Ray cast introduce subscription based Raycast Pro

Raycast now has a Subscription option for Raycast Pro.

$8 per month when billed annually.

I was happy before but this makes me even happier to stay the course with Alfred and Keyboard Maestro. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Fortunately this doesn’t change the core functionality.

I don’t need AI or custom themes so we’re good. Not quite sure where value is added for $8/mo?

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$96/year here, $50/year there, ā€œless than a cup of coffee per monthā€ yada yada yada. No worries about subscriptions, it’s only money. :rofl:

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I can’t tell for sure but it seems like they’re putting some previously free features behind the subscription? Or at least expectedly free features. They’re listing window management and floating notes 2.0 under coming soon. Currently window management is free and the floating notes update wasn’t mentioned as a premium feature when discussing on Slack. Also sync was something I think people expected to be included in free eventually, but that’s not crazy to charge for.

I don’t begrudge them making money for their hard work, but this is just a further example not to bank on free being free forever. :blush:

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Kramer - Surely You Jest

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Looks like $8 is the new $5 as far as subscriptions go.

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Window management is listed in free as well. I think the 50-ish built-in commands are what you’ll get for free, and then building or installing custom windowing commands will be premium when that becomes available.

I’m guessing some future features that would have been free a year ago will go in premium, though.

It seems like the AI feature has given them the most confidence they can sell consumer plans. That or the startup economy has hurt the market for a new team tool and forced them to try.

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I’m glad I got used to Spotlight after Quicksilver. Now I don’t feel the need for any keyboard launcher.

The same line repeated over and over again :smile:

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Here’s the feature comparison:

Custom theme and clipboard history features in pro are a bummer.

I must say $8/month is a lot considering Alfred was ~$60 for life. There are also workflows for AI in Alfred, so I’m not sure how helpful the AI features are.

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Alfred is that and so much more!

Pretty soon you end up owning a coffee plantation. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Lol, this made my day. It’s cynical and true.

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I don’t use Raycast, so these are general thoughts. I can understand sync and AI being under a subscription model since those are ongoing costs. It seems like AI is just a wrapper around ChatGPT. How much more value is it around AI?

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I’ve been using RayCast AI and find it’s valuable having it built into the launcher I’m using many times every day.

I don’t know if it’s worth $8/mo., however.

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From what I understood it’s just for the use of AI.

Does it have limitation and does it support a proper conversations like ChatGPT or is it like a one time question?

Thinking wouldn’t $8/month be cheaper than integrating with the OpenAI APIs for requests

The ChatGPT thing is probably just thrown in because it was easy to develop - I doubt anyone is paying $8/month for that alone.

Using the ChatGPT API is really cheap. I am asking several questions a day and paid around 20 cent for API usage in April. There is an Raycast extension which can use an userā€˜s API key.

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