Ben (and Drew), thanks for jumping in the trenches. I've always known your company to be upstanding and good at what you do. I've been a 1Password user since 2010, I believe. I appreciate the decision that was made to continue to offer standalone licenses in addition to the subscription model. Thank you and keep up the great work!
1Password Introduces $2.99/Month Plan for Individuals, With 6 Months Free at Sign-Up [Updated]
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Ben (and Drew), thanks for jumping in the trenches. I've always known your company to be upstanding and good at what you do. I've been a 1Password user since 2010, I believe. I appreciate the decision that was made to continue to offer standalone licenses in addition to the subscription model. Thank you and keep up the great work!
Benjamin Frost
Suspended
You should blame Apple on two counts: for making their software updates free, and for encouraging free and 99 cent apps. Those two acts, more than anything, led to the devaluation of software and the reluctance of people to pay a penny for apps, let alone $70 per year.
mw360
macrumors 68020
You haven't followed the mini thread of that conversation. He was following up on a post of mine which was specifically responding to someone who didn't want to pay for either a subscription or an upgrade to a new version. As if living only on new customer sales is a viable long-term business...
Max Portakabin
Suspended
Utter nonsense. You've completely misread several points to justify a rant of your own.
Are you connected to AgileBits by any chance?
Apple_Robert
Contributor
Blaming Apple for many people being greedy and self-centered is not very logical, in my opinion.
Just because Apple does x with it's business model, that doesn't mean that 1Password (or any other company) should follow suit.
[doublepost=1470263148][/doublepost]
I don't believe I have misconstrued anything.
You disagree with my position and that is fine. However, there is nothing nonsensical about my posting. And seeking to try and discredit my opinion by suggesting possible bias on my part through said company, is nothing more than an attempted use of logical fallacy. I do not work for Agilebits.
Benjamin Frost
Suspended
And yet, at one time, all software was version one and consisted of surviving entirely on new customers.
My feeling is that once Apple provides a software feature, it puts all competitors on call that they need to get out of the marketplace or adopt a high price to a niche audience. I guess that's what's happened here.
When I look at a lot of software, I see more and more the stasis of features. What this will mean is that the software effectively becomes commoditised and absorbed by large companies like Apple and Google. At this point, it generally becomes free and the market disappears. This will happen more and more, because there is simply a limitation on what you can add to software. Look at word processing: Microsoft's revenue from Office is a fraction of what it used to be because people simply don't need to pay for updates anymore. Most get by happily on the free Pages or a free Windows or Linux equivalent. So there is still niche word processing competition, but it will only get proportionally more and more expensive as the market reduces, until either the company goes under or it survives as a niche offering.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but that's just how it is.
Last edited:
Max Portakabin
Suspended
You're insulting posters by claiming they are greedy, based on little evidence other than dislike if subscription pricing. You're not adding anything to the conversation so it's legitimate to question your bias.
Hope this helps.
ggibson913
macrumors 65816
Password managing app 1Password today announced the launch of a new subscription plan for individual users priced at $2.99 per month. The new model will be added to 1Password's existing subscription tiers, including a team plan (beginning at $3.99 per month) and a family plan ($4.99 per month). This will allow users not in need of enterprise- or family-related perks to join in on 1Password's various subscription benefits.
According to AgileBits, the company behind 1Password, the biggest advantage of signing up for a subscription on the password organizing app is that users will "get all the 1Password apps for every platform, along with Pro Features, free updates, and free upgrades to every new version of 1Password." The service allows its subscribers to cancel at any time and alleviates the worry of having to face licenses and paid upgrades down the line.
The individual subscription service runs on the same new hosted platform that AgileBits created for 1Password Teams and 1Password Families. The company said that using the $2.99 per month subscription model provides users with "the simplest and most feature-packed way to use 1Password."
