We remind you one month before it expires. And we don’t punish you when you renew after your license expired; we give you an advantage when you renew early.
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Edit: I forgot to mention in my original post that the model assumes that one is purchasing extensions before they expire. Else, as far as I understand, the $89/1-year, $159/2-years, or $209/3-years discounted pricing is not in effect, and the pricing goes up to $99 per year for DTPro4, no matter how many years is purchase.
Edit #2: There’s an error in Scenario 4 concerning the price of DTPro4 Extensions, currently shown as $89: only one of these Extensions could be purchased at that discounted price, with the proviso that it would be purchased for Year 2, and prior to Year 1’s updates expiring, and the others would cost $99, as they would be purchased outside of any then-current Extension’s active period. Otherwise, the price of all of these Extensions would be $99.
I put this together to try to chart my path going forward, and share it with these caveats:
I’m not a DEVON employee, just a user of their products. Use this information at your own risk. Do not rely on this information for your purchasing decisions. Verify the numbers and method for yourself.
This is a comparison of the costs of four scenarios that provide access to DTPro4 and DTTG4, for a period of 7 years. A 7-year period is used because:
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Year 1 of each of the four scenario consists of the DTPro3->DTPro4 upgrade, which includes DTPro4 updates, and access to DTTG and its updates, for 1 year.
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For scenarios 1-3:
- Years 2-7 is a period of 6 years, which allows using whole multiples of 1-, 2-, and 3-year DTPro4 license Extensions, in scenarios 1-3 every 1, 2, and 3 years, respectively, to maintain continuous DTPro4 updates, and continuous use of DTTG4.
Therefore, (1 + 6 =) 7 years used in this modeling exercise.
It’s possible to model 2, 3, 5, however many, years, but accommodating durations after year 1 that are not divisible by 6 (the least common multiple of {1, 2, 3}) involves calculating fractions of the costs of the applicable Extensions that are impossible to purchase in the real world.
Scenario 4 attempts to reduce the cost, by:
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Purchasing DTPro4 license Extensions:
- only every other year,
- each for a period of only 1 year (sacrificing DTPro4 updates and access to DTTG4), and
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Because DTTG4 will in effect cease to function if a DTPro4 license Extension is not in effect:
- filling in those gaps with 1-year subscriptions to DTTG4 for the years that do not purchase DTPro4 license Extensions.
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Note that individuals’ real-world requirements, and the nature of future DTPro4 updates, may disrupt or enhance this scenario’s purchasing schedule, or even render it irrelevant, changing the cost accordingly.
I’m not a DEVON employee, just a user of their products. Use this information at your own risk. Do not rely on this information for your purchasing decisions. Verify the numbers and method for yourself.
Sources of price data:
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As long as there is no way to simply BUY DTTG, the current concept forces a subscription!
Either for DT or for DTTG.
And it seems that this was the goal.
Sad thing, really.
I will stay at v3 for as long as possible and will try to make my data less depending on DT possibilities, but organize them more structured in the file system.
Just for the case when DT or DTTG stop to work, as a security measure.
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Certainly it’s not a clear transition. More reasonably for longstanding customers it would be better to clearly state the transition to a subscription model and be done with it. The subterfuge doesn’t sit well with me and i won’t be continuing what, for me, has been a longstanding relationship with a company i respected. This mendacity by obfuscation has undone a lot of goodwill
Well, we just tried hard to offer a middleground between a subscription that cuts you off from your data and using the app when you don’t continue to pay, and a one-time purchase that forces us to hold back features for major releases. We explicitly did not want a subscription because we know how much you value your data and the unrestricted access to it at all times.
This model can also be found now with quite a number of other apps out there that have data-sensitive customers.
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Agenda Desktop and mobile has best licensing model. Ensure steady income for team yet allow users to continue using app at version they stop subscription at. Do not know why DTTG not following the same licensing model as Agenda’s iPad/iPhone, sold through App Store. @tja rightly said DTTG forces subscription.
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Thanks.
Saying that this is not true simply ignores the facts.
I am quite sad about this massive change of the DTTG license model.
Just imagine how sad you’d be if DEVONtech went out of business because they couldn’t generate enough revenue with a “buy once, use for ages” model?
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The new pricing model would likely cause less confusion and disagreement if it offered two licensing options, plus a separate subscription for sync. That would feel more straightforward and perhaps even fairer.
That said, iOS apps have to live in the App Store, which means year-long licenses can’t be sold in the same way. So DEVONtechnologies has presumably chosen a subscription model for the complete functioning of the iOS app for more regular income and shorter development cycles. (And I expect there are many more important factors. I’m afraid I didn’t read every post in this thread.) Fair enough, honestly.
