Releasing an app as a one-time purchase in 2025 is a bold move – especially as subscriptions seem to be everywhere. In fact, we decided to take this path back when we first had the idea for Untold Novel. Still, nothing forced us to stick with that decision for years. But… to be honest, it was a decision made by heart, not head.
Here’s why:
First and foremost, we are users ourselves. And, in that role, we don’t like subscriptions. The truth is, there are simply too many of them. Only a few are worth the pain of waking up each day only to see you’ve been charged for yet another monthly app subscription. Sure, there are yearly subscriptions too, not just monthly ones. But, at least for us, that doesn’t soften the blow in most cases.
Second, we believe that your intellectual work should belong to you. What does that mean? Simple. If you cancel a subscription, all your content is held hostage until you either start paying again or figure out a way to export your data.
Does that mean we’ll never move to a subscription model in the future? Well, the rule here is “never say never.” But we don’t have any current plans for that unless the market desperately demands a subscription or we’re forced by App Store policies or regulatory changes. Until then, we hope you’re happy to pay just once for a license – until a possible major update drops (more on that in a second).
So, how do you make money without a subscription?
Hopefully, like they did in the old days – before subscriptions took over. We remember a time when all apps were either free or one-time purchases. That’s the license model we grew up with as users.
Of course, much has changed since then. We do understand that some apps need to charge a recurring fee to stay afloat – like apps with ongoing hosting costs or those using APIs that require subscriptions themselves. Weather apps are a good example.
But as long as we don’t have those costs, we hope our users appreciate that we’ll only charge for occasional major updates – which, by the way, are voluntary. If you don’t pay for the update, you can still use your current version of the app as long as it’s supported by your version of iOS or iPadOS.
How often do you plan to charge for updates?
That’s not something we have any fixed plans for. It really depends on whether we have a new feature that seems worth an upgrade fee or any other major change, like a whole new User Interface. Don’t get us wrong, though – this doesn’t mean we’re only working on major updates now. The reality is this: we aim to roll out plenty of minor updates between major ones. In fact, our roadmap is packed with great additions, all of which will be free for users of Untold Novel 1.x.
What if I purchase a license for Untold Novel 1.x a week before you release a major update?
Don’t worry. As we said above, we’re users first. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from other apps, it’s to be generous with major updates. In other words, while we haven’t settled on a definitive time frame, we guarantee that all users who purchased a license within a certain period before a major version release will get that upgrade for free.
Please understand, though, that Untold Novel is the first app we’ve ever released, so we need some time – at least a few weeks or months – to decide on that definitive time frame. What we can already say is that we’re aiming for at least three months, as that just feels fair to us.
Will major updates come with a full price again?
No. We believe existing users should be recognized. That means we want to honor the fact that you already purchased a license for Untold Novel. So, if we offer a major upgrade in the future, you’ll only need to pay a discounted upgrade fee – not the full price.
Since we’ve just launched the app, we haven’t decided on the timing or the exact upgrade fee yet. But rest assured, it will come with a decent discount.