Loopy Pro: Create music, your way.
What is Loopy Pro? — Loopy Pro is a powerful, flexible, and intuitive live looper, sampler, clip launcher and DAW for iPhone and iPad. At its core, it allows you to record and layer sounds in real-time to create complex musical arrangements. But it doesn’t stop there—Loopy Pro offers advanced tools to customize your workflow, build dynamic performance setups, and create a seamless connection between instruments, effects, and external gear.
Use it for live looping, sequencing, arranging, mixing, and much more. Whether you're a live performer, a producer, or just experimenting with sound, Loopy Pro helps you take control of your creative process.
Download on the App StoreLoopy Pro is your all-in-one musical toolkit. Try it for free today.
Comments
Ok so it's going to be free on day 1 when you download (for a week or month or something), then you can pay $30 for complete unlock and all new features etc for 1-year.
After that if you are an existing user you'll either:
New users who jump on after the first 12 months the app is live will pay for the $30 IAP for everything up to that point and will then become "existing users".
Here are my individual thoughts then:
- The initial $30 price is probably the very top end of what I spend without planning; this isn't a bad thing, it's just a bit beyond impulse buy. In this case I know all about the app, so for me it's a no-brainer, but from the perspective of a hobbyist or someone new to iOS this could be an issue and push them to cheaper looping apps. I don't have a solution - just musing.
The upgrade option (which doesn't cripple the app) seems fair enough to guarantee development and a future for the app. The discount for existing users keeps it appealing. I think you have to keep the upgrade hovering around the "impulse" price to really make it sustainable, and of course everyone likes to get a discount.
If you ever plan to do sales, I'd be as up-front and honest as you can. People are twitchy about pricing and I think if you openly say "We never do sales; or, we do sales once/twice a year" you can better manage expectations and trust.
As an example, https://www.collectorz.com do periodic price discounts, and you can extend your ongoing licence plan for another 12 months at a reduced price.
I think everyone who's come to you via the forum has 100% faith in what you're trying to achieve, but it's a question of keeping that brand perception and loyalty going beyond the forum. Equally, being open about what's on the roadmap and what any limitations are, will help to ensure positive app store reviews and feedback.
This sounds great as a model and a heck of a value.
Yeah, those numbers look well fair (speaking as a western middle class semi professional)
@Michael Sounds fair, go for it.
£30 is fine for me. I think that people who have an Apple device and are into making music will view the value of the app based on its utility. If they buy it for a year and then don't use it much, well, why would they pay for another year?
Personally, I am a fan of the model. It is up to the dev to make it worth continuing to buy into the app. I think it's also important that devs can see a future income stream from these large projects.
Good luck, Michael!
Sounds good @Michael !
New versions as different apps or as new IAPs?
For anyone thinking this sounds like a subscription, it is NOT a sub at all. You don't ever lose anything, you get to forever keep whatever features were in the app during the first 12 months that you owned loopy. And also this model has built-in free bug fixes forever. Its pretty ideal.
I think this is outstanding, and quite fair. Communicating how it works in a way that minimizes misunderstandings will be a challenge if App Store reviews and online rants are any indication. 😐
Big question though: what happens if someone skips a year or two but then decides they want to get up-to-date?
I wondered that too, could be tricky getting back in if you’ve lapsed a few years…
Flat rate, with specific additional features or advanced functionalities as IAPs.
ie Drambo with wavetable iap. Just my two cents.
That gets tricky. Features sometimes depend on or interact with each other.
It also limits improvements to discrete features. Lets say the developer has spent the better part of a year overhauling under-the-hood things that benefit the entire app but aren't discrete features. They can't separate out something that deeply buried into an optional feature.
Or ... there's are super cool additional features but they're tightly integrated visually and otherwise into the rest of the app (and possibly with other optional features). Now there needs to be massive changes to adapt to whether those features are there.
For a modular app like Drambo this is easier. For an integrated experience like Loopy Pro, the coding and maintenance could turn into a nightmare.
The other side-effect is you get an app that is designed around IAPs rather than as an integrated whole.
It's a valid way to go, but maybe not as straight-forward as it seems.
That’s what you get for letting it lapse. I stopped updating Photoshop when it went sub. Hasn’t made any difference relative to my work so I don’t care. If new features would have made a difference to me I wouldn’t have stopped updating it.
I still wish I’d had a legit copy of Adobe when it went sub, I’m just coming up to renewal again and it’s going back to full price after the pandemic cheap deal…
@Michael You asked dor apps with a similar upgrade model like you suggested: (hope i got that right)
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The Working Copy git client app has a IAP model, where one can pay for 1 year of updates. One keeps all the stuff added and can use the app after that year runs out - with all the features payed for. One still gets bug-fixes and minor free feature.
