16 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
16 lines
1.3 KiB
Markdown
<!-- Source: Kon Master Brief — §16 Lifetime Licence Economics -->
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## 16. Lifetime Licence Economics
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### Proven models
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- **Affinity (Serif):** Perpetual licences (~£40/app, £135 suite) for 23 years. 53% profit margins. Acquired by Canva for ~£410M.
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- **iA Writer:** £40 Mac, £24 Windows, £16 iOS one-time. Free updates for 7+ years. Profitable with team of 12, entirely bootstrapped. Android experiment showed 50/50 split between one-time (£24) and subscription (£4/year), but purchases generated 2–3x more total revenue with significantly better retention.
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- **Sublime Text:** £79 perpetual licence with paid major-version upgrades. Sustained a tiny team for over a decade.
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- **Obsidian:** Free core + £3.20/month Sync, £6.40/month Publish. Clearest precedent for Kon's hybrid model.
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### Risks
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- Revenue plateaus once addressable market is saturated, while support costs continue indefinitely.
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- Wondershare Filmora attempted to retroactively limit lifetime holders — massive backlash, forced apology. Lesson: never revoke or downgrade promised features.
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- AppSumo lifetime deals carry 40% failure rate within 3 years (but this reflects underpriced SaaS with cloud costs, not local-first desktop apps).
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- 35% of apps now mix subscriptions with lifetime purchases (RevenueCat 2026 data).
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