Afternoon everyone,
I wanted to go over a few points related to pricing, stats and the roadmap
Pricing
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Sync for Lemmy is completely free with ads (the same as Sync for Reddit)
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You can remove ads in the account picker or drawer for a one time fee of ~$20
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Sync Ultra also removes ads but it’s not required
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I’ll be working on regional prices over the coming weeks
There are now 24k installed users up from 100 the previous day!
I’m going to be spending the next few days going through all of the comments / messages and fixing any crashes.
As always thanks for the support and hope you’re liking Sync!
Lj
Edit: testing edit
Thank you for your services during the Reddit “era”!
I’m having trouble on pixel fold getting videos to autoplay when phone is unfolded and showing 2 columns. It only plays when folded and showing 1 column. Any chance there is a way to get videos to autoplay when unfolded?
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It’s priced in a way that allows me to work on this full time. If Lemmy suddenly had 10X users I could bring the pricing down.
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I find the pricing totally fair. You’re doing a great job.
Keep in mind lots of the complaints of ‘too expensive’ come from one of two groups - either people from low income countries, or young people.
If you asked me to pay 15 bucks a year for sync when I was 16? Hell no, I’m not paying that much money for it!
Now, at 27, it’s what I earn in like 20 minutes at my job. I think those 20 minutes A year are more than worth what this app offers.
Bruh, if you’re earning $15-$20 every 20 minutes, you’re earning almost $94-$125k/year assuming 8 hours, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year. That’s a lot more than most and has nothing to do with being young or in a low income country.
Not exactly fair to frame it like that. Fwiw I’m a long time sync for Reddit user who had the pro version.
Yup, that’s my yearly salary range. That’s normal in Switzerland for an electrical engineer with a masters degree.
Even if it’s an hour or two of your salary, do you not think that sync is worth that much to you a year? It takes LJ a lot of time to develop.
Oh, and keep in mind this is with what, 1700 hours of work or something a year. I have vacation, public holidays and so on.
Okay well when it does have ten times the users, please bring the price down. Then I’ll give you some money. You’ve earned it! Just… not that much, I can’t afford it.
Get ready for early adopters to be upset at you when you lower the price. There’s probably no winning with pricing.
Almost like everything in the world works this way.
Games, software, hardware, etc.
Yeah man…I am a dev myself but $20 to remove ads is just too much, especially without regional pricing.
I’ll be working on this full time and plan to make this the best Lemmy app possible.
Will you be supporting kbin in the future?
£100 upgrade
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/s before this blows up lol
You joke but the moment Sync supports at least my kbin account to login, I’m sending you that $100 lifetime ultra upgrade with love. Posted from kbin.social on the browser, because I can’t yet login on Sync for Lemmy.
I think the pricing is fine if the quality matches it. Considering how much time we spend on our phones it could be great value for money.
I’m very curious to see how the advertising option works out for you, as currently I’m not aware of any lemmy sites with sustainable finance models.
That level of transparency is incredible, lowkey considering making an account there…
I definitely wouldn’t, you’d lose out on half the content on lemmy
Yeah, I read about that too, but what if I make an account on an instance that isn’t world or beehaw? Would I see content from both?
Yep
They like to keep a really tight walled garden. That’s why I left, I want to decide for myself which instances to block.
The AOL of Lemmy?
They’re defederated with lemmy.world and https://sh.itjust.works/. It’s something to consider before joining
Also worth noting at the time they said it was temporary and due to the lack of sufficient mod tools available in Lemmy. If mod tools improve that could change. But yes, right now it’s definitely something to think about with world being a massive instance that m with a lot of larger communities.
Lemmyworld is quite transparent too: https://opencollective.com/mastodonworld
I wonder if that’s shared with lemmy.world or if that data is just for the Mastodon service?
Shared with Lemmyworld AFAIK
I wouldn’t call it financially sustainable. It pays for the servers, not for the labor.
No offense to beehaw, they’re doing great work.
Most of FOSS doesn’t pay for labor, its volunteers.
