Why a license includes one year of updates
We thought about selling SOOTY once with free updates forever, but that doesn’t last
SOOTY is a local app. Your assets stay on your own computer, there’s no account, and we can’t see your assets. We have no cloud storage to sell, so the only thing that keeps SOOTY going is what people pay for it
Software is never finished
- macOS and Windows get a new version every year, and SOOTY has to keep up with each one
- New cameras and file formats keep coming, and thumbnails and previews have to support them
- The AI models, the plugin interface and the browser extension all need ongoing work
- None of this stops once a copy is sold. It has to be done year after year
Where selling once usually ends up
If you sell once with free updates forever, all your income comes from new users. Sooner or later there are fewer of them, and then it usually ends in one of these ways:
- Prices go up, or new features are held back for a paid major version, so you buy 2.0 and 3.0 all over again
- The app becomes a subscription and stops opening when you stop paying
- It slowly stops being maintained, and when a new system breaks something, nobody fixes it
We chose a different way. Your library belongs to you, and whether you can open it shouldn’t depend on paying this month
So this is how we sell SOOTY
- You buy it once and can use it forever. Your license key never expires, and SOOTY keeps working if you don’t renew
- A year of updates is included, so every new feature released during that year is yours
- After that year, if you think we did good work, you can renew for another year. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, and the versions and features you already have keep working
- New features ship as soon as they’re ready, and whenever you buy, you get a full year of updates
- Renewals let us keep working on SOOTY, and they push us to build something worth renewing for every year
How it works
- Your update period starts on the day you pay and runs until the same date one year later, that day included. Dates are counted in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), and your license key email shows the end date
- A renewal costs much less than a new license, and the price for each tier is in the pricing section. You renew from within SOOTY or on the website’s license page and keep the same license key
- If you renew before your update period ends, the new year starts from your old end date. If you renew after it has ended, the new year starts on the day you pay, and you don’t pay for the time in between
- Nothing renews automatically, so you’re never charged unless you choose to renew
- Your update period belongs to your license key, so switching computers or reinstalling your system doesn’t affect it, and neither does paying the difference to move up to a tier with more computers
If SOOTY isn’t right for you
- You can get a full refund within 14 days of purchase, no reason needed, just by writing to us. See the Refund Policy
- The full terms are in the Terms of Service
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