NOTE: If you already bought TimeTune Premium in the past, this change will not affect you; you’ll keep enjoying a lifetime license and you won’t have to pay again.
Since we first published TimeTune in October 2014, the app has relied on a single purchase to remove the advertising banner and unlock Premium features.
We’ve been holding off on the subscription model for a long time, because we know it’s not a popular option.
But after careful consideration, we finally decided to adopt subscriptions instead of a single payment.
Why? 🤔
ONE-TIME PURCHASES ARE NOT SUSTAINABLE
For an app to survive on a single purchase, it needs to meet some (if not all) of these conditions:
- Having tens of thousands of downloads per day.
- New users buying the app every day.
- Showing lots of ads.
- Selling extra stuff with additional purchases.
That’s why many developers who rely on a single purchase stop developing their apps after a few months or years. The model may work for a while but in the long run it always stagnates.
It also creates a lot of tension in development. We must put continuous effort into attracting new users to the app when we should be spending that time improving the project.
CAN’T WE RELY ON ADVERTISING?
Unfortunately, advertising revenue is too unreliable 📉
Ad revenue heavily depends on seasonality and many factors we can’t control. It varies without any kind of warning or explanation.
Apart from that, the TimeTune app only shows a banner at the bottom. We chose a banner because banners are not intrusive, but they are the lowest revenue generators in mobile advertising.
The only way we could improve ad revenue (up to a point) would be showing a huge amount of full-screen ads. That may work for games, but it would get annoying in productivity apps.
ARE THERE OTHER ALTERNATIVES?
The only alternative that (maybe) could work would be making the app paid to all users and charging for big app releases.
That’s the model that Adobe and other companies used in the past. They charged for each new version of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.
In 2021, for example, we released TimeTune 4.0. That version took a long time and effort to get developed. But everyone could get the update for free. Users who bought the app in 2014 (when the app was really cheap) now have a much more powerful tool at no extra cost.
Unfortunately, it’s not easy nor convenient to use this model in Google Play because:
- Each new version should be published as a new app (which would create confusion and hurt discoverability).
- We would be forced to maintain multiple versions of the app (which would require even more resources and development time).
OUR GOAL WITH SUBSCRIPTIONS
After taking a look inwards and examining the subscription services and apps we pay for in TimeTune (e.g. graphics provider, translation platform, web hosting, domains, app store optimization, cloud storage), we realized something:
Although we don’t like to pay for subscriptions either, we pay for some of them with pleasure.
Why? Because some apps and services are so useful that they are worth every penny.
And that’s our goal with subscriptions. We want you to feel confident you are paying for something that is worth it, useful and that is continuously improving ✨
Apart from that, having a reliable revenue stream will allow us to dedicate more resources to the project. In the end, that’s the only way TimeTune can grow and improve.
HURRY UP! 📣
We don’t have a specific date for the switch to subscriptions yet. It will be soon, but until the date arrives we’re offering a last chance to purchase a lifetime license with a one-time payment at the current price.
So if you were thinking about purchasing TimeTune Premium, hurry up before it’s too late!
We hope you understand why this change is necessary. If you have any questions, you can leave a comment in this article or contact us on our social media channels:
Hey! I’m Diego from Italy, and I bought the Premium license at November 2022 because of the “single purchase” offer.
At first was decently happy about it, I thought “oh, just for €10 I can get all of this? love it :)”.
But after getting more in deep, and adjusting the app for me and my personal productivity system and all that stuff, I thought “oh man, this shouldn’t have been only €10!”, I fell in love with this thing.
TimeTune is for sure one of the most important columns of my personal productivity flow today.
I, just like (surely) many other users, really appreciate all your efforts to make this app a quality product AND an affordable option for us (or comfortable, regarding the adds at the bottom for the free version users), prioritizing the interests of the user over the convenience of the company.
I can tell you (speaking only for myself… probably) that with this app you gave me so much more than what I have given to you (only 10 f***ing euros).
I mean, as a developer myself, I can kind of imagine all the work (or suffering haha) behind each functionality in the app.
Now, don’t missunderstand me, this is not a “consolation” message for all the sacrifice you guys have done, nor even a “thanks” message.
With all this, I want to say 2 things:
1. I support the Idea of switching to subscriptions!!
At the end of the day, this is the way you guys pay your bills, so that’s fair enough to do this, and people will (have to) get it.
And, as I said, I kind of understand the amount of work behind each functionality, but the truth is that you don’t need to be a developer to recognize when a good app is a good app, and when it’s worthy to pay for it.
I’m very sure about that… Actually, people usually spends a lot of money (surely more than 10 f***ing euros) in more useless things.
I know that I shouldn’t care about the subscription, since I’m not going to pay because I’m an “old premium” user, but here is the second thing, is more like a request…
2. Add the option to make voluntary donations
Please do it.
You can do it putting a limit with specific amounts, like only options of $1, $5, $10, etc.
If you put it as options of specific amounts, or a custom number, I don’t care! If I send you €20, that’s 2 pizzas right there for the team 😀
The point is: I would like You to do this for people like me! Give to people that appreciate Timetune (and would like to help somehow) the chance to support in a very simple way.
Do it with nothing in return, because that’s how donations works! As a voluntarily thing.
Obviously this is not an idea that pretends to represent a “solution” for a situation like this one. Or even better, you guys also may be thinking that doing this would be too greedy, or too much to ask of the users (morally speaking, I don’t know).
Well: Hell no, and No.
It’s not greedy, since you are not asking for anything! And about whether it is too much for the users… Look at it this way: you are not doing this because you guys wanted to, but because We wanted to.
You are just responding to a request from us, satisfying a demand.
Actually that’s a good idea to put in small letters somewhere close to that part: “as requested, we enabled the possibility of making donations to support the development of TimeTune” or something like that haha.
Anyway, please consider this, for users like me.
Hi Diego! 👋
Thank you very much for your feedback and support, we really appreciate it 🧡 We get truly happy when we hear the app is helping so much 😀
And thanks a lot for your suggestion about donations too. We’re open to that possibility, but for the moment we need to see how the change to subscriptions goes. After that, we’ll consider other possibilities.
Cheers! 😀
Thank You for replying!!!
However things goes, I hope they get you guys in a better situation, that allows you to be in good conditions and also to improve more as well.
Best wishes! ✌️
Hello,
I would really like to buy one-time premium but I’m unsure how it works. I have now temporary mobilephone and will have to switch in close time. I would really like to have it but how do i transfer it later into new device, because i don’t see any account settings or something like that. Thanks for help.
Hi! When you make a purchase on Google Play, the purchase gets tied to your Google account. Therefore, you can make the purchase now and install the app in another device later, as long as you use the same Google account on the new device. This is controlled by Google Play automatically.
Sir is this application one time payment yet or it had become subscription
Hi. The application has already changed to subscriptions.