Ask HN: Why is Sublime Text so expensive and who pays for licenses?

6 points by zJayv 8 years ago | 22 comments

Sublime Text is great, so I suspect many users would happily pay (or donate, if given the choice) $5-20 for the privilege of such a tool. Sublime's asking price is $80, however, and as a result no one seems to pay (even large corporates).

I'm curious 1) why Sublime doesn't allow smaller payments from devs who want to support the project and 2) what entities are actually paying for licenses (government, companies with strict procurement rules, &c.)

Toast_25 8 years ago |

$80 USD for a lifetime license on as many machines as you like doesn't seem that expensive, especially considering their market: most entry-level devs in the US earn 60K/year. Granted, there are users in other markets and countries earning less (such as myself), but taking into account it's capabilities, how customizable it is and how I haven't found any products with the same or similar capabilities that are as lightweight at it is, makes it a very impressive product that IMHO is well worth the price.

As far as who buys it, I will as soon as I get a better paying job, I've been using it for years and I can't imagine my life without it. What demographics buy it seems more like a question you would ask the ST team themselves.

BjoernKW 8 years ago |

If you use Sublime Text instead of the countless quite usable - if perhaps not as good - text editors out there chances are you use it professionally.

For someone using such a tool professionally and earning good money while doing so $80 already is a ridiculously low price.

There are professionals though who for reasons I never quite seemed to understand aren't willing to pay for the tools they use. Absurdly enough this habit is particularly common with developers and companies making money by selling software.

To them 60 USD less wouldn't make a difference. They would never buy the product anyway. So, lowering the price doesn't make any sense at all.

This particular example is just one instance of a more general, widespread fallacy in the software industry: Because software can essentially be copied and reproduced for free people seem to think that the tools used for creating that software have to be available for free as well (many open source tools indeed coming for free doesn't exactly help in this case either).

Many organisations have no qualms with wasting a huge amount of employee time on meetings or on engineers being less productive because they use inadequate or sub-par tools. Yet at the same time the same organisations often tend to make a huge fuss about buying tools that cost a tiny fraction of that waste of time while helping with eliminating that waste.

Kepler-431c 8 years ago | |

It's basically force-of-habit. Many of us grew up in the "windows era" where piracy was just the thing that was done.

It takes posts such as yours to get people to snap out of it.

PaulHoule 8 years ago | | |

https://blog.codinghorror.com/we-dont-use-software-that-cost...

In the Windows culture there is also the MSDN factor where once you get an MSDN subscription you have licenses for an insane number of Microsoft product so your SQL Server and Visual Studio and ... are all covered under one price. You are paying for it, but not for an application at a time, so why go with some vendor that wants more money?

jstewartmobile 8 years ago |

A) If you're a developer who is even halfway worth his salt, $80 is chump change.

B) Sublime Text is one of the few things I encounter on a daily basis that gives me any hope whatsoever for the fate of humanity. They earned every penny of that $80 and then some.

C) Adobe is $20 a month, and I throw up in my mouth a little every time I see it on my statement. Not because it's $20, but because it's Adobe.

crispinb 8 years ago |

From all accounts Jon Skinner (the developer) makes a living, and has taken on at least one employee, so clearly enough users do pay for his purposes. Perhaps paying his bills by working on an extremely high quality product completely on his own terms is precisely what he wants from the venture? ST has been around for long enough to conclude that it's probably working for him.

I personally can't see how $80 could be considered 'expensive' for a professional tool. My tradie friends would love to be able to buy their most significant tools for so little. I'm not an ST user, and am at (or below) the bottom end of developer income, but wouldn't hesitate to pay that for such a well-crafted piece of software.

RUG3Y 8 years ago |

I use Sublime every day and have for the last year. Before that, I was using free editors that were ok but had some annoying weaknesses. $80 doesn't seem like all that much for a professional tool that I use to help make my living every single day. Compare this to my neighbor, a professional mechanic who has $150k invested in SnapOn tools - and makes less money than I do.

saluki 8 years ago |

First off Sublime Text is a great tool and has saved me so many hours of time over the years.

I was happy to purchase a license. I did use it for free initially but after a while you're like this is a valuable time saving tool so it's easily worth the price.

The free/nag version covers students and those who can't or don't feel they can afford it.

I think the price is fair considering most developers are billing out at $100/hr+/-.

If you're a developer and think $80 is too expensive, look at raising your rates.

Leveling up is something I learned from Patio11, we are all leaving money on the table. Read everything from Patio11 it will help you level up and make more money.

I'm also a fan of Rob at StartUpsForTheRestofUs.com he has some great info too and if you start at the beginning of the podcasts you can follow him along from beach towel drop shipping, to a $XXM exit with Drip.

