Question
What software subscriptions do you personally pay for?
Beyond the team software your company pays for, which software do you subscribe to—from web-based SaaS to mobile app subscriptions?
Anything you'd be the most sad to give up—or that you'd unsubscribe from the easiest?
Mentioned
#Calendly #1Password #Alfred #Evernote #Grammarly #Notion #DigitalOcean #Twilio #Google Workspace #Pocket #Fastmail #Microsoft Office 365 #Todoist #Spotify #Backblaze #BitwardenShare
I personally pay for Calendly (https://calendly.com/) and it's been my favorite personal software to take from job-to-job. Can't imagine working without it.
I pay for a bunch of services, but I do it gladly because they make my life easier.
I pay for:
- 1Password family subscription plan, no-brainer.
- Alfred Powerpack, also no-brainer.
- Keyboard Maestro. computer interaction automation powerhouse, like Alfred, whenever there's an upgrade, I purchase it.
- Notion. I subscribed for a year in September 2019, so quite some time before they removed the limit of the free-tier. But I want the API so I'll probably extend my subscription.
- Hey.com. I have fun using email in a new way, plus subscribing to grab my firstname @hey.com was mandatory.
- PHPStorm. I use it almost every day and it enabled me to make more money than I could ever pay for it.
- Readwise: this one, I'm not sure I'll renew the yearly subscription. It's nice to have, but I don't think I'd miss it .
Probably forgot a few but those are the one I use most.
Can't wait for the Notion API; that'd definitely be woorth paying for.
Will be interesting to see how many people keep using Hey past the first year, but that first year feels like an easier decision since it's like buying a domain name where you lock the name in forever.
I think Readwise is awesome. Using it daily. I find it super valuable for remembering useful stuff.
Curious: Which Todoist feature initially got you to upgrade?
And how are you liking Hey so far? Think you'll stick with it past the first year?
Reminders, primarily. I use Todoist to organize both personal and work-related tasks and share projects with other people, so reminders are super helpful. The labels are nifty too.
HEY: I love the product so far. I've set up forwarding for my personal email to HEY and using it exclusively for personal email. I have a wishlist of things HEY did, but I think I'm gonna stick with it beyond the first year.
Creative Suite! I just locked in the student rate during my last month of being a grad student.
Nice! How long will you be able to keep the discount post-graduation?
That was the best way to get Creative Suite back in the day before subscriptions, since your student copy would run forever (until that version quit working thanks to computer upgrades, at any rate).
It seems to run for a year and then go up by $10/mo the following year if I understand the scheme correctly
RubyMine and WebStorm hands down. Everything else I wouldn't mind giving up that much. Also pay for Wavebox and giving Hey.com a try for a year to see if they address the usability issues, as I like it otherwise. Paid for several apps when I was on a Mac, but have since moved back to Linux.
I personality pay for:
- Evernote (this is probably my most-used software, period).
- LastPass
- Dabble.me (awesome little journaling app that I've used year after year)
- ForeFlight (must-have for aviation)
If my company didn't pay for them, I still would pay for:
- Sketch
- Adobe Creative Suite
- SublimeText
- Zoom
Do you use Dabble fully through email? I'm thinking I'd used something similar in the past, but can't remember what it was called now.
With ForeFlight, are you a professional or private/hobby pilot? I'm not actively considering it per se, but have always thought it would be fun to take flight classes.
Zoom is quite pricey so its impressive that you'd pay for personal use. Shows why the company is doing so well. With Evernote its interesting to see there's a cohort of users who still stick to it. For me a big part of its usefulness is the still-unmatched web clipper.
I have many subscriptions on my list but one most important which i wouldnt unsubscribe is 1password. It keeps things secure, inbuilt 2FA authenticator, generate new passwords which I dont have to remember and watchtower feature which informs security breaches in the websites you use.
I think 1password is a no brainer decision.
1Password would absolutely be something I'd subscribe to if I didn't have an existing one-time purchase license for it.
We've also started using the team/business features and they're quite useful too.