You asked us and we told you to make it, so I’m pleased. I haven’t cancelled my sync for reddit subscription. Will that keep going to you, or will it cancel at some point?
I bought Reddit Sync Pro way back when you gave out coupon codes for a discount when you first created it. (just found my receipt… November 2013 for ONE DOLLAR!!!) Used it for what was probably a decade for that low initial price and watched it just get better and better over time.
I assume that I’m going to be using Sync for Lemmy for a decade, and I have zero issue with the upfront ad free cost.
Aside from regional pricing issues, I think some of these potential customers just don’t realize how much they’re going to be getting from you for this price.
Ultra Lifetime is really tempting…
Yeah, I’m sure of it. Wishing you all the best!
Thank you for adding a one time payment option. Much appreciated.
$20 once, for an app you’re going to use daily for the foreseeable future mind you, is not the unreasonable take that people on here seem to think it is.
You get what you pay for, and Sync has proven it’s track record with the Reddit app already. This isn’t just some random app dev asking for money on his bejeweled clone.
It’s $100 once. The $20 option is a yearly subscription.
Edit: Some misunderstanding. It’s $20 to remove ads, and $100 to get all features. Maybe the $20 subscription is for full features and removing ads?
You have completely misread the app. The “Sync Ultra” is not the same as the one-time “Remove Ads” option.
If you want “Sync Ultra” for a lifetime, it’s $100 or w/e it’s listed as, that comes with all the extra features listed in the app. If you just want to remove ads and use the app without the Ultra features, you only have to pay $20 once.
Re: your edit
Yes, the subscription option has a monthly/yearly/lifetime structure set at $2/$17/$100 respectively. Each of those unlocks all the Ultra features (which includes removing ads).
Which is separate from the one time payment of the $20 to only remove ads.
Agreed. $5 MAYBE, $20 is out to lunch. And a subscription model for full features? Nah get outta here with that, that MIGHT be worth $20. The direction app development has gone over the last few years is a huge disappointment
$5 as a one-time payment is not enough for a single developer to sustain his livelihood on.
And ultimately, “worth” is based on what the market decides.
I used it for nearly a decade for $2, so I figure it’s worth it.
This is by far the best app for Lemmy. By a mile. It’s a lot faster and nicer looking. That said, pricing feels a little steep. Imagine being able to sustain your livelihood on making an app for Lemmy, an otherwise free service providing no additional content. It’s not like we are paying the persons who invest in all the infrastructure for the servers running the Lemmy instances. They provide for the actual service. If a part of the money went to instance servers it would feel way better. Because if they go down, so will Sync.
Not taking anything away from the massive work Lj is putting into this, but pricing do feel a tad off. If 1500 people subscribe he has a yearly income equal to a decent job. If he gets 5000 subs he will earn almost 100 000 dollars a year. Which in Sweden equals to about 2.5 times of a well paid job. That’s excluding ad revenue from everyone who don’t subscribe or pay for removing ads. Pricing can be fairer without compromising the livelihood of said dev. That’s all.
If he gets 5000 subs he will earn almost 100 000 dollars a year. Which in Sweden equals to about 2.5 times of a well paid job.
If that is the case, well then in some of the larger coastal areas in the U.S. such a salary is far below what a decent software developer can expect. Cost of living is very high in those areas.
Talking about prices and costs is very difficult in a global ecosystem, because even different regions of the same country can have significant differences in market that change the value of money, even setting aside currency exchange.
He’s in the UK, I thought.
You are 100% correct. I just went off of my own view and what is good and not where I live.
The fair pricing is what the market will tolerate. I’m not saying it’s 100% “justified”; even the dev understands that he needs to tweak it for other regions. But the value add is from the superiority of the app experience, which right now is much better than anything else available (for me; of course this is all subjective). In the future, perhaps other apps will achieve parity with Sync, at which time market forces will cause the developer to course correct on pricing.
I’ll also add that I purchased Sync for Reddit (Pro) for USD$2 nine years ago. If I get nine years out of Sync for Lemmy that’s a bargain at even 10 times the price (which is the current offering).
