Solace
Your Mac's appearance, in tune with the world around you.
Solace adjusts your Mac's light/dark mode, wallpaper, and colour temperature based on the actual time of day and weather, not just a fixed sunset timer. I built it because I wanted my own Mac to feel more in tune with my day, and grey overcast mornings kept leaving me on a bright white screen that didn't match outside.
Once I had it working for myself, it seemed obvious other people would want the same thing. It's a small, genuinely useful utility, not a big vision, just something I was missing.
I priced it as a one-time $4.99 purchase rather than a subscription. It just didn't feel like something this small warranted recurring payment, so I'd rather people pay once and be done with it.
For the other Mac devs here: Interested to hear your thoughts on the challenges of growing your products with a one‑time purchase versus a subscription. Personally, I have complete subscription fatigue and feel it has to be a pretty significant product to warrant a monthly cost.
5 Comments
$300/month for Mac appearance — that's serious money. Are you targeting designers who need accurate color matching, or wellness people who want their screen to match the sunset? The "in tune with the world" suggests the second, but the price suggests the first.
Its a one-time purchase of $4.99, I would love to be able to justify $300/month! In terms of customers, Solace has value for anyone who's interested in having deeper customisation when it comes to their Mac's display appearance.
The one-time purchase decision makes sense for a focused utility like Solace.
What would convince you that the product has enough ongoing value to justify expanding beyond a one-time purchase model, rather than keeping it as a simple paid utility?
Honestly I don't think much in the realm of Solace could or should justify a subscription. I think a one time purchase is the right model for this. It sits alongside a collection of apps which makes it work for me.