.jpg){kind=avatar}
I spent years using Lastpass and couldn't see why anyone would rave about a password manager. When I had some time this year I signed up to a trial of the 1Password family plan. Now I understand why people rave about it. Something as simple as filling one time passwords is an absolute game changer and looking at the release notes it's actively developed. My only complaint is that it doesn't ship with anything like Lastpass's equivalent domains feature that I've found, so sometimes logins don't appear where you would hope they would - ie. if you save a login on azure.com it won't show up on microsoft.com/live.com/office.com etc. unless you add a bunch of urls to each login.
I dont know about if there is inbuilt 2fa authenticator in 1password competitors but with 1password its super smooth, at first I used to hate enabling 2fa and wait for an otp to come via sms or open other authenticator app, but with 1password 2fa i use the auto fill it also copies the otp from 1password, time saver
From the top of my head, here are some services I love and pay for personally:
* 1Password
* ExpressVPN
* HEY
* Fastmail
* Spotify
* IDEs like RubyMine & WebStorm
* Notion
I would really be sad to give up 1Password, Spotify, HEY and Notion.
Neat to see ExpressVPN after I was just thinking about reconsidering my TunnelBear subscription. How well does ExpressVPN work for you, especially in switching server locations (my primary use-case is to check sites and pricing for localization, of all things)?
I have tried NordVPN, TunnelBear and ExpressVPN. ExpressVPN was and still is the most reliable in terms of connection and speed.
There are occasional hiccups which get solved by reconnecting. However, it works very smooth on both my Mac and my iPhone.
Regarding server locations, the choice is vast, and connection speed doesn't drop too much even if you're connecting to somewhere far far away.
Thanks for sharing your experience—saves me the time of trying them all!
I'll absolutely have to try it out now.
- Hey.com
- Roam
- Readwise
- Mymind
- Instapaper
- Down Dog Yoga
And currently considering mailbrew
Ohh cool to see you're paying for Mymind already. How are you finding it so far?
I really like it - sitting exactly in-between Evernote and Roam for me. For all that stuff which I find interesting, but maybe don?t warrant to be in the huge database right now. And where I don't want to write own thoughts, assign tags or whatever. Just simple store and forget - and maybe "remember" it later with the help of the AI. I made the self-commitment to pay 2 months and use it, and after that time period to evaluate it again (and see if the promised improvements are there or on the way).
- Well, at least for me quite interesting, yes. Each morning i block-reference the daily-readwise-highlights into my daily page in Roam.
- (If the article/book doesnt already exist in Roam i copy all highlights into Roam, and afterwards block-ref then the readwise-highlight into the daily page.)
- Then i follow in some way the Progressive Summarization Method on each of those blocks / highlights.
- 1) first time i have them im my Daily Page I at least do some bolding of the most important parts and tag the block. Also, and thats quite fascinating, sometimes there are "connections" and thoughts to be made between the Highlights of the day.
- 2)Second time it shows up in Readwise /my Daily Notes i add my own notes and thoughts to it and look for similiar stuff in Roam to link to it, and elaborate if needed. Also looking for new connections inbetween the highlights of the day.
- 3) Third time it shows up i try to distil some sort of "Evergreen"-thought out of all the links and notes etc. Also looking for new connections inbetween the highlights of the day.
- 4) Fourth time: in theory by then most - if not all - of the highlights of an article have already passed phase 2, and i try to make a summary of the whole article / book. Also looking for new connections inbetween the highlights of the day.
- No idea what i will do if I encounter a highlight the fifth time, hasn't happened so far :P Probably just again looking for new connections inbetween the highlights of the day.
- That "system isnt in my personal reality as strict as it sounds. but its my guideline.
That's a very cool and thought-out process! Are you copy-pasting into Roam from Readwise or some other way?
Usually no copy-pasting of single highlights. In the Readwise List-views of books and articles etc. its possible to export all highlights from a single source in Markdown. I usually do that when something shows up in daily-readwise the first time -> import Markdown file in Roam -> reformat that new page a bit and add a template with tags etc.. Afterwards just block-referencing inside Roam. Takes for a "new" book under a minute.
GSuite
I love the alias feature of Gsuite and after purchasing a domain ($12 / year) through Google Domains, set up 1 email account through Gsuite ($6 / month) and added several aliases that I use for different purposes (ie. signup@domain for junk accounts that just need an email to verify and newsletters@domain for newsletters I want to bunch into one label).
Gsuite overall gives you a lot more control over your email (through the admin panel) as opposed to a free Gmail account.