Wha? A yearly ultra sub is 15 bucks. 1500x15 is 22500. 5000 times is 75000.
And that’s not ‘the same as a full time job’, not by a long shot. Google takes its cut - what, 20%? Then you have income tax, insurances etc, another 20-30% at least, and so on. So, for 5000 subscriptions, he’s left with around 42k at the end of the day.
15 bucks? So the conversion rate to Swedish kronor is messed up then. Because my yearly fee is way more than that. If I earned 42k dollars and continued to live in my house with my family we would be insanely well off.
42k/yr is basically poverty in a US city
This is insane to me. You can live in so many other countries with as high, or higher living standards and live the good life with that money.
I’m pretty sure his calculations were based on the monthly price, as for me monthly shows up as 2.99 per month. I’ll also say that including income tax in your calculation is crazy. We all have to pay income tax, but the income told us when we get a job or see a job posting is gross income.
Other than that, if you want Sync for lemmy and willing to pay for it, that’s fair. I paid 3 bucks for Nova Prime years ago and I have used it everyday. It came with me to every new phone I owned. I also redesign my layout quite often using it. It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to pay that amount monthly when Nova Prime was a one time payment.
Nope. Yearly. But I used the pricing for me, in Sweden. Seems the conversion rate is a bit off. Because my price is 19 dollars per year and the price for Lifetime is at 117 dollars.
No app is worth that, sorry.
Depends on your country, really.
Yes, in Switzerland you’re also told gross income - yet that’s not the ‘real gross income’. There’s lots of other stuff your employer pays for you when you get hired somewhere. For example, in Switzerland, we have mandatory retirement contributions (not like social security, we also have a pension fund seperately from this), that has to be matched by an employer, 1:1.
It really depends on your country, but say in Switzerland, you have to earn a good 30-40% more money when self employed compared to being employed at a company to have the same net amount of money available at the end of the day.
That’s like saying imagine someone wanting to sustain themselves by running a public transport network. All they do is help you to get to and from work. How can they have so much hubris as to believe that’s worth anything?!
Exactly. Doing anything, if it requires work and provides value to you, has a value, and thus could be expected to be charged for. Ad-supported software has kinda ruined a lot of people’s perception of money and value, expecting everything to be free.
I’m gladly paying. Just not 117 dollars for the experience to be ad free which is what the app wants me to pay in Swedish kronor.
$5 as a one-time payment is not enough for a single developer to sustain his livelihood on.
I think you’re mistaking value for cost. ljdawson doesn’t work for us and sync is not work for hire. Laurence is not a contractor nor do we have an employer/employee relationship so we don’t owe him a wage for the work he has done or compensation for his time. We have a customer/vendor relationship, and the only thing that matters to the customer is the value of the end product that the vendor is trying to sell.
I think we’re all sympathetic to the unfortunate circumstances with Reddit through which Laurence is forced to take a big haircut, and we’re willing to support him with this new project, but the value proposition has to make sense to us too, and $20 for a Lemmy app is a tough sell, regardless of how good it is.
To get a frame of reference: scrolling through the top 100 paid apps, I could only find a single one that cost more than $20 (a commercial GPS app) and the vast majority sit somewhere between $0.99 and $10, and probably averaging below $5.
And ultimately, “worth” is based on what the market decides.
Indeed it is, and this single datapoint has determined that it is not worth $20.
I think you’re mistaking value for cost. ljdawson doesn’t work for us and sync is not work for hire. Lawrence is not a contractor nor do we have an employer/employee relationship so we don’t owe him a wage for the work he has done or compensation for his time. We have a customer/vendor relationship, and the only thing that matters to the customer is the value of the end product that the vendor is trying to sell.
This is a fair response, and ultimately it is incumbent on the developer to create the value-add that justifies the cost.
I suppose my comment is directed at the sentiment that the developer is “greedy” or trying to swindle consumers in an immature market.
