sorry this wasn’t clear! If you sign up now, we won’t start the subscription payments until the trial expires.however, you will get the full subscription benefits, including catalog access, immediately.
The system we use for all other purchases is separate from the one used for subscription, so it’s not easy. I’ve asked the team to take a look based on the suggestions here.
Epilog laser cutter - the best on a market - 12x24 working area cost around 12k. And it’s for everyday use.
My dream is to upgrade to Epilog 36x48 working area. This machine cost 28k (from 50-120 Watts)
I have great news: based on this suggestion, we’ve updated the October Design of the Month to be licensed for commercial use! We haven’t yet decided if that will always be the case, but I’ve posed that question to the team as well.
I do like the designs and the graphics, but I absolutely do agree with Todd. It would feel much better if the costs would be like the costs of 2 lattes.
If you buy a machine of $5000 from a start-up, you don’t expect to have to pay $50 per month for further development. Besides, last weeks the GF was quite slow and now it FEELS (whether it’s true or not) like people who are not willing or are not be able to pay more, have to wait in line until the people who pay more are done with their projects.
Don’t understand me wrong, I love my machine. But this really makes me NOT recommend a GF to others. For me it feels like the company has become less reliable on the software side. The former feeling was the company had some idealistic goals, like making making stuff in reach of a lot of people, ‘a GF in everyone’s home’. That feeling is gone by now.
(And by the way, for one month and for this moment I think I will purchase the extra month for $15, mainly for the free designs. $600 per year feels way too much for me. But anyone who feels it is worth it, enjoy!)
Not to be painfully pedantic, but we didn’t; the company was 100% venture backed, and we just pre-ordered a product, with the money in escrow until they produced and shipped our order. And sure the pre-orders were a good success metric with their investors if they needed another round of VC, but we didn’t fund the company (any more than customers at any company do by buying things)
Wow, 90mb of vectors is impressive! Even a 90mb bitmap is a huge image. Does your vector artwork have an embedded bitmap of some kind? I mean I’m not saying it’s impossible to get to 90mb with vector art, but damn, that would take a long time in Inkscape or illustrator to draw that many nodes!
I don’t think you’re understanding the distinction between the premium features and “further development.” Development of the free software will be ongoing – everything you need to use your Glowforge, with it getting better / faster / more precise over time.
The premium features are created by a completely separate development team, and are things you don’t NEED but that offer added value for those who want them.
I got what you and some other frequent posters said earlier. I’ve read it over and over again in this long thread (some frequent posters are clearly in the defend mode), but it does not feel like that for me.
Besides I think that simple geometrical shapes (like rounds, squares, etc), outlines and text should be standard in the app. That’s my opinion. But we don’t have to agree, a forum is also there for people to give their opinion and so I did.
All I say, is that in my opinion $600 a year is way too much and that my feeling turned in a direction that I will not recommend GF to others. Everyone else is allowed to have their own opinion of course.
I agree about these, but before they had them I made my own and just drag and dropped them into the design.
All those fonts cost money, and like most of the premium stuff they just bundled the costs into one and that is what you pay for
Perhaps it is at the moment, but you are not being required to pay that. A year from now with what is likely to be added it could be very cheap.
I don’t need the basics, I managed before the beta. But in all its user friendliness it would be very nice if the GF would have it (I am still having this commercial in my head, where there is a Glowforge standing in a living room, where everyone could easily use it).
I would pay for nice designs, but as I live now I think $600 a year is a crazy amount of money and I miss that idealistic feeling the company was radiating in earlier days.
The market (and people like you) are eventually going to decide whether $50 a month for the Premium service is too high over time. They are planning to continue to develop new software for the Premium service, and release new designs on an ongoing basis that people will have free access to with Premium. Some of those designs might be things that people want to make and sell, and if folks are on Premium they have the license to do that. If not, they cannot make and sell the files, and the cost of buying them for their own use is pretty steep…at $35 a file for multiple copy use, it winds up being over $70 to pick up just a couple of files.
I think your idea of buying for a month and then deciding whether you want to continue is a good one. Nothing wrong with seeing what’s being offered and deciding if you want to keep going with it at the $15 rate. But they are going to keep adding offerings to the “Free with Premium” section of the catalog from other designers here as more start submitting files for offerings, and they need to get that up to speed pretty quickly in order for people to continue to be interested in the service.
Anyway, everyone should go check out the files in the “Free With Premium” section, try them out, make as many copies as you want this month…because I believe everyone has free access to all of them right now. You just put them in your cart, and they go to your Dashboard and you are not charged for them. It’s your opportunity to try them and see if you think getting more of them will be worth it later.
Update: Dan tells me below that we do have to sign up with a credit card to download the free designs this month, but that we can cancel the service before next month gets charged. Sorry about that.
You won’t have to pay that, and since they are working in the cloud they will be constantly improving both standard and premium with new stuff so not worth it now may well be very cheap later.
Sorry for my former reaction, I misunderstood about the offer, my mistake.
Thanks for your balanced (is that proper English?) answer. I already bought the try-out and have seen what the Premium service is offering.
I don’t understand this part in your comment
As I understood it, the 15$ rate is only for one month and after that Premium will cost $600 a year. Did I misunderstand that part?
You did. If you subscribe now, you get it for $15 / month for as long as you remain a subscriber.
I have subscribed. I think the $15 per month is a fair price for my level of use.
Question: If at sometime in the future I sell my GF, does the $15/month go to the buyer or does it increase to $50?
That sounds better for current users. Hopefully future owners will get a better offer than the $600 a year as well. Still at this moment…
And than I do my own simple shapes (rounds, squares, etc) and fonts.
This. I use the outline, shapes, and mirror tools but will likely never use the fonts, vector graphics, or free designs. I wish there was a tier for the tools that frankly should be included without paying extra. I don’t even care about “fast lane”
Guess I should see it more of a stock market than.