Overview
Many users hate recurring payments. If you can offer a comparable product with a one-time fee, you might win over a significant portion of the market.
Company examples
- Affinity - Offers one-time purchase alternatives to Adobe's Creative Suite
- Sketch - Provides a perpetual license option for design software
- Sublime Text - Offers a one-time purchase text editor as an alternative to subscription-based IDEs
- Once - Offers one-time purchase products like messaging and email (from the makers of BaseCamp)
Questions to consider
- Which popular subscription software products have users frustrated with recurring payments?
- How can you create a comparable one-time purchase product with key features users need?
How to cite
Faster Than Normal. “Create one-time payment versions of popular subscription software Framework.” fasterthannormal.co/business-frameworks/create-one-time-payment-versions-of-popular-subscription-software. Accessed 2026.