Convert Pro License

After paying for 1 year of a Pro subscription, you may cancel the subscription and pay $60 to continue using your version of Cotangent, forever.  However, updates and support will not be provided. If you change your mind, we'll apply the $60 to your subscription (details below).

Perpetual / Volume Licenses

If you absolutely require a non-subscription license, or need a large number of subscriptions, please contact us. 

I've spent a long time thinking about how to charge for software. It's complicated. Charging a fixed amount for a perpetual license, like many software products in the past, is risky for an independent software developer like Gradientspace. Running a sustainable business based on perpetual licenses means convincing customers to pay for an upgrade on a regular yearly cycle. That means holding back features and improvements until I've built something "big enough" to justify an upgrade. Bug fixes also take longer to get out if they are too hard to integrate into the previous release. And finally, providing customer support for old versions of software can take an enormous amount of time.

With subscriptions, I can give you access to new features and improvements as soon as they are stable. With a regular update cycle, you get more bugs fixes, faster. There's no confusion about which version of the documentation matches which version of the software. There's no reason for anyone to use an older, buggier version. The regular monthly revenue allows me to know when it's safe to hire our next employee. Subscription also allows you to vote with your dollars. If you feel that Cotangent isn't worth a latte a month, you can cancel your subscription at any time. You haven't thrown money away on an expensive perpetual license, and you've also told me that we might need to work harder.

That said, one of the major problems with subscription software is that if you stop paying, you lose access. Customers often feel like they are locked-in to paying "forever". As an end-user of many software tools, I think this sucks. Subscribers are literally funding Cotangent's development. You're trading your dollars for continuous improvements. At some point you might decide that Cotangent is "good enough" for you. I think that's completely reasonable, and if you reach that point, you should not have to keep paying indefinitely. That's why we offer the option to convert your Pro Subscription to a permanent license. 

- @rms80

Do I need a Pro License?

Here are some situations where you will need to pay for a pro license to use Cotangent:

1. You use Cotangent at a business, for any purpose
2. You do work with Cotangent for hire, as a paid consulting, artist, technician, etc
3. You use Cotangent to make things that you then sell
4. You want access to all the features in Cotangent!

The Fine Print

Since we're in open beta, we're still having a lawyer dot the t's and cross the i's on our policies, but here's the intention:

Convert Pro Subscription to Perpetual License

They way this will work is that when you Convert your subscription, you will be permitted to keep using the version you have installed  (or older versions) indefinitely. You will need to maintain an active account with us, but you won't have to pay anything. Any features we build specifically for subscribers, for example things like cloud syncing of print settings, will be disabled.

If you decide to switch back to subscription, we will apply the $60 fee to your subscription, pro-rated from the last month you were a subscriber. (That means there is no savings in switching to perpetual if you intend to re-subscribe later)

You will also be able to use Cotangent Basic, of course. However it's possible that converting to Perpetual will mean you won't easily be able to also install the Basic version side-by-side. We can't make any promises about this yet.

Price Increases

The Cotangent you have access to today is a tiny fraction of the Cotangent we want to build. Eventually, we will need to charge more for this software. To reward our early subscribers, if we increase the price, your current subscription price will be "grandfathered" for a minimum of two years.