The license changes in particular are super fair. I read the product features, I make the purchase. Now I use the product I paid for for a good amount of years.
I actually gave up my iPhone a few months ago (before the U.K. would start scanning my photos), so the subscription aspect doesn’t affect me. I still hope that DEVONtechnologies thrives as a company, however, so I don’t hold any firm stance on the matter myself. I happily pay Doist for their beautiful task manager and good ethics, and I’d totally do the same for DEVONtechnologies. If it helps, I reframe subscriptions as yearly purchases, and let intermittent reviews of my subscriptions benefit my intentionality around the use of money.
M 
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Nobody wants that, and sure me neither!
But there are far better licensing models to be used, as mentioned above.
Effectively forcing a subscription to DTTG (or alternatively a yearly subscription to DT Pro) is just not the right thing for people who use DT and DTTG very sparsely.
I have no need or interest in Pro, but I still would like to add URLs to my database from my iPad, without paying about 20 bucks monthly for Pro (199 / 12 ) or 19 bucks yearly for DTTG.
I would even expect the income to shrink with that, TBH.
But it was made clear that this will not change, which only leaves me with the road to keep using DT and DTTG version 3 and just go back to synced folders afterwards.
Will never ever pay a subscription - only buying new major versions, which I can decide to use or not.
Yeah, without mobile devices, you have no need for DTTG.
In that case, you can upgrade to DT 4 and keep buying a new version only you like or need it.
That is a good base to work with, as it gives you the freedom.
But I use DTTG to add content (mostly URLs), which forces me into some subscription.
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The upgrade fee for DEVONthink Pro is $99 per year, not $199. In addition, an active license for DEVONthink Pro/Server includes 5/25 iOS seats, therefore no additional costs for DEVONthink To Go 4 usually. There are also promotions and we offer discounts for longer extensions up to 30%. You do the math.
But as you use the app sparsely anyway, then why extend the license at all each year? As it’s not a subscription, DEVONthink will continue to work. Just extend whenever there are new features that you would like to take advantage of.
This could be also added using an indexed iCloud folder or by sending emails to yourself and a Mail rule.
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Yes, sorry - I just looked up the regular price, not what I personally would need to pay.
And to say that again, I have no problem with the DT license!
Paying once in a while for a new DT update, every few years depending on the availability of new features, is totally OK to me!
And I was already on my way to migrate to version 4…
But then I noticed that I would either need to pay yearly for DT or subscribe to DTTG.
And DTTG is what I mainly use!
DT will rarely be actively used by me, it just runs in the background and mirrors local or remote changes to the indexed local filesystem.
My problem solely is the DTTG subscription (or yearly DT Pro payment).
I would like to buy DTTG instead.
40 Euro, even 60 Euro … but not a subscription 
There are a countless options how Devonthink could be priced. They had to pick one. They did.
For me, Devonthink is, by far, the most important application on my computer and my ios devices. We run a multi-country philanthropic foundation with a huge amount of data inputs. My wife and I use it constantly, every day. We’d face a huge setback without it. The cost of Devonthink is a a tiny fraction of the benefit we get from it.
Not to give the Devonthink team any ideas, but they could raise the price 20x and we’d pay it. My biggest fear is that someday it goes away as many apps I’ve used over the years have. I’m happy to support what I see as a unique and special development team.
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Thank you for your support - and the interesting idea! 
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I am in favor of the current pricing model and have prepaid for several years. It is a pleasure to support this outstanding team.
They have already demonstrated that their current pricing model enables them to deliver new features more quickly. Their support is exceptional, I have never experienced customer service of this quality with any other company.
A sustainable pricing model is essential to ensure that we can continue using this software for many years, and hopefully decades, to come.
I am very grateful to Christian, Eric, Jim, and the small team working behind the scenes, and I wish them all the best. You can count on my continued support as a long-time customer.
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Ditto. I’ve been using DEVONthink since about oh, 2008 and even though I probably use about 10% of its features, I’ve always felt the pricing was too low compared to value and was really afraid the product would disappear, as with many other small development teams who have closed shop on some excellent Apple products in the past 10 years. In particular, the documentation has really improved since I started using it, and that’s been a great help to me. So when I just noticed in my UI that I need to renew my updates license, I’ve just signed up for the next three years. NOW it seems fair. I don’t know the personal names behind this product, but thanks to you all!
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Welcome @nancyhild and thank you for the long-term support and encouraging words. We really appreciate both! 
In particular, the documentation has really improved since I started using it, and that’s been a great help to me.
And a special thanks from me as the documentation is in my wheelhouse.
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Thank you very much! You can find our names on our website’s About Us page.
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