We are excited to announce the launch of Simplenote Sustainer, a new subscription option designed for fans of Simplenote who want to help support the app and its continued maintenance and development. This is a completely optional paid tier, and you can choose to opt-out and continue using Simplenote for free.
At Simplenote, we believe in offering a free and accessible experience for our users. However, in order to continue providing high-quality service and support for Simplenote, we need to find a way to generate revenue. Subscriptions are one avenue we’re exploring.
We understand that not everyone will want or be able to support Simplenote financially, which is why we are still offering the same great free experience. Simplenote Sustainer is an attempt to gauge the level of support and interest in the app from our community, and to find a sustainable way to continue providing the best possible service to our users.
Thanks for your support and for choosing Simplenote.
FAQs
How much do the Simplenote Sustainer plans cost?
The current Simplenote Sustainer plans are $19.99/month or $199.99/year.
What do you get with Simplenote Sustainer?
There are currently no additional features or benefits associated with the paid plans, other than the happy feeling you may get for supporting an app you care about. When you upgrade the banner goes away. In the future there may be other special perks and benefits for subscribers.
What is my money going toward?
When you purchase a Simplenote Sustainer plan, you’re supporting the ongoing maintenance and development of Simplenote. Simplenote has provided free notes and cross-platform sync to hundreds of thousands of users for over a dozen years, and we hope to do so for decades more. We replicate notes to multiple datacenters around the world and have many layers of backups to ensure nothing is ever lost.
Does this mean Simplenote’s future is in danger?
We love and use Simplenote too, and we’re hoping enough people find value and subscribe that it allows us to continue development of the application and platform and the paying users will subsidize the service for all the users who can’t afford to pay. Currently Simplenote is sustained by the benevolence of its parent company, Automattic. It generates no revenue except for these voluntary subscriptions. For it to be sustainable long-term, we’d like it to have enough revenue to cover its costs, which would require about 5% of the active users to subscribe.
Will Simplenote ever be a strictly paid app?
If that’s the only way we could continue the service, we’d make Simplenote paid-only. But we’re hoping this voluntary subscription model will cover the costs, as so many people use Simplenote every day for hours and hours and rely on it for so much in their lives.
How can I cancel my Simplenote Sustainer subscription?
Go into the App Store on your device, click on your profile in the upper right, and Subscriptions.
What if I can’t afford a Simplenote Sustainer subscription option but still want to support the app?
If you’re up for a subscription at a different price, let us know here what you’d be willing to pay per year. We may introduce different tiers in the future.
Why is Simplenote Sustainer so expensive?
We understand that the Simplenote Sustainer plans may seem expensive at $19.99/month or $199.99/year. Great software costs money to make, and to provide bullet-proof hosting and synchronization for the data people entrust us with requires many servers and lots of maintenance. Most free services are subsidized by advertisers, which cover the costs of providing Twitter or Facebook for free, but wouldn’t ads in your notes app suck? We’re hoping this optional subscription combined with the infinite goodwill of humanity will provide a sustainable model for us and perhaps be an example that other user-centric apps can copy in the future.
Simplenote 
I have the app. I can’t see a subscription price anywhere?
Hi there, it’s likely that you still need to update your app to the most recetn version, and then you will see the banner
I see the price now, thanks. As a comparison – look at the prices for GetDrafts / Standard Notes / iAWriter / Ulysses / –
You say in the FAQs Why is it so expensive? And answer the question without saying how much it is.
Add image support (directly, not markdown URLs) and I’m in.
1) As the other commenters have noted, your email **[New post] Help Support Simplenote: Introducing Simplenote Sustainer Plans** doesn’t say anything about the price of your plan, although your web page at **https://simplenote.com/2022/12/08/help-support-simplenote-introducing-simplenote-sustainer-plans/#respond** does.
2) I am willing to pay a monthly fee for your service, but $20/mo. seems much too high.
3) Your instructions for cancellation say **Go into the App Store on your device, click on your profile in the upper right, and Subscriptions.** That will work on the iPhone App Store but subscriptions do not appear in the Mac App Store (at least I can’t find them).
4) That assumes you have enrolled, but you don’t explain how you can enroll in the first place.
I would be happy to pay to help support Simplenote but at 22 GBP this is way more expensive than any other software subscription I am aware of and certainly significantly more than Evernote. As such, I am afraid I could not support it. Also, I would only support if I had some form of road map. How many people pay for something without knowing what they might get in return.
We’re open to your suggestions on the price, so feel free to let us know here, thanks: https://simplenote.com/pricing-tier-suggestions/
I’ve used and recommended Simplenote over other options for years largely because it was said to be supported by Automattic and thus seemingly didn’t a business model to sustain it. All well and good if people want to pay but it does seem like a lot. Also, I love Simplenote for exactly what it already is and want it to stay simple. If it becomes necessary to add a paid tier then I think those users will expect more complex features. Would be cool if all existing features stayed free and a paid tier offered new features. Obsidian or Standard Notes are what I’d switch to so look at their business models.