I'm incredibly lucky to have an older free G Suite account with my domain, otherwise that'd absolutely be something I'd pay for. The aliases alone are worth paying for email on your own domain; I make random emails @techinch.com (my domain) for all kinds of stuff to automate filing.
Super curious to see how Hey's custom domain plans work out.
I'm personally paying for:
- iCloud storage
- DigitalOcean hosting for my blog
- Creative Cloud Photography Program, for Photoshop and Lightroom
- Ulysses writing app
- TunnelBear VPN, which I primarily use to view sites as though I'm in another country (especially handy to check pricing or get around geo-restrictions), though would consider switching here.
- Twilio for a non-local phone number that re-directs to my cell number, and Skype minutes to make outgoing int'l calls (still the easiest/cheapest option there I've found for calling traditional phone numbers, and free for toll-free calls in most regions).
I'd likely have more subscriptions if I didn't have existing copies of one-time purchase software licenses, including for 1Password, Microsoft Office, and Creative Suite for Acrobat and Illustrator that I only occasionally use, and have older free accounts on paid apps that no longer have free plans, including G Suite for email on my domain.
Ranked from my satisfaction. Lower side does not mean I 'regret' them.
- Fastmail
- iCloud Storage
- Pocket Casts
- Bitwarden
- Club MacStories
- GoatCounter
- Patreon (currently Onivim 2 & FSNotes )
- Feed Wrangler
- DigitalOcean
- Kompas.id (my local newspapers' web version)
- Windscribe VPN
- Spotify & Netflix
I don't often watch movies, and my prefered songs for working already available offline, so I can easily unsubscribe them. I subscribed Windscribe VPN because previously Netflix was blocked in my country (unblocked just last week after the Minister of Finance forced 10% tax).
I like reading and often pay a one-time support for random web for their article, but I still have not convinced to subscribe for Medium.
I will find it difficult to unsubscribe from Fastmail and iCloud storage because I kinda lazy to migrate, and I have loads of data there.
The Onivim 2 has options to support by purchase License Key and via Patreon to be able to download builds (they are still in late alpha), the FSnotes one I support tojoin the Testflight, eventhough they already have stable builds on AppStore
Here is my list, although recently I went on a culling spree to reduce some of these subscriptions:
- Photoshop (Photopea is just as good)
- Microsoft Office 365 (sometimes I just need to be able to open Excel files 😔)
- Gsuite
- Spotify / Netflix / Prime (these are more content rather than software)
- Backupify
- Windscribe
- DigitalOcean
- Scribd - so much cheaper than Audible for with a great selection.
- Spotify - no brainer
- Raindrop.io - My favorite link collection service.
- Backblaze - cheap and no frills cloud HDD backup service.
Finance
- Lunch Money - built by a friend and delightful for keeping track of finances.
- blooom - Like betterment for my 401k which is kept within my Fidelity account. -Reconcile - The easiest way to get credit card transactions into Splitwise/Venmo. (DISCLAIMER: I built this)
Fitness/Outdoor adventuring
- Strava - great for keeping up with other fitness addicted friends.
- Caltopo - wonderful piece of software for planning off the beaten path adventures
- GAIA Gps - ditto above but works better on phones.
Several of these I pay for not for the premium features but to support the developers of products that I love. After writing this out, WOW I pay for a lot of subscription software. I suppose being an aspiring SaaS developer makes me more likely to pay for services that I like and get a lot of benefit out of.
Interesting, didn't realize Scribd offered audiobooks as well.
Does Backblaze still make you reconnect external drives once a month to keep them backed up?
I've heard great things about Lunch Money; their smiling coin logo is such a fun touch.
We have 15k newsletter subscribers, and have around ~2k of them in a Slack group. We're starting to encounter issues in terms of community management - specifically, it's hard to pin content like c...
Google lets you subscribe to a calendar using a URL - although when using an Outlook 365 Calendar link, events are copied over once, and then the syncing stops. This seems to be a relatively new is...
Three major considerations I have been using to evaluate the plethora of options available: 1. Effortless/non-intrusive: It shouldn't feel like a video call 2. Price: As this app would be complime...
SAME! Love Calendly so much. We've been chatting with Tope about doing an AMA on Capiche, but haven't gotten it pinned down yet.