As a full-time professional commercial photographer I use FotoMagico occasionally, say 3 to 4 times a year. With the shift to subscription-only licensing, am I supposed to now purchase a one (1) month subscription each time I use FotoMagico?
When version 5 launched in November 2015 (6 years ago), I upgraded soon afterwards for the price of USD $64.99. That was 72 months ago. This equates to a monthly payment of $0.90. Now with version 6 (which I assume most users would consider to be an evolutionary upgrade, not revolutionary), I’m required to pay $9.00* per month.
(I’m in the UK currently, where the price is listed as £7.99, including VAT. So I suppose the US price is: £7.99 minus £1.33 VAT = £6.66 x 1.35 exchange rate = approx. USD $9.00)
This is an increase of ten (10) times – from 90 cents per month to $9 per month. Yikes!
Sure, version 6 is better than version 5, but is it 10 times better? Will I be able to make shows that are 10 time better, or use one tenth of the time to create new shows with version 6?
Or another way to look at this, if it takes Boinx another 6 years for the same amount of improvements to be added to version 6 (so in essence it becomes the equivalent of version 7), then I will have paid $648 over the next 6 years (i.e. $9 x 72 months). $648 vs $64.99.
How does this compare to Adobe’s package of Photoshop and Lightroom monthly subscription, or Capture One’s annual subscription (I’m a Capture One user)? These are both just slightly more than FotoMagico’s v6 new price, but these are vastly larger, more complex programs, that professional photographers use and depend on each and every day.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Please share!
similar thoughts here. Currently i use FM few times a year, lets say 3-4 projects. It is okay if i will pay for this few times 10$ which is in sum about 30-40$. The rest of a year for about 8 months FM is just installed on my machine. Either there is a way to pay fo the months i use it or i will still using FM5 as long as supported by OS. Or there will be a switch to an alternative. But i will not pay 120$/year for these few projects.
Sure there are other users which have FM much often in use and the subscription model is ok for them.
I have to agree with Bryce and M.Kolar for the most part.
I also create around 5 to 7 presentations a year.
In the meantime, it has become fashionable for software providers to only offer their products by subscription in the future. It is certainly common practice to charge an upgrade fee for major major upgrades. I can see that.
It is also unusual that Fotomagico has not made a major upgrade within 6 years. The software was always adapted very promptly to the changes in the operating system. I have to praise that clearly. However, there have been no real functional changes in the 6 years. Fotomagico has made a huge leap to version 6. In my opinion, you can ask for a reasonable upgrade price for this.
Boinx can live well with the subscription. The income is secured even if there are only a few further developments. However, even with other software products, users decide against subscriptions if they do not use the software every day. That could also happen to Fotomagico (after a trial period of one year).
That is a very interesting point of view. The long time without a paid upgrade wasn’t planned. If you look at other apps running paid upgrade models, the upgrades are usually between 1 and 2 years apart.
It did not take us 6 years for the improvements you see on the surface. What happened in that time was a lot of compatibility updates to FotoMagico 5, a complete rewrite of FotoMagico because Apple ended a lot of the technology that FotoMagico 5 was based in the macOS and a completely new iPad app. In addition that that, we created a lot of new Websnippets and other content.
You can’t compare FotoMagico to Photoshop or Lightroom because those apps have a vastly larger number of potential users. Many Photoshop users aren’t even photographers. Capture One and Lightroom are solving a different problem so they have different economics.
I completely understand if you do not find enough value in FotoMagico to keep the subscription going. If you only use it a couple of times a year, you can get a monthly subscription and cancel it again when you take a break making slideshows. Without a subscription, you will still be able to play the slideshows, you will just no longer be able to edit and export them.
@M.Kolar Thank you for letting us know your thoughts. Of course, you can subscribe and cancel your subscription as many times as you want. Minimum subscription period is one month.
is that better to have users buy 1 month and cancel and later buy 1 month and cancel ?
I am in agreement of I see many users - I pay $8.99 for Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom Classic and Lightroom mobile and Lightroom Cloud
$1 more than Fotomagico 6 - says it all
I likewise pay $2 more for Microsoft Office ( MS Word - MS Excel - Powerpoint - Outlook and 5 TB of Cloud storage )
$7.99 for Fotomagico vs $8.99 for Adobe suite and
$9.99 for MS Office with 5 TB cloud storage
Not sure how Fotomagico pricing structure was made - in comparison with Adobe and Microsoft
With current pricing I will only use Fotomagico very few times max 2-3 months and be forced to use Adobe Premier and my Movavi slideshow maker and move away from Fotomagico as I suspect pricing will go up even more
I sent in several suggestions during Beta period - none accepted
I likewise sent in a bug issue - no reply and bug still exists in version 6.0
my suggestion is to change pricing options. - but do not expect any reply
I suspected many others would want to say something about new pricing - and I see some have taken the time to express their disappointment
I cannot see my self be going through a payment process every month or selected months
I am not saying that $7.99 is not a valid one month option but most all vendors like web hosting companies give discounts for a year subscription and more discount on a 2 year etc.
