danger?
We love and use Simplenote too, and we’re hoping enough people find value and subscribe that it allows us to continue development of the application and platform and the paying users will subsidize the service for all the users who can’t afford to pay. Currently Simplenote is sustained by the benevolence of its parent company, Automattic. It generates no revenue except for these voluntary subscriptions. For it to be sustainable long-term, we’d like it to have enough revenue to cover its costs, which would require about 5% of the active users to subscribe.
Will Simplenote ever be a strictly paid app?
If that’s the only way we could continue the service, we’d make Simplenote paid-only. But we’re hoping this voluntary subscription model will cover the costs, as so many people use Simplenote every day for hours and hours and rely on it for so much in their lives.
How can I cancel my Simplenote Sustainer subscription?
Go into the App Store on your device, click on your profile in the upper right, and Subscriptions.
What if I can’t afford a Simplenote Sustainer subscription option but still want to support the app?
If you’re up for a subscription at a different price, let us know here what you’d be willing to pay per year. We may introduce different tiers in the future.
Why is Simplenote Sustainer so expensive?
We understand that the Simplenote Sustainer plans may seem expensive at $19.99/month or $199.99/year. Great software costs money to make, and to provide bullet-proof hosting and synchronization for the data people entrust us with requires many servers and lots of maintenance. Most free services are subsidized by advertisers, which cover the costs of providing Twitter or Facebook for free, but wouldn’t ads in your notes app suck? We’re hoping this optional subscription combined with the infinite goodwill of humanity will provide a sustainable model for us and perhaps be an example that other user-centric apps can copy in the future.