[ Update: I wrote a long post trying to explain some of what it takes to keep Simplify running and why a one-time payment wouldn't keep the lights on: https://on.simpl.fyi/p/complexity-of-simplify ]

That was actually my original plan. But the price range was between $2 and $5 as below $2, with my current user base, I started to worry I would not cover my costs. This is because:

a) There is a fair bit of research showing that the difference between $0 and $0.01 is larger than the difference between $0.01 and $X. This is to say getting people to pay anything is really hard. Several people with experience converting free products into paid told me that anything above 5% conversion was really really good.

b) Realize that there are sizable fees on every transaction -- I do not get the full $2.

While some were happy to pay $5 / month (feeling they got that much value out of it), I got a lot of pushback on the pick your own price plan with people saying it was confusing (which I agreed with). So I decided to bet on a lot of people converting and just made it $2 for everyone.

[ Update: I wrote a long post trying to explain some of what it takes to keep Simplify running and why a one-time payment wouldn't keep the lights on: https://on.simpl.fyi/p/complexity-of-simplify ]

I appreciate the balance and candor in your review. It is totally understandable that making something that was free not free isn't a positive experience.

I agree it is a switch. I disagree it is a bait-n-switch. You didn't pay for one thing and get another. Just just got it for free for 2+ years.

I'm not sure of another way to have done it. When I first launched v1, I thought maybe it would be easy (aka very little work) to maintain or that others would chip in. It is not easy to maintain and others did not chip in. So either I just stop maintaining it and it slowly dies or I needed to find a way to afford to keep putting in the hours. And given it is mostly the ongoing maintenance you are funding, an ongoing payment (e.g. a subscription) made the most sense to me.

I've been talking about this for 6 months including in-app notifications. Sorry it was a surprise.

I'm sorry it isn't worth the price to you. I've priced it to cover my costs as I've spent thousands of hours over 2 years getting to this point and continue to spend many hours every week keeping up with Gmail's changes. If more people sign up than I expect, I'd be happy to lower the price.

Hi there, can you expand on what the bait and switch was? Certainly the last thing I want to do.

I've been very upfront with the switch from a free extension to a paid one for the last 6 months. So I assume you felt I over promised in some other way?

I think the default setup gives you optimal line-lengths but I've learned that some people get a lot of large tables or inline diagrams in their email. So I have recently added options to change the max-width on the list and conversation view.