As a launch special, anyone who signs up for the new individual plan will get the first six months of 1Password free, without needing to even add their credit card information into the app. To take advantage of the offer, users will need to sign up for the $2.99 per month model before September 21, 2016. The 1Password app is available to download from the iOS App Store for free [Direct Link] -- with the option to choose a one-and-done upgrade to 1Password Pro for $9.99 -- and the Mac App Store for $64.99. [Direct Link]
Update: As 1Password mentioned on Twitter, the company has "no plans to eliminate standalone licenses," so any user who prefers to avoid subscription tiers can still do so.
Article Link: 1Password Introduces $2.99/Month Plan for Individuals, With 6 Months Free at Sign-Up [Updated]
I switched to Lastpass for $12 per year long ago.
Apple_Robert
Contributor
Buying a product and expecting free updates, because some here believe, that when they buy a software product, that that somehow entitles them to reap endless benefits at the behest of a company that doesn't make a product for free, is being greedy, in my opinion.
Benjamin Frost
Suspended
Choice is good.
If I pay for software, and that software then has a paid update, I can choose to either carry on using the current software, or pay for the upgrade if I feel it is worth it. With a subscription, you have no choice, regardless of if you feel an update is worth paying for or not.
Max Portakabin
Suspended
Not sure what posts you've read but it appears that overwhelming majority of posters in this thread have stated they are happy to buy a one time license and then pay for major feature updates.
I've not seen anyone say they want to pay once and get all of the new bells and whistles free forever (unless they've been super subtle about it).
horsebattery
macrumors 6502
Buying isn't always the better option - this is why Amazon's AWS has become such a mammoth industry because it is enormously cheaper to rent servers from Amazon instead of maintaining your own infrastructure (not just upfront but over a lifetime). This usually means that businesses can afford to offer their own services at a lower price as well as their costs are lowered, but of course your mileage may vary. Usually with subscription based services, yes, the end user or clients may end up losing control, but you would also be able to use a service that would otherwise be much more expensive - this is especially true if the service has a limited refund period.
In the end, if 1Password did not offer a subscription model to keep up their revenue stream, they would have to cut costs somewhere due to increasing market saturation - fewer upgrades, reduced support, increase license/upgrade costs, etc. (There's other alternatives, such as introducing new products to supplement 1Password itself, but that's venturing into a different discussion altogether).
Apple_Robert
Contributor
I agree. Choice is good.
Even with a subscription, one still has the power to continue to use a product or to walk away and not renew.
Floris
macrumors 68020
Maybe I just don't get it, but .."Web access to your data on 1Password.com " does that mean they download my data. It's no longer a guarantee I am the only one with access to my vault? Could someone clarify. Because I always supported them, for the reason that only I have the master key, and my data set. That they don't have it. We seen how that worked out for Carbonite, LastPass, KeePass, etc. If they move my data to their server, and let people access it through their web site.. They've lost me as a customer.
thisisnotmyname
macrumors 68020
I'm not aware of any such instance, and really... we wouldn't gain anything from it. Anyone who has purchased a license for a particular version of 1Password is welcome to continue using that version for as long as it suits their needs. If we released an upgrade with nothing of value in it and charged for it folks could opt to not upgrade. All we'd have done is wasted our time and yours. We try to make sure every upgrade will provide some value to everyone...
Hi Drew!
--
Ben Woodruff
Positive Experience Architect
AgileBits
I agree with your assessment. I've been using your software for many years (well over five years I'm sure) and although I know I've upgraded several times (whenever a major release was available) I don't think I've had to pay for one for a couple years now. I'm a big fan of your product and I have trust in your company, that's the type of thing I'm willing to pay for, especially in the realm of security.
A couple thoughts on SaaS as a whole (and although I'm replying to your post this is not directed at you but the general tone of the thread).
1) In general SaaS has been a big boon to the software industry however it can be treacherous as well. Making the transition from perpetual license to monthly SaaS has a BIG impact on cash flow and more than a few software companies have gone broke as monthly cash dries up when everyone runs to the SaaS offering. On the flip side, if you are "sticky" enough (can retain your customers) SaaS can make for much smoother revenue and even higher revenue over time. That's not a guarantee by any means though.
