Long story short, TSS have doubled their prices, effective immediately but there is a 50% off coupon good until Monday, Nov 8th, meaning that you can get them at the old price, but only if you do so quickly.
This is a one-time loyalty offer. We won’t be lowering the prices back down to where they were. Not for Black Friday, not for Christmas, not ever. These new prices are here to stay.
So if you’ve been procrastinating about any of these courses, you might want to decide this weekend.
p.s. - normally I wouldn’t share something like this that came via email, but I know there are a lot of people who have used TSS here, but chances are also good that you might not have signed up for their newsletter. Since it’s a limited-time offer, I decided to share it, but I’m not sure if that is the right decision or not. Which is to say: I may delete this post later on before the deadline arrives.
The most recent course I’ve used from The Sweet Setup is To Obsidian and Beyond. It got me up and running much faster than what I had been doing – trying to cobble together various incomplete resources and work my way through the wiki.
A lot of the course is stuff that’s of no use to me (I’m not going to make a “personal knowledge” system and I don’t use Obsidian for writing), but the setting-up and overview videos were worth it because so much of Obsidian’s interface is hidden.
Knowing that, would I pay the new price of $297? No. Although I was fairly certain that Obsidian was exactly the type of notes app I needed for my work, I could not have justified the course at that price because it didn’t save me that much time.
Pro-level courses are only worth pro-level money if I really can use all of the information. And that means I need to know in detail what the course will cover. TSS doesn’t do this well enough (yet?).
Well, I can’t recommend the Learn Ulysses at the old price ($99), and certainly not at the new price ($197). (I won free access to the course as part of a Ulysses giveaway a couple of years ago.) It’s fine, but there’s very little in the way of Ulysses-specific content that you couldn’t get from Ulysses’ own tutorials. There’s about 40 minutes worth of writing coaching videos and a section with examples of other people’s Ulysses setups, but these hardly justify the price tag IMO.
Also, Ulysses just isn’t that hard to wrap your head around—it’s not Tinderbox or Scriviner.
The course I bought (The Focus Course), I see has been removed ( → ).
With so many YouTube videos available for the price of our attention, as well as the very reasonable ScreenCastsOnline.com, doubling prices is a weird flex, but ok.
I dunno. The various “[X application] Is Going Subscription” or “[X application] Is Going Electron” threads can also generate as much heat as light.
The Productivity Guru and Application Tutorial spaces are pretty crowded at every price point, level of sophistication, and degree of polish. The Sweet Setup’s app-tutorial-cum-productivity-coach approach may be just what a particular kind of user is looking for. That being said, I don’t think the “Learn Ulysses” course—the only Sweet Setup course I know firsthand—offers enough in-depth or unique content on either its app tutorial or coaching modules for me to be able to recommend it at either the old or the new price.
One of the posters in this thread asked for recommendations. I realize that answering “What do you recommend?” with “Well, I don’t recommend this for these reasons” is negative framing, but it’s nonetheless offered as honest guidance.
I’m glad they’re putting their prices up, especially if it helps them thrive as a business
For the right people they’re very good value. I found that with their obsidian course - it saved me a lot of time, and money. I didn’t find it with their focus course - it didn’t suit me, and they happily gave me a refund.
For others, especially those who like to do things themselves, the hard (but fun) way, the courses will seem expensive.
Others, who like to get a bargain, will be delighted because it won’t be long before the sweet setup folk will be offering big discounts.
I don’t think they think you’re stupid. I think they’re trying to survive (and, with any luck, thrive) and that their old prices were too low to do that.
It’d be horrible if they went out of business because their prices were too low.
First, thanks TJ for posting this; I appreciate knowing about the change and that the code is available. I wish you didn’t regret posting since there have been some good comments.
Something did rub me the wrong way about the announcement, but when I compare to Omni, whom I think many greatly respect, TSS’s is similar to theirs in the upfront statement and the offer, setting aside differences in personality and branding.
Good afternoon, all! It’s been a decade since we last updated many of our app prices, and I just wanted to let you know that we’re planning to raise those prices in about two weeks (on Monday, March 11). We’re reviewing prices on an app by app basis, but our rough guide will be the pace of inflation over that time.
So if anyone is looking to buy our apps at their current prices, I recommend doing so before March 11!
Couldn’t say whether Omni should’ve increased prices more or TSS less.
→ 
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