I have used Fotomagico for many years - and yes there have Not been many drastic updates early
so something to compare to say Lightroom and Photoshop for $1 more
If many big beneficial features added each year then maybe
Good luck with the sole pricing option - but have a strong feeling you will loose me as a regular customer for many years
Regards
JH
I also have owned Fotomagico for quite a few years and use it occasionally. The subscription pricing model doesn’t work for me for this limited-use program.
Boinx has made a commercial decision. Time will tell if it is the correct one. I would hope that it will be reconsidered.
Agreeing with the views here. FotoMagico is excellent at what it does but It will be too expensive to subscribe for the two or three times a year I use it. The idea that I could subscribe only when I need it would be a hassle for me and less income for you than if I was paying a reasonable upgrade fee as in the past.
I note the UK’s Mac App Store version is a cheaper monthly fee and also offers a discounted annual fee which does not seem to be available from the listing in your store. Could a further discounted annual fee be offered to existing users in recognition of their past support - something akin to an annual upgrade fee?
I do like to support software developers and appreciate your work. I have several subscriptions for software I use and have just renewed my annual subscription to Panic’s Nova editor which I probably use three or four times more often and that was £44 - less than half of what you are asking.
For me the new subscription pricing is a deal breaker. It’s simply too costly for a program for what it does and the frequency that I use it which is a few times a year. Too, V5 that still has issues that now will never be fixed. For example, I have an M1 Mac with 16g and I have to frequency restart my computer (quitting the app doesn’t fix this problem) because photos and text freeze (weld together) for every slide. Too, Too, it’s a memory hog. I have CleanMyMac on my computer and when I run Fotomagico I often get pop up messages re: shortage of memory.
Its a nice program with some issues but not subscription nice.
Same for me. The new subscription is a deal breaker. FotoMagico is an excellent program, but not worth this price for occasional users. Furthermore handling of bug reports and fixing bugs is not very professional. I’m reporting an issue that FM isn’t able any longer to connect to the Lightroom database for more than a year and there isn’t a fix yet. I liked working with FM but now I look for an alternative. I liked the seamless integration with Lightroom and without it there are even less arguments paying this price.
I too am discouraged about the new subscription model. I have owned the program for a number of years, but rarely use it. However, when I wish to make a slideshow I know I can count on FotoMagico. It perfect for the task, has all of the features that I need.
I understand the developers need the security of a steady income stream to survive and continue to produce stellar software products. Based on this, I would willingly pay for a subscription. Unfortunately the price is too high.
The best competitor I have found, which would work for me, offers a yearly plan for $60 US and allows purchases for $80 US. A much better value. I am willing to learn a new interface for the savings.
I was very excited when I received the notice about the new version. But I can’t even begin to describe the disappointment when I came to the site to upgrade (at whatever cost) and discovered the product is now only available via subscription.
Yes, the subscription model is where developers are going. But it’s like being nibbled to death by ducks. Everyone has their hands out for a few dollars a month and it continues to add up.
Your pricing model would work if photographers made slideshows regularly, but I’ve not met a photographer who does that or found even one of their websites in my decades of work in photography or as an information technology worker. Apparently you must have met many of them to prompt this pricing change. Please introduce us to these photographers by pointing us to their work. I’m betting that you can’t because they don’t exist.
In a post within this thread, you stated that FotoMagico can’t be compared to other products that have moved to a subscription model because they have larger customer bases and solve different problems. Ironically, those are exactly the reasons why a subscription model for FotoMagico is crap. Those solutions are (by a massive majority) daily-use products for their customers. That subscription model would seem to make sense for mimoLive (which I see you already have in place).
But a slideshow app for photographers is a niche market and while we are probably regular users of this solution, we are far, far less than daily users. That makes your subscription model a significant expense that doesn’t make sense (or should at least be priced as a niche product and not as a daily use product like any of the other products that have been mentioned in this thread).
You’ve rocked this niche market for the 16 years I’ve used FotoMagico, during which I have gladly paid any cost for every upgrade. But with this model, you’ve lost a long-time customer.
Saw the upgrade email, went to investigate, saw the price, and was like WTF !!! GBP 7.99 is more than I am paying for Microsoft Office family edition. If I were using this multiple times per week, then there would be an argument, but this is an app that would only be used occasionally, and even then only for use with family and friends. There has got to be a lot of functionality over and above what can be provided by other apps. £3 per month (or even something like £30 per year) and I’d have happily signed up, at this price I’m out.
I also took a look at Keynote as an alternative since it came with my Macintosh ($0). That works pretty well for most things. I also took a look at iMovie (also came with my Macintosh. Also $0). In a very short period of time I was able to pull together a slideshow from my images along with type and transition effects that were super-simple to assemble.
I certainly hope Boinx changes their mind about this model as I would still prefer using FotoMagico. But if they don’t, there are clearly alternatives - some that don’t have any cost.
