Sound Studio 4 Upgrade Update

The terms below are subject to change without notice. I might decide to drop this offer at any time.

The upgrade price will be $30. This is only if you already have Sound Studio 3. If you have version 2 or older, you’ll need to buy the normal license, which is included in the Indie Mac Gift Pack.

I’m also planning on opening an online store for both upgrade and normal licenses, instead of just having the Mac App Store handle all normal licenses. I had been planning to only sell the app in the Mac App Store, but I’ve changed my mind.

The reasoning behind this came out of the 360MacDev conference. The problem is that Mac App Store doesn’t let me do upgrade discount pricing or trial versions of my app. So I have to open my own online store for upgrades and build a separate version of the app for trials.

If you’re already offering a trial version and have your own store, you might as well have that trial version offer an in-app purchase option or a link to your online store where you’re paying under 10% in commissions instead of the 30% on the Mac App Store. Why direct customers to the App Store and pay the higher commission?

One reason is because all future updates for the app are free, so you don’t have to pay for bandwidth to host the binary. But is that really worth a 20% extra commission?

It’s going to take a few days to get the online store ready, so I hope everyone can wait.