Many of us former Reddit Sync users requested that he make the app for Lemmy, so in a sense we do have a contractor type of relationship with him. Hence why many former Sync users are comfortable paying the amount. I think a lot of people who are complaining about the price are just not the target audience for Sync.
You make valid points, however, I’d like to point out that most games on the play store don’t cost a lot because the real costly transactions are in-app purchases. It’s common, in my experience, for the popular free apps to have IAPs upwards of $100 for in-game currency.
There’s also that matter of the no-cost version of the app. It seems perfectly usable, making the ad-removal an optional purchase.
Considering the smaller user-base and the finite economic value of life-time purchases I’d say $20 is fair. But that’s my stated opinion and I have yet to put my money where my mouth is.
Very good point regarding micro transactions.
It’d have been nice if lemmy only had upvotes. Maybe I can turn votes off.
Disagree. I think that is fair given the amazing quality of the app
Are you considering making a paid version like Sync Pro was? There were many users who had issues buying the ad removal from regular old Sync for Reddit and having the ads come back up, and I personally prefer getting ad-free, paid versions of apps right off the bat so I rest easy knowing that the any ad tracking code isn’t even built into the app at all.
I had not used Sync for Reddit as I was a Boost user but now that I’ve installed Sync for Lemmy I’m enjoying it. It’s very polished, smooth and easy to use. I think it will great once it’s feature complete.
In a way you have a headstart over the other new apps and it shows. I’m sure rewriting the back end is not fun but at least your already had the UI.
I think the pricing model is fair. Free with ads for those who want to try it, one time fee for those who don’t like subs, and a low cost sub for power users.
Send like most people have an issue with €20. Perhaps they were expecting €10 but that’s less than €1 per month in just the first year, nevermind all future updates. €20 seems fair for a lifetime unlock.
Lj, i appreciate the work and am loving being back to a familiar feel. I was wondering if there was a quick way to hide instances that i don’t want to see on my feed. I typically hide other language posts simply because i can’t read it or would the auto translate feature of ultra take care of this issue for me?
Splurging $20 on a Lemmy app with my country’s currency devaluation is not going to work for me. Nothing against you or the app, the app is amazing and leagues ahead of the competition. But I’m not even sure if Lemmy will be the replacement for Reddit and how it’ll all pan out after the hype wears off, so I’m going to wait for regional pricing for this one.
Are there any plans to re-implenent the “Sync” feature that the Reddit app had?
Just curious because I need my offline reading!
Took me a while to figure out how to sign in with my lemdro.id account.
Maybe it’s embarrassing to admit but I must have scanned through that long list of servers five times before realizing I could just type in my own server. Could be helpful to add a line inviting users to type in their own server.
My previous comment of praise got eaten by Lemmy. (draft saved, submitting comment, error) is that a sync bug or on the Lemmy side? I was excited that it at least saved a draft of the comment but it doesn’t seem to be an option. Feature request?
The gist of my lost comment was that this app is great and I probably never would have found Boost had I come across this first. It’s going to be a hard choice when boost finally comes out. Congratulations on a successful launch! I will be switching between this and summit for the time being
First I want to preface that I actually never used Sync for Reddit, I always used RIF but I wanted to give Sync for Lemmy a shot and see what it was all about.
A few things from my perspective:
- So I’m using the combined BottomNavigation style, but finding settings or other options doesn’t seem all that intuitive. Some of the things, like how to switch from Everything to Subscribed for my feed, I found by accident. Where to buy the Ad removal was also rather hidden, etc…
- The elephant in the room… Pricing… as a developer myself I get needing to make enough money to sustain your projects, and I get that there’s a lot less users on Lemmy than Reddit, but the prices for the subscriptions just seem outrageous. The problem as I see it, is that there’s already a healthy competition for Lemmy Apps out there today and most are completely free and have no ads as-is. Some may even be operating in the red, but still $2/mo, $17/yr, $100/lifetime still seems a bit much for essentially:
- No Ads (I’ve got a PiHole, so honestly I don’t see any ads at the moment anyway)
- Cloud Backup – backup of what? My login? My app settings? The former seems concerning, the later I don’t see much value as I only have a single Phone. If I get a new phone, sure it might save me a few minutes re setting it back up. There’s not that many settings at the moment that needed customizing. And adding too many makes the app too confusing.