2) Price point varies quite a bit and the landscape may have changed since I actively researched but typically vendors that sold perpetual licenses were amortizing that old license over a period of time to come up with their monthly SaaS figure (and then rounding to friendly number). In a lot of cases three years was the break over point. That means if you walk after a year long contract is up (or in the B2C world you just don't renew next month) you got a hell of a price break compared to a bad choice on a perpetual license. It also means that the vendor has a lot of incentive to continue being sticky or lose out compared to the traditional license. Stickiness can come from a variety of factors but one is reinvesting the SaaS proceeds in feature development and new releases. A SaaS company that doesn't release new versions is a SaaS company headed for bankruptcy.
3) As I posted earlier, I wouldn't bother with a subscription model on a low price point product. Most consumers will go with the perpetual license instead. But, just as there are layaway stores and furniture rental places there will be consumers that - usually for economic reasons but others as well - would prefer a lower monthly number than a higher initial outlay of cash. It seems that Agilebits is also trying to position other value add to the subscription model as well so I'm sure they'll pick up some customers on this plan and those customers aren't automatically stupid for making that choice; it could be what works best for them in that situation. There is choice and we are all free to make our own.
4) If you ever went exclusively SaaS I'd evaluate other products. May still stick with you but I'd definitely take a closer look at other offerings
edit: typo
edit 2: I'll also add, although the framework has changed this isn't exactly night and day compared to "old" perpetual models. I'm speaking primarily to enterprise software now but even when you purchased a perpetual license virtually every vendor would also sell you some form of support and maintenance agreement that you would have to renew and pay again every year (granted you could opt out but then if anything breaks you're lacking support and don't have any rights to new versions released etc...). In my experience most vendors charged 20% of retail annually for that sort of plan. So perpetual with all the upfront costs and then 20% support and maint forever or 33% annually for SaaS which includes support and maint is no longer such a wide gap. Obviously most individual consumers don't purchase those plans on their software which is just one more reason why SaaS to individuals is a harder sell. One more comment for anyone who's bothered to read this far, in the enterprise world SaaS generally also comes with some form of cloud hosting meaning that you are also offsetting local hardware and infrastructure support costs. Salesforce.com is probably the company most people would recognize as being one of the pioneers of SaaS; other than a few (or maybe just one) very large customer that they permitted to take their offering on premise, all of their customers are hosted on their cloud infrastructure. This means no additional hardware and software costs, fewer IT employees, etc... to support that solution. That also gets factored into the SaaS decision. On the flip side, yet another reason why consumer SaaS is less attractive as consumers generally have only general purpose computing devices and wouldn't increase or decrease their hardware or maintenance load based upon any software purchase.
Last edited:
That couldn't be less "how it is".
The vast majority (Something like 80-90% last time I saw) of MS Office revenue comes from enterprise and volume licensing, not from personal users who may just shift over to google docs tomorrow. The idea that word processing or MS Office is "niche" is laughable.
But, you know, don't let facts get in the way of a good story.
Apple_Robert
Contributor
Agielbits does not have access to your master password key. If you should ever forget your password, or the backup should become corrupt and won't accept your password, you are out of luck.
Benjamin Frost
Suspended
I agree with your assessment. I've been using your software for many years (well over five years I'm sure) and although I know I've upgraded several times (whenever a major release was available) I don't think I've had to pay for one for a couple years now. I'm a big fan of your product and I have trust in your company, that's the type of thing I'm willing to pay for, especially in the realm of security.
A couple thoughts on SaaS as a whole (and although I'm replying to your post this is not directed at you but the general tone of the thread).
1) In general SaaS has been a big boon to the software industry however it can be treacherous as well. Making the transition from perpetual license to monthly SaaS has a BIG impact on cash flow and more than a few software companies have gone broke as monthly cash dries up when everyone runs to the SaaS offering. On the flip side, if you are "sticky" enough (can retain your customers) SaaS can make for much smoother revenue and even higher revenue over time. That's not a guarantee by any means though.
