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Journaling Platform 'Day One' Transitions to a Subscription Service

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Popular journaling app Day One announced on Wednesday that it is transitioning its platform to a subscription-based service because it offers a more sustainable business model.

The Day One Premium service costs $50 per year and allows users to create unlimited journals, with the promise of additional forthcoming features like Audio Entries, Writing Prompts, and Guided Journaling, as well as a 25 percent discount on book orders.

DayOne2-Showcase-001_03-1-800x408.jpg

Subscription-based apps tend to divide the user community, but adoption of the model has increased over recent months. Apple incentivized developers to sell their apps for a recurring fee instead of a one-time cost when it made changes to its App Store subscription policies last year. Usually, Apple takes 30 percent of app revenue, but developers who are able to maintain a subscription with a customer longer than a year now see Apple's cut drop down to 15 percent.

In a FAQ posted to its website, the Day One team gave the following reason for its decision to switch to a subscription-based service:
In short, Day One Premium provides the steady, reliable income needed to maintain and grow the Day One platform. It pays for customer support, QA, maintenance, bug-fixes, and development of new features. Recurring revenue from this subscription ensures the Day One Team will continue to provide the level of quality and reliability you've come to expect from us. 
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Users who download the Day One app after June 29, 2017, will have a Basic account, which are limited to one photo per entry, one journal, no cloud services, and no access to other Premium features.

Users who paid for Day One last year who don't want to pay a subscription won't lose any features included in Day One 2.0 and all users will continue to receive maintenance and non-Premium updates, according to the company. Users can check their account type in-app by looking at their Account Status - if it says "Plus", then the user purchased Day One 2.0 (or later) before June 29, so they will retain all existing features.

The Day One Premium subscription is available via in-app purchase. Day One Premium is $49.99 per year, but new users are being offered an introductory discount of 30 percent off (so $34.99 per year), while existing users are being offered 50 percent off ($24.99 per year). 

The journaling platform received end-to-end encryption earlier this month. The company also said that Day One Web is currently in beta testing and is scheduled to be released later this year. Day One is now a free download on the iOS App Store and a free app on the Mac App Store.

Article Link: Journaling Platform 'Day One' Transitions to a Subscription Service
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/06/29/day-one-app-now-a-subscription-service/
GaymerAdam

GaymerAdam

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Sep 22, 2015
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Every app now suddenly thinks its big enough and good enough to be used "as a service"... I blame Adobe and Microsoft for giving this mainstream acceptability. All these £5/£10 subscriptions add up. Soon you'll be asked to pay £100 a year to use the calculator! News flash app people... your apps arent worth more than my pension contributions.
 
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macintoshmac

macintoshmac

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May 13, 2010
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Some time ago I asked them if they plan on increasing the journal count, as MS OneNote can have unlimited. They said no, they are not planning on doing that. This is just two months ago, max. And now this Premium service with unlimited journals. Another subscription service really leaves a very bad taste in the mouth.

I do understand that developers can get regular money, but this seems a little too much to do.
 
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fitshaced

fitshaced

macrumors 68000
Jul 2, 2011
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Probably no need for all the hate on here. This app will mostly fail as a subscription service but if it doesn’t, then just as well I bought it ages ago. I really don’t use it that much but it is interesting to read back on older entries sometimes.
 
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A

airdrop

Cancelled
Oct 1, 2011
51
28
Good decision, every better app should be on a subscription model, $2-3/month is a really not that much.
Everyone wants a free stuff, which is totally disgusting.

Subscription = better product = less time wasted and a better experience for you.
Why you can't understand this.

So please don't cry!
Don't blame.
 
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N

Novus John

macrumors regular
Sep 27, 2015
128
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Aiwaz418 said:
Yup. This is a terrible "model", and displays a complete ignorance of what the market demands.
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Ironically, I had bought and used their expensive mac app because I thought it was very useful in combination with the ios one, until the app crashed resulting in the lost of multiple complete entries over several months. This happened multiple times and each time I had to restore everything from backup, this was in addition to some weird synchronization problems which would leave an entry available on my phone but not on my computer. A few months ago I decided that enough was enough and I reverted back to simply using regular old word files and the Notes app on ios, but I was keeping an eye on them just in case they fixed all the bugs with the app. This last development has been the final nail in the coffin for me.
 
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I

IscariotJ

macrumors 6502a
Jan 13, 2004
637
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UK
As much as I like this app, the subscription, for me, just isn't worth it. They might be offering the Mac app for free ( which is silly, as the features of the app make it more aimed at mobile ), but the rate that new features are added just doesn't make it worthwhile. I'm sure the only new feature added since v2 launched is end-to-end encryption, and most of the requested features on the roadmap have been there since v1. If they want people to sign up, they need to have a ETA on what's coming, and when-ish ( seeing as their whole reasoning for the subscription is to continue development ).

Presumably, the discount for those that own the app already isn't going anywhere, so I'll wait and see.
 
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fitshaced

fitshaced

macrumors 68000
Jul 2, 2011
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airdrop said:
Good decision, every better app should be on a subscription model, $2-3/month is a really not that much.
Everyone wants a free stuff, which is totally disgusting.

Subscription = better product = less time wasted and a better experience for you.
Why you can't understand this.

So please don't cry!
Don't blame.
Click to expand...
Well I don’t agree with that. Often there is very little improvement on subscription based services. If there is regular (and usefully) feature releases then it might make sense. But not for a journal app.
 
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Paul Dawkins

Paul Dawkins

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Dec 15, 2016
365
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Stonehenge
airdrop said:
Good decision, every better app should be on a subscription model, $2-3/month is a really not that much.
Everyone wants a free stuff, which is totally disgusting.

Subscription = better product = less time wasted and a better experience for you.
Why you can't understand this.

So please don't cry!
Don't blame.
Click to expand...
Well you can go crazy with your subscriptions then.
 
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