Me and @dani have been working in Panels for about 5 years. We have always wanted to create the best digital reader, and it is thanks to all of you, early Panels supporters, that we have been able to keep improving and working on it.
Starting with our next release, Panels Premium will become a subscription, in an effort to keep growing. We have big plans for Panels and having recurring paid users will give us access to more resources.
As a sign of gratitude for supporting Panels since the very beginning, we have decided to upgrade all Premium users to Backer. Backers will continue to have access to current Panels’ Premium features forever (you won’t loose what you paid for).
If you are a currently a Premium user nothing will change for you now. With this message, we specially want to give a heads up to all of our free users that are still deciding if they want to pay for Premium or not. If you have ever hesitated to buy Panels Premium, now is the best time to do it.
We plan to keep all Panels’ free features available, only Premium features for users that want to get the full experience will be moved to subscription.
Thank you all for supporting Panels.
Here is a quick Q&A that will be updated with questions as we receive them
Q: When is the last day for upgrading to Premium at the current price? A: This period has ended. Subscriptions have been already rolled out. We are not certain since we depend on Apple and other features currently being developed for that release to go live. Our best guess is in less than a month.
Q: What does it mean to be upgraded to Backer? A: Being a Backer means lifetime access to Panels to all the current Premium features. You can still “Tip Panels” if you are enjoying using it (we greatly appreciate them!), but there is no need for you to spend any extra money.
In addition, Backer tier will not be available to purchase in the future. This will give all of you a distinction of long-time Panels user.
Q: How much will Premium cost in the new release? A: We will offer a monthly price of US $1.49 and a yearly price of US $11.99 (33% save), with occasional discounts.
Q: What kind of features are you looking to add for new subscription users? (asked by @Impulse1up) A: For now, all new features will be available for Backers and Subscribes. We don’t have plans for subscription users only features for the upcoming months.
Initial reaction to reading the subject in my mailbox - F this!
Reaction after reading the post - way to go.
Giving lifetime to supporters after switching to sub model is IMHO one of the better ways of doing it (for users), preserving the core user base. Wish more devs would do that.
Yearly price is OK for future users, compared to other apps that went sub. What I’ve seen happening way too much is 5$ apps switching to 50$ yearly subs. That’s just wrong.
I agree that rewarding your loyal premium users was a great choice. I’m with the above poster in saying that when I read the subject I wasn’t happy either but was pleasantly surprised.
What kind of features are you looking to add for the new sub users?
This makes a lot of sense, for you both to continue working on and developing this app further. I’ve seen a lot of other developers give up on their apps as they just can’t keep up.
Kudos to converting existing users as backers. I already do and will continue to recommend this app to fellow comic readers.
Look forward to upcoming developments and discussing new features here.
The price is absolutely fair and reasonable. I really don’t get the idea why often app-developers think it is okay to change to an 9,99 USD subscription for every month. Most apps are not worth that much money for what they’re doing. I know so many apps with bad UX, who became outdated and buggy and doesn’t thought their ideas to an end, but still have the cockiness to ask for a subscription-fee.
Something like Panels is for a price like 15 USD each year very fair priced. So if you guys implement a tip-subscription-option, you can still count on my subscription.
We all are curious what comes next and what the plans in the future are. I hope they will share some details with us soon. But most important: Is that they get enough money that it doesn’t struggles them to keep the app alive and up2date.
We all are curious what comes next and what the plans in the future are. I hope they will share some details with us soon.
Absolutely, we’ll keep you informed.
Our most immediate plan is to improve the content organization. This has been in the works for months, and we’ve been adding changes to the app that are not visible yet. We are rebuilding the storage system from the ground up, and soon we’ll be able to release a new version that will open the content folder. The Library will mimic the file system, and collections will be built on top of regular folders.
This will unlock the possibility of having nested collections and accessing your files from outside the app.
But we have more things on the roadmap and we expect to share more with you soon.
But most important: Is that they get enough money that it doesn’t struggles them to keep the app alive and up2date.
This pricing model will help us keep working on the app the same we’ve been doing these last years. We want to keep improving Panels and offering more and better ways to access your comics.
I’ve just discovered and downloaded Panels and am trying to join and become a premium member. It doesn’t work in the app and now seeing this post I’m wondering if it’s disabled until this new subscription service rolls out.
I’m happy to try it either way, though being that the app doesn’t give me the option for either method it doesn’t seem fair to have to wait and then have to pay a recurring subscription after that period of time.
Hey @LanceChristophr apparently the AppStore was lagging and it took they ~12 hours to show the products. It should be fixed now. Sorry for the inconvenience.