2) Price point varies quite a bit and the landscape may have changed since I actively researched but typically vendors that sold perpetual licenses were amortizing that old license over a period of time to come up with their monthly SaaS figure (and then rounding to friendly number). In a lot of cases three years was the break over point. That means if you walk after a year long contract is up (or in the B2C world you just don't renew next month) you got a hell of a price break compared to a bad choice on a perpetual license. It also means that the vendor has a lot of incentive to continue being sticky of lose out compared to the traditional license. Stickiness can come from a variety of factors but one is reinvesting the SaaS proceeds in feature development and new releases. A SaaS company that doesn't release new versions is a SaaS company headed for bankruptcy.
3) As I posted earlier, I wouldn't bother with a subscription model on a low price point product. Most consumers will go with the perpetual license instead. But, just as there are layaway stores and furniture rental places there will be consumers that - usually for economic reasons but others as well - would prefer a lower monthly number than a higher initial outlay of cash. It seems that Agilebits is also trying to position other value add to the subscription model as well so I'm sure they'll pick up some customers on this plan and those customers aren't automatically stupid for making that choice; it could be what works best for them in that situation. There is choice and we are all free to make our own.
4) If you ever went exclusively SaaS I'd evaluate other products. May still stick with you but I'd definitely take a closer look at other offerings
Good post, though I would question whether SaaS has been a big boon for business at this stage. I think we will see a lot of companies go bust before consolidation of the industry. All software companies are facing a dilemma with the nature of survival. If updates are not compelling enough due to the maturity of software, how does one make people pay for them?
Perhaps I'm too early, but I see a big crisis coming in software and tech generally. Look at hardware: the smartphone is maturing, and even Apple is having to lower prices. They are in no danger of going out of business, and have a very large cushion to protect them from falling prices, but small software companies have no such protection. The first tech bubble burst in 2000; the next one will precipitate the software crisis, I think.
Rocketman
macrumors 603
I have read a bunch of posts now, many of which were pure posturing.
Given the license applies to ALL of your devices and platforms, doesn't that count for something to offset the complaints? We're talking $3 per month, right? Passwords are a major pain point, right?
Given the license applies to ALL of your devices and platforms, doesn't that count for something to offset the complaints? We're talking $3 per month, right? Passwords are a major pain point, right?
Last edited:
Benjamin Frost
Suspended
Microsoft revenue has been falling $1 billion a year for two years.
bwoodruff
macrumors regular
At one time all software was sold on a disk and you got what you got. There were no updates or bug fixes. If the company released a new version it was on a new disk and if you wanted it you went out and bought it at retail. There were no "upgrade discounts." At a time like that a "pay once and never again" model made some sense.
But how many of those companies are still around today? Pretty much only the really big ones, all of which have since changed their business model. We want 1Password and AgileBits to be sustainable for a long time to come.
Hi Floris!
This only applies to our new 1Password.com services. As an existing license holder it doesn't change anything for you. Your data is still only stored on your devices (and with whatever sync service you set up, if any).
The longer answer is that 1Password.com is indeed a hosted service, so your encrypted data is stored on our servers when using it. But we've taken a number of measures to make sure that we never have anything that is of any value. If we were to be compromised, or somehow turn evil, we don't hold anything of value. Your Master Password, which is used to encrypt your data, is never transmitted to us. We have a brief overview available here:
https://support.1password.com/teams-admin-security/
You can read a much more in-depth technical explanation of this in our whitepaper:
http://1pw.ca/whitepaper
Our Chief Defender Against the Dark Arts also spoke a bit on this at BSides 2016 just the other day:
(skip to about 2:23:00 if it doesn't start there; it gets a bit technical as it was a presentation to security folks)
Thanks.
