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AMA: Framer Team On Framer 2.0, The Complete Product Design Tool

over 6 years ago from Asha Indralingam, Content Strategist @ Framer

  • Renato de LeãoRenato de Leão, over 6 years ago

    Despite being complementary tools, there's really one thing that I like more on Sketch than Framer: the pricing model.

    <disembosom>

    I have already so many monthly bills to pay and so little money in the bank... monthly subscriptions was the thing that make me move away from companies like Adobe in the first place.

    I'm not a typical UI/UX designer and currently i'm spending most of time at text editor. But I'm a curious fella and buying a subscription for a design/prototyping tool is a big commitment for me because I don't know if I'll touch it in the next 3 months or so. (No I don't have 14 straight days free to immerse myself into the tool who has that these days?)

    I know I can subscribe for a month and unsubscribe after but damn... that process has friction, bores me to death and I know that I will forget to cancel it and will loose money so I just don't do it.

    Bought Sketch, Affinity products & Flinto just due the simple fact that is a one time payment. Bam! I Can dedicate my time to them whenever I want, at the weekends or some time off... And if i want the new shinny features, I'll gladly pay the upgrade because i'm already institutionalised.

    </disembosom>

    Don't get me wrong, I work at a startup, I know that your target is not "curious fellas" and recurrent revenue is a good decision, business wide.

    Shit my rational persona is back. Keep pushing the industry forward!

    5 points
    • Pedro Laguna, over 6 years ago

      I feel like the pricing model for Sketch is actually similar to Framer if you look closely.

      We just had to renew all of our licenses for Sketch at the startup I'm working on and we really had to question ourselves if we wanted it that badly. We decided to stick with Version 44.1 for a while and began our experiments with Figma and Framer.

      Of course we will be able to use the current version forever, but if some next update adds something vital to our workflow, Sketch is gonna become a recurrent bill of our company.

      1 point
      • Renato de LeãoRenato de Leão, over 6 years ago

        Pedro, well sort of... as you said at least you can still use your current version forever. That's how it was before "monthly billing software" become cool/standard. I never expected to buy once and get infinite updates forever. (Adobe CSx times)

        We (my startup) bought our license when sketch was on version 2x, they have updated their pricing model last year or so to that "1 year of updates", which is still a good deal IMO.

        My only "fear" is that big updates/features become scheduled relative to one year after the month with more purchased licenses, which is a major setback for product evolution, but an understandable decision from a business perspective. But hey, that's just me and my conspiracy theories ahah :p

        PS: We're dealing with the exact same question about renewing license at my company as I write this words, for now we're gonna stick with current version and leave the rest in Sketch's team hands: to produce awesome features that make us do the renewal. That's how a user-business relationship should be IMO.

        1 point