So try raising your rates on your next project and that will pay for sublime text and other things you need to work more efficient.

crispinb 8 years ago | |

> try raising your rates on your next project

That should hardly be necessary! I live on probably 1/10 of the average (OECD) developer salary as I intensely dislike working so minimise it. Yet I'd have no problem paying for ST. For people living on truly minimal salaries in developing countries, I'd say just use it unlicensed and make a genuine mental promise to buy a license if/when you can afford it. It's hard to imagine the ST developer would object.

tedmiston 8 years ago |

I’m not sure what the data behind your conclusion that “no one seems to pay” for Sublime is. At $80, for me it’s a steal. This is one of the most important tools that a professional developer uses every day and a lifetime license on all of their machines costs less than 1 hour of their time.

Sublime is worth so much more than it costs. They could triple the price and it’d still pay for itself quickly. If they really really focused on making the most money they could sell it on a subscription model like JetBrains. Apple gets $100/year from an app dev for Xcode which is a nice round approachable number. Sublime could do the same if they wanted to.

edwinnathaniel 8 years ago |

I work for a division/business unit of a large corporate. Majority of us use sublime with license.

We're (the business unit) roughly about 300-400 developers (and growing) writing mostly Javascript every day.

frou_dh 8 years ago |

Is this a circuitous way of conveying that the zJayv entity is annoyed with the prospect of paying $80?

Where's the data that Sublime HQ's individual and corporate revenue is hurting?

edoceo 8 years ago |

"no one seems to pay" - how did you get that conclusion? There are loads of Sublime zealots on here, I don't think it's possible that zero of them have paid.

Atg4V 8 years ago |

https://www.sublimetext.com/sales_faq

The Expiration Date bullet answers your question basically.

So it seems they have wanted to let as many people use it as possible so they realize how awesome it is then start charging people. If they try to charge $80 I think a lot of people won't upgrade to Sublime Text 4. I know I won't because 3 does everything I need it to.

fetus8 8 years ago |

After using it throughout college and now at work, I decided 4+ years of using it for free seemed to be worth the $80 for a lifetime license.

Toast_25 8 years ago | |

I believe this might be one of the reasons they let users use it for free instead of charging outright: Long-term users value the product because they got to use it for free.

1123581321 8 years ago |

No, the price needs to be high enough that sales support the developer. $50-100 is appropriate for a tool like Sublime. (I paid when it was $70 and previously paid $50 for Textmate.)

Lowering the cost to $5-20 would convert hardly any of the tire kickers and make people who would have paid $80 nervous about the longevity of the company supporting the product.

zJayv 8 years ago |

clarifications

question based on premises:

- many people use Sublime for free

- many people don't pay bc the asking price is $80 and bc VS Code and <insertEditorHere> are free

- many people would pay if price was lower

what I'm curious to know:

- for people that do pay, are they paying for personal use or bc their company pays? --> this is what I'm really getting at, whether Sublime's revenue stream comes from corporate or fans of the project

what I'm not assuming

- that $80 is expensive is an absolute sense [as Toast_25 points out, bargin for product value * usage] but rather comparatively expensive (vs. other v good and completely free editors out there)

- that Sublime is making an incorrect business decision (I suspect they'd have more people paying if contributions via Paypal or Patreon were available but also suspect this would have minimal revenue impact, esp. if they maintained the current sales price)

- that Sublime owes a cheaper price to its user based (esp. given that it's providing an awesome product for, again, free)

meekins 8 years ago | |

My employer pays for my tools. Sublime is however one of the few paid tools that I use also on my spare time so I actually paid the price from my own pocket to ensure the license isn't tied to my employer in case I switch jobs. I consider it well worth the price and feel I have actually "bought" something that I can have forever instead of shelling out money to some subscription sinkhole.

IMO if you want to get paid for building an editor it's an excellent business decision to set the price above "peanuts" level - it's still good value for money as a professional tool that you have had months to evaluate for free. Recurring subscription fees might make both corporate users and hobbyists hesitate. For corporate users the problem is wasted money for underutilized subscriptions and license management hell, for hobbyists it's the fact that some people (like me) might go several months without hacking on a side project and when an user suspends a subscription it's always a risk the user won't come back.

hijinks 8 years ago |

I don't use sublime but your editor is your main tool. I don't see many general contractors pulling out Ryobi tools to do their job. Those are for the weekend DIYer. The pros invest in their tools to get their job done. $80 is really a small ask for a lifetime license for an app you spend most of your time in.

whipoodle 8 years ago |

It's good! I paid for it because I use it constantly every day. It's a great tool and the price is reasonable imo. My company has also bought a license for a couple dozen seats.