Hi, I’m new to sparkle… was about to purchase Sparkle Pro.
It says purchase at the checkout but in a welcome email subscription was mentioned.
Is it a purchase, or is it an annual subscription?
@Ace2000, Hi there…
Sparkle offers a few options - three versions you can one-off purchase which you can find here - https://sparkleapp.com/store/
Or you could further support the future of this fantastic product plus get more advanced features by obtaining a Sparkle Pro subscription - https://sparkleapp.com/store/sparkle-store-subscribe-to-sparkle-pro.php
You can always get the Sparkle Pro subscription version later on and I would say that is what the welcome email is referring too.
Hope that helps…
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Hello @Ace2000
They changed pricing with version 2.8.
@duncan explained it in this thread, because I think many other users had the same question:
https://community.sparkleapp.com/t/sparkle-2-8-pricing/142
I felt a bit unsure myself. I had bought the Sparkle Pro license two years ago and was happy with the purchase.
But I decided to change it to the subscription in July this year because I felt I wanted to support the development of Sparkle.
As @FlaminFig mentioned, you can always get the Sparkle Pro subscription later.
A fixed, one-time, perpetual license fee for a stabile specific release of software is what users want, and is what is in the user’s interest.
Presently there is considerable animosity and resentment directed at Adobe, particularly by small creative shops and independent contractors, for eliminating perpetual license fees and forcing users to “subscribe” to Adobe’s industry standard software. Because Adobe’s applications are regarded to be the industry standard by now, they have become a monopoly and have got creatives by the short hairs, able to dictate terms of use. The danger of this to creatives is that a “subscription fee” agreement amounts to an enforcement to rent one’s professional tools from Adobe, and to be held hostage to any arbitrary monthly fee increases, and to remain under threat of losing access to one’s own creative work product should the monthly subscription payments stop as the PSD, AI, INDD and other Adobe file formats are closed and proprietary.
If River SRL wish to offer a subscription plan to fund ongoing development, then the company should take heed of the animosity that Adobe has generated by their subscription only licensing policy. Subscription, if offered, should only be offered as an alternative to one-time, fixed perpetual licenses, and even then the user should own a perpetual license for the last paid-for version of the Sparkle app. Users should never be made to feel held hostage. Users should never be forced to rent the tools of their livelihood. And users should never be under threat of losing access to their own work product, trapped in an application’s proprietary file format should the subscription payments stop.
I am frankly surprised that this has to come up even though it’s been discussed and beaten to death. There’s something about the idea of a subscription that blinds people.
So let’s get some things straight:
- what is in the user’s best interest, I think, is that the investment they put in their work isn’t wasted because the company producing the software goes out of business
- we already offer a subscription as an alternative to the one time purchase
- comparing us to Adobe is nonsense, we charge around $70/year vs around $150-$700/year depending on the tier
- we understand people build sites for all uses, some build a personal website, others build multiple commercial websites, others build websites to sell them; each has different needs
What we have settled on is a model with two options:
- you pay upfront for one of the tiers depending on your need, and buy additional features if you want them
- you pay a subscription and get all the future additional features
What we do better than others is we always provide updates to baseline features to everybody, the web is changing and macOS is changing so we need everybody to feel safe using the latest version.
I think you will agree we are not holding users hostage.
I also think some users who bought Sparkle Pro in a promotion, then build 8-10 sites a year to sell, then contact us for support 5 times per site… they are getting way more value than they spent and putting a burden on our small team, they should feel the right thing to do is to at least buy a subscription.
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Sorry about the confusion. Can you forward me the email that mentioned the subscription? We will try to clarify the language there. feedback@sparkleapp.com
Thanks,
Duncan
@mOehlschlager, I hear your pain and understand the stance you are making here! As a web and graphic designer I was entrapped to Adobe’s suite but for the last three years it was getting very clear to me that Adobe was wiping their hands on the web design community and also introduced, no forced, their subscription model of AU$1250/year… Duncan has not done this!
So I went on a sojourn and found the Affinity Suite (Designer, Photo, and Publisher) and dumped Adobe! In that time I also came across Sparkle allowing me to use my graphic design and web design skills, not just my code skills. And what I have seen and experienced is a dedicated Team offering the best they can with continual iterations of their product.
Unlike Adobe Sparkle offers one-off licenses or a subscription model… so you choose! It is not being forced onto you, but offered as an alternative! The other thing is that you can export your Sparkle file to html/CSS/javascript with smatterings of PHP which you can take beyond Sparkle!
In the end the “proof is in the pudding”, and Duncan and his Team has proved enough to me that they are rooting for me with their well thought out, well maintained, and forward moving Sparkle! 
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Yes! I totally agree with that. 
Apologies if my post came across as angry and accusatory. I am not accusing River SRL of behaving just as Adobe has. Rather, because the subject of Subscription vs Ownership was raised here, I wished to sound alarm bells to let it be known that Adobe’s subscription only licensing model is deeply resented by small shops and independent contractors because it does abuse their monopoly position holding customers hostage and threatening loss of access to one’s own work product if a monthly fee is not coughed up. I speak of the Adobe situation to plead with River SRL to avoid adopting the same punitive and coercive licensing model that Adobe pursued.
I understand that positive cash flow is necessary for any business to thrive, and perhaps regular monthly payments are more attractive to the software developer than annual or semi-annual lump-sum license payments. But what is critical to point out here from a customer’s point of view is this: users want to own the licenses to their tools. They want access to their own work product, even if they have decided not to upgrade to the latest version of an application, or have decided not to continue to make monthly subscription payments. If a software company does elect to sell licenses to their applications on a monthly subscription basis to support further development and customer base support, then to be fair to their customers, the customer should retain the license to use the latest version of the application that they have paid for, as opposed to losing all license rights should subscription stop.
That’s the simple feedback I wish to offer here on the matter.