
Ask HN: Why is Sublime Text so expensive and who pays for licenses? - zJayv
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&#x27;s asking price is $80, however, and as a result no one seems to pay (even large corporates).<p>I&#x27;m curious 1) why Sublime doesn&#x27;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, &amp;c.)
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Toast_25
$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.

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BjoernKW
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
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
[https://blog.codinghorror.com/we-dont-use-software-that-
cost...](https://blog.codinghorror.com/we-dont-use-software-that-costs-money-
here/)

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?

~~~
tedmiston
And for students, MSDNAA covers it all (except Office) for free.

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jstewartmobile
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.

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crispinb
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.

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RUG3Y
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.

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saluki
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
> 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.

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tedmiston
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.

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edwinnathaniel
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.

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frou_dh
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?

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edoceo
"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.

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Atg4V
[https://www.sublimetext.com/sales_faq](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.

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fetus8
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
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.

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1123581321
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.

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zJayv
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
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.

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hijinks
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.

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whipoodle
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.