--
Ben Woodruff
Positive Experience Architect
AgileBits
Ken Linger
macrumors regular
For the record, I've been using 1Password since it originally came out. I've paid multiple times for the desktop and iOS versions (through upgrades and new apps) and recognize that they haven't historically always been free. There have also been times when I was forced to buy a new copy because the downloaded version didn't support iCloud but the MacApp store did yet there's no way to upgrade a standalone license to a MacApp Store license (unless its iWork which strangely had that option due to Apple exploiting their own secret APIs). But I digress.
Get used to the subscription model because it is fast becoming the new norm. The reality is that you end up with steady ongoing income that is much easier to forecast. If I have 10,000 customers who paid this month, its reasonable forecasting 10,000 next month (or, based on previous monthly trends, +/- 10% for example).
The downside is on the consumer level. Previously, when a company expected to release the next version in November and have a major income boost (upgrades and new purchases at a much-higher-than-subscription price) but the software wasn't ready, they'd push it back a month or two and the consumer would simply wait. Now, a delay means, well, not much... that monthly revenue is still coming in. On the one hand, it should inspire new and updated software to only be released when its ready. In reality (just based on my personal experience with non-AgileBits subscriptions) it means "no big deal" to the company. Paying overtime to developers and expanding teams to ensure the release is on time and perfect is no longer cost effective.
I get why AgileBits and others have gone to this model. I just am cynical as to it being solely due to customer demand. In their credit, it doesn't sound like anything is changing if you don't want it to. Upgrades have cost $ in the past and they will in the future. ...OR... you could switch to the subscription model and also get upgrades but know that $3/month is going to yet another subscription.
Get used to the subscription model because it is fast becoming the new norm. The reality is that you end up with steady ongoing income that is much easier to forecast. If I have 10,000 customers who paid this month, its reasonable forecasting 10,000 next month (or, based on previous monthly trends, +/- 10% for example).
The downside is on the consumer level. Previously, when a company expected to release the next version in November and have a major income boost (upgrades and new purchases at a much-higher-than-subscription price) but the software wasn't ready, they'd push it back a month or two and the consumer would simply wait. Now, a delay means, well, not much... that monthly revenue is still coming in. On the one hand, it should inspire new and updated software to only be released when its ready. In reality (just based on my personal experience with non-AgileBits subscriptions) it means "no big deal" to the company. Paying overtime to developers and expanding teams to ensure the release is on time and perfect is no longer cost effective.
I get why AgileBits and others have gone to this model. I just am cynical as to it being solely due to customer demand. In their credit, it doesn't sound like anything is changing if you don't want it to. Upgrades have cost $ in the past and they will in the future. ...OR... you could switch to the subscription model and also get upgrades but know that $3/month is going to yet another subscription.
Floris
macrumors 68020
"If we were to be compromised, or somehow turn evil, we don't hold anything of value. Your Master Password, which is used to encrypt your data, is never transmitted to us. "
I just read that as "we have every bit of data in the data file, it's just encrypted so people SHOULD NOT be able to get to it, the only thing we do not have is the master key to make that reading easier. What we have is everything YOU value the most precious data - which is why you use our product - but we just call that 'not anything of value'. Fingers crossed huh!"
Sorry, that's why I am paranoid. Your job is to ensure it's properly encrypted, and that others don't have access to it. My job is to use an app that lets me keep my data, where I know it is; Out of the hands of others.
I love 1Password, have been with it the best I can, and recommended it weekly to others. But knowing your data (encrypted or not) is being moved to another server is a hard pill to swallow. In my eyes, if you guys are willing to make that step now with new customers, it is a decision away to tell old customers in the future to succumb to this new model.
[doublepost=1470265860][/doublepost]
At that point I am in the same position as any hacker. I want to take THAT part out of equation.
Indeed, and what has helped to offset losses MS has experienced during that time? The "niche" Office 365 of course.
Apple_Robert
Contributor
He never said that 1Password has, or would have "every bit of data in the data file."
Then you can stick with the personal license model and keep your sync at the local level.