So I just went to check whether pricing in euros has been announced ā and, yes, it has. And the increase is 59% (!) and not the 42% for those of us paying in euros:
ā¬44 (ā¬3.67 per month) ā ā¬70 per year (ā¬5.83 per month).
cc @MarkusJ
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Youāre right, BusyCal doesnāt include ios on SetApp. But itās only $6.99 ā¦ I donāt know if Iāll use BusyCal or just go back to free Apple Calendar.
It seems to me that when I tried free Fantastical, it gave me almost no features, wouldnāt even show a weekly view (which is what I primarily use). Maybe theyāve changed that. Weāll see what happens when my subscription runs out in March.
The non-subscription Fantastical is very limited if you havenāt grandfathered in a 2.0 purchase.
Ah, I bet thatās why I have some functionality. I did purchase it direct from Flexibits at one point.
I donāt know where youāre getting your pricing from but on the UK app store the price is Ā£38.99. Unless youāre talking about the family subscription?
I really like fantastical. Thereās a mass of difference between it and the stock calendar. I use openings and itās great as is being able to propose a meeting date without all the email tooing and froing. Cardhop is also great at allowing you to make time stamped notes.
Itās expensive if all you need is a calendar, but not if you need to be able to easily arrange meetings and make notes on people you connect with.
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Looking at the flag I probably live in a different EU country than Dario, but I indeed see the exact same price increase: 
- ā¬44 (roughly the Ā£38,99 svsmailus mentions) is the current yearly price, in the App Store
- ā¬5,83 is the new (2023) price per month, when paying yearly, on Flexibits
PS: finally a reason to use Soulver 
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Thanks for that! Looks like the app store is lagging behind. When I logged in on flexibits it told me my sub has changed the new price is Ā£60 a year.
Looks like I might have to rethink this 
.
Apologies to @dario for doubting his prices!
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Found this via /r/macapps, this seems pretty comprehensive and it might be useful for those looking for alternatives to Fantastical:
I have cancelled my subscription for now (I was up for renewal right in January after the new pricing comes into effect). Not sure whether I will migrate to some other app or just wait and see whether I can manage with the free Fantastical (Iām mostly going to miss the calendar sets).
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Same. Will miss the calendar sets too. Just wish they would have tiers. Like I donāt use cardhop and donāt need the weather nor the advanced meeting things.
Just the basic app with 1(!) extra calendar set. As a paid customer since v1 I feel a little bitā¦disappointed.
Oh well. Time for another app I guess.
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The new prices are now live in the App Store. 69,99 ā¬ per year (+59%) here in Germany. I donāt think this is justified and have just cancelled my subscription.
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Iām with you. The price increase is A LOT, and Iāve paid for every version since the initial release. I was excited for Cardhop, but itās just not easy for me to use.
Iāve got a little while before I need to renew, and Iām willing to pay for software (and even a subscription!), but this increase for something when I donāt even use all those features, but love the general interface, is difficult to justify.
So more than 50% of their customers should cancel for them to actually feel the pain?
(Otherwise they still profit from this move - though maybe not enough to cover real inflation numbers)
I finally got a chance to go through this sheet to look at competitors with which I was unfamiliar. I can see why Flexibits thinks they can pull off a price increase. The upstart that fills in the most green, Amie, for example, only supports Google accounts. Most others have been around awhile, havenāt significantly changed and likely been found undesirable in the past when Fantastical was originally chosen. Some are now more willing to compromise to save money, of course, but without an exciting alternative, probably not enough to make the increase unsuccessful. Curious about othersā take on the list.
They may still be making a profit on existing customers. But I think it will be hard to win new customers with these prices.
This thread has inspired me to give Busycal a try again. Itās part of Setapp, which I have. My Flexibits Premium account runs through July, so that gives me some time to see if this sticks.
Iāve been giving a few apps a try over the past days as my Flexibits Premium expires in a week and I have no intention of renewing it. Still considering whether to stay with the free version of Fantastical; I will decide when I see exactly what I lose with no Premium.
As BusyCal was on sale until the New Yearās Eve, I bought that. On the Mac, I think BusyCal will entirely replace Fantastical for me. Fantastical may look a bit nicer but in terms of the menu bar app, the natural language input and most of the features, these two are on par.
Sadly BusyCal on iOS is rather basic, and on the iPad does not support keyboard shortcuts at all, so on mobile BusyCal needs a major update.
I think I will use Readdleās Calendars on iOS/iPadOS. It has the natural language input and as I have the āCalendars 5ā version which was a one-time purchase (the app with the yellow icon), thereās no subscription there (thereās also a version of Calendars with subscription). The subscription version (the app with the blue icon) gets you the Mac app as well, but BusyCal is still more powerful on the Mac (Calendars has no menu bar app for example).
Just got the invite to beta test Amie yesterday so Iām giving that a go as well on iOS and the Mac (thereās no iPad optimised version yet).
Most on this forum remember when software cost A LOT MORE than it does today. And then there was the race to the bottom brought on by Appleās app stores and prices plummeted. Below sustainable levels. So many apps have moved to subscriptions or have raised there price tags, yet still do not approach the prices of yesteryear. Prices go up and down. They stick if people pay.
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I tried Fantastical 5 or so years ago. Lots of features even back then. And Iāve used BusyCal, Readdleās Calendar, and Apple Calendar. BusyCal worked best for me at the time. Calendar & Tasks together and the integration with BusyContacts were just what I needed for a couple of big projects.
As I recall I thought Readdleās calendar looked good but it didnāt have integration with contacts. Fantastical is a quality product but I didnāt need most of its features and wasnāt a fan of the design. As I recall you couldnāt turn off the sidebar and it took up too much room on a 13in screen.
I would guess most people get along just fine with Apple Calendar. Iāve seen some users add a second local calendar and use all day events on it as tasks.
I agree most just need Calendar when looking at the whole population. People willing to pay for a calendar probably have more going on, or are in a situation where removing friction from schedule management pays for itself.
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Basically the only thing missing from Appleās default app is calendar sets. Everything else is icing on the cake.
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