We’re sorry that our upgrade info comes over as confusing. We tried to squeeze in all we could without writing too much (another complaint that people had: we’d be too wordy).
As for the upgrade prices: As they’re different depending from which license you come we’ve added this info to the user’s account and it’s also available by choosing the menu command DEVONthink > Purchase from within any edition of DEVONthink 2.
And yet they don’t publicly post the upgrade prices for current users, they send people to log into their site to get info, and then they have to follow up with explanations on their Discourse forum when that information shows to be insufficient or confusing.
It’s just another typical day at Devon Technologies.
Nice to see you here. In fairness I didn’t think the pricing system was confusing. I believe you guys try to be as fair as possible. It is a complex app and an useful one. I learnt a thing or two on this thread which came as a relief.
Read my other comments on pricing on this site. I argued in one place that your app is just one step above free really. Cheaper since in ‘free’ there are often, either just limited though useful functions or as Jared Lanier says, “you are the product”. The whole pricing issue is, I have found, very distorted, it must be hell for a Developer. I come from a ‘must be free’ nerdy culture that I have tried to change without becoming a ‘sue if you see any microsoft code you recognize…’ 
guy.
We spent a lot of time discussing our pricing structure and an upgrade pricing model that is fair to most people. We know that the transition from a person-based to seat-based model would cause friction but in order to avoid moving to subscriptions we finally opted for seats.
In the end it ensures that we’ll be here in the years to come to continue to provide our users with free upgrades and the occasional upgrades (remember: the last paid upgrade for DEVONthink was eleven (!) years ago).
For what it is worth I think there was a strong case in your app to move to subscription. I appreciate there is a lot of hostility to that model. I took a while to become convinced. Your app works out at about 10$ a year for me or less. It is, as I said, just a step above free. I wish I could really ask you more questions but I would be prying. Thanks for the app. I recommend it and will continue to do so. I don’t know how I would manage without it now.
Feel free to IM me here or on our own forum.
I will, when I do I will make sure my remarks are well thought out and formulated.
"If you can’t understand our pricing policy, our software is not for you 
"
Today’s favorite for me.
The complaints are that you went from completely unrestricted to two seats and your rationale is: A) some people abused the old system and B) most people can live with 2.
A = Everyone gets punished for the bad actions of a few.
B = Seems dubious given the number of forum posts asking you to reconsider.
Surely there could have been a better way.
If you’re publicly committing that it will be 10 years before the next paid upgrade, that might change the conversation about upgrade costs. Otherwise, past behavior is no guarantee about future performance.
I wouldn’t disagree but you can be absolutely assured that we’ve spent a lot of time and energy on making this as fair for as many customers as possible. Maybe we found a good way for the majority, maybe not. And we knew that there would be friction.
For many good reasons (and past experience) we don’t announce our plans unless that’s part of the plan.
Really when I think properly about this my brain starts to hurt. I don’t envy the Developers at the moment and nobody steps in to help them either with PR and marketing. Anchoring would be helpful and a simple marketing and PR strategy, basically the ‘cup at starbucks’ approach.
Bear in mind, for example, that one institutional sub to a certain Chemistry Journal is now $20K. I think the CA University system recently refused to pay it… Math Lab, not on Mac yet I don’t think, is, though a powerful must have app for some, is over $2000 for a perpetual licence with a single seat: but, interestingly, just introduced a massivly cheaper licence for ‘home’ and ‘student’ use.
I take your points @tjluoma but in my experience the behavior @eboehnisch is dealing with is quite widespread and indeed, more to the point, not seen as ‘bad behavior’, but, almost reflexively, a blow for ‘software freedom’: as always hitting the ‘innocent’ harder than the guilty… ? a hold over from Olden Microsoft days I guess?
I upgraded to DT3 and it’s fantastic value.
Competitors like Keep It figured out how to clearly and concisely detail that similarly complex information, publicly, for anyone to see. 
Not a fair comparison in complexity: Keep It does not come from a 3-tier product (DT 2, DT Pro 2, DT 2 pro office), nor offers distinct new tiers (DT 3, DT3 Pro, DT3 Pro Server), nor does it offer additional discounts for students and NPO’s.
This leads to at least 3 * 3 * 2 = 18 potential upgrading paths.
Hence, you can argue on the choice of not having the specific upgrade pricing publicly available, but your argument using the KeepIt example as counterargument as how this can be done is incomplete.
(an interactive pricing page, with selectable options to determine your upgrade path might be an alternative, more feasible, solution)
I still strongly think a software company needs to be transparent, even if it means it needs to spend a little time formulating a few clear, brief paragraphs explaining pricing so everyone - including people who aren’t customers who want to understand how your company prices its products - can see what the upgrade paths are. In addition, given the fact that people also need further explication on your own forum and Twitter (and here) despite this more secretive process suggests that the choice Devon made was suboptimal.
I’ve hesitated over this upgrade more than any other ever because of the pricing. I need to run DevonThink on two computers, but also on at least 3 partitions on each computer. Buying an additional 4 licenses isn’t feasible, so I guess I’m one of the ones abusing my DTPO license, although I did not think so. I switched to DTPO when the client I was working for didn’t allow me to keep my research, notes, and journal in Evernote any more because of their secrecy policies. If anybody found out I was using Evernote I would have been terminated immediately.
I like the DT3 update, but since I can’t afford a legit license any more I guess I’ll either stick with DTPO2, go back to Evernote, or maybe give OneNote a shot.
I assume that was sarcasm given that there are seven different pricing options for the Mac, right?
I was not confused by the pricing description, and I appreciated seeing it publicly available. Better than the obfuscatory alternative that results in confusion and spawns multiple discussions on multiple fora.
Would contacting DevonThink support allow expanded personal use for these edge cases? It seems like soft limits would stop the abusers just as well and allow genuine personal use on a lot of virtual or physical machines.