- Highlight / Tag users – Ok this seems interesting but not quite worth $2/mo IMO.
- Translate text – I can do this in the web app already just by highlighting a comment. But to be critical here, /most/ of the content is already in English, and I don’t subscribe to any foreign language communities at the moment, so this at least doesn’t have any value to me.
- Select text from image – Ok, another interesting feature but still not quite at $2/mo
- Push notifications (coming soon) – I’m really wondering how this is going to work personally, but this is a much needed feature, at least just for private messages. Probably the feature I’m most excited about.
- Import / export subscriptions – This honestly needs to be built into Lemmy itself, but there’s also a handful of user scripts and other tools other developers have already written that can do this.
Keep in mind I don’t have a frame of reference for what the prices were in Sync for Reddit, but cut the prices to about a 1/3rd or 1/4th of what they are now and they seem to be more inline with the value that the app provides over the other apps.
- The privacy policy. It’s a lot longer than I’d hope for a Lemmy app. I’m assuming most of the data being collected is for advertising, but it’s still concerning to me.
I don’t mean to sounds critical in all of this. The app is probably one of the smoothest and best looking out there so far, but the value to money ratio just isn’t there.
Can I ask what apps you develop?
I also tried building a pet feeder during the pandemic because the one I was using, the company decided to go belly-up. Never got a fully working though.
(At least that’s what I’ve done open-source wise). I do Android development for my day job.
Whaaaa, I can’t find me or any of my posts 🙃
Thanks! I think I found the bug and I’ll see what I can do to get that fixed here soon. But to keep this comment thread on-topic message me personally if you have any other issues.
Thank you!
Re pricing.
Ultra disables ads but also you can just pay a one time $20 few to disable ads forever. Ultra is the above and beyond extras.
I’ve been with sync from nearly the beginning. Ultra for me, no question. I really appreciate Lj’s hard work.
Totally understand that. And personally, $20 to remove ads forever, seems reasonable. But the other features under Ultra currently don’t add up to the price tag for those features at the moment.
None of the current Ultra features really stand out to me except tagging/highlighting users. Push Notifications will be a game changer but they aren’t in the app yet.
Well technically it is still in beta so missing features are to be expected at the moment.
Missing features are fine. Even then, and maybe it’s just me, but Push Notifications + User Highlight/Tagging doesn’t seem like $2 worth of value to me. Just trying to call out that the current value-to-cost ratio seems off. And sure there are other features and maybe other users will get $2 worth of value out of those, but in my opinion that’s why I won’t be buying a subscription, even if I want to support the developer.
Right now, subscribing for Ultra is like Patreon. The amount of work to get the app forked from the reddit version and integrated into Lemmy in the span of weeks from a technical perspective is amazing. Support if you love Sync and want it to continue. The features in the Coming Soon will come with time.
Glad to see it live!
I agree that $20USD for ad-free is a bit high, but on the other hand I used Sync for Reddit for roughly 10 years and paid $2.50 at the time.
So I consider it a way to give back for the great experience I had in the past.
And we got used for mobile apps being dirt-cheap, but most of us don’t have any issue paying even more for sitting in a dirty movie theater for a 2½ hours movie with a popcorn and soft drink.
Yep - I bought sync way back in the day and paid less than $5 for it. Used it for years and years across multiple devices until I switched to iOS. I got my moneys worth for sure - $20 seems like a bargain.
That was my reasoning too. The $0.99 I paid for Reddit Sync Pro (before reddit made him change the name) in 2014.
A nice feature for us new people would be a way to subscribe to a community from the everything feed as opposed to having to click through to the community page.
Huh. I swear ad removal was $13 yesterday. Did that change? $20 is quite an increase over that