My 1year ran out about october 2020 - so there are several feature not available to me, but i can use everything else.
If i rebuy the IAP for ~10€ i would not only get the features developed up to now, but also the ones developed in the next 12 month.
PS: The Working Copy screenshot is a mockup of several dialogs
Interesting, I assumed if you skipped say 2 years, you’d have to ‘buy IAP’ for each year regardless...
The question wasn't about whether it sucks or not, but rather about the mechanics of managing that in the App Store.
I certainly get that for a paid app (paid to download), but I can’t see how that applies for a free to download app…
No change, I think, you still get a $15 upgrade.
Thanks for the input, everyone! That was very interesting. I have actually had a chat with Anders, Working Copy’s developer, and he says the model has worked out very well for him. He does concede that a major disadvantage is the communication burden, having to explain what’s going on to users, but he says that one star reviews are very much in the minority, and the app has a 4.9 average.
That's not real fair to you, but yeh, probably not worth the confusion and hassle. One could get three years of upgrades for $15 whereas purchasing them year by year could cost $45. That's balanced out by the fact that the person didn't get use of those features during the elapsed time though I guess.
Puts the pressure on you to push out must-have-now killer features though, so I'm good with it! 😉
That’s really awesome to hear! It would be great to see this less annoying and more sustainable “pro” pricing model become more common. Solidarity! 😄
Are you sure offering free bugfixes for all versions indefinitely can work in real life? I don't think I have ever seen that pulled off with any software on any platform. Which doesn't mean it's impossible, of course, but I can't imagine how you could, or why you would, support a 10-year-old version of LP in any way, and free of charge to boot.
That only works because of this model, and it works by default, because it’s exactly the same app and the same code base. I certainly wouldn’t offer that if this were going to be separate apps for each version, which was my original plan before I came up with this one
Fantastic. 👍 More power to you then!
Sounds like a very fair model and I would be happy to support the continued development yearly.
Yeah that's definitely a fair model and similar to the deskop model I was referring to earlier in the thread. I prefer this way over individual apps which disappear from the appstore.
Taking a look at a Drambo review on the appstore. One review Gives it 5 stars then complains about having any additional purchases after paying £20. I get the feeling the average casual user will be difficult to convince paying over 20 for the main app. But having a demo will help a lot.
@Michael
there is a desktop app that i use since 3 decades now (windows/mac), band in a box: updates forever for free, new content and development charged.
Another advantage of this model over drambo's model is this: the upfront cost to a new user will always be the iap 30$ price (or whatever michael decides that price to be). Whereas in drambo, each time a new iap is added, for a new user to get all the latest features it gets more and more expensive 20$ base + cost of iaps. Although maybe 10years down the road drambo will make the oldest iaps free to curtail the overall iaps cost.
In general this proposed model is very similar to normal IAPs in implementation, its just time locking features, instead of individually locking them.
I find this payment model very reasonable. What I like is that the user can decide whether he wants to pay for the new features or not and can regardless of it be certain, that he can work with the app in the future!
Regarding "fairness": one thing I find very fair are different payment options for different user groups (the first time I saw this for reaper: https://www.reaper.fm/purchase.php) :
e.g.
1. Pro user who make reasonable money using the app - 30$
2. Semi-pros who use the app for small public acts but without earning very much - 20$
3. hobbyists who have just started or generally don't show their work to the public and don't earn anything with their music atm - 10$
This is of course just a raw example, but would consider the amount of money a user gets out of it.
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I would then add a pop-up every now and then which asks the user to think about, whether the chosen payment is still suitable to make sure he doesn't forget to upgrade to a higher payment option in case something changed in his career
In addition you could add some incentives for the higher tiers: access to beta versions, access to a video-blog of yours etc.. to get people like me (class 3) to be willing to pay more money
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Of course this idea is based mainly on honesty and trust - which is why I personally love the idea (and the people of this forum)
Best Wishes to everyone
I would pay for new features, even before a 12 month period. Like in koala. When I found out about it the first IAP already existed(samurai) so I bought the app and the IAP. Then they released auv3 and I bought it too. I don't use it that much but it's cheap and it's from a solo developer, do I gladly pay extra for new features.
Interesting, I see this model to be the opposite of what you described…
1) you are not paying for features but continued development (it may include features you don’t necessarily need) - just like subscription
2) you are paying for ‘promised features’ (to be developed in the following year), rather than delivered ones - just like subscription
Maybe I’m misunderstanding the whole thing