Features: Free vs paid
Since the beginning, I wanted Revere to be a truly useful app, even in its free version. Apps that offer free versions so limited as to be effectively useless feel like little more than paywalls in disguise. That's not the approach I wanted to take.
Revere’s free feature set makes for a solid note-taking app. You can add people, notes, reminders, special details like important dates, search them, and more. It’s useful enough that most people use Revere with the free version.
Why paid
There are good reasons why some features are reserved for paid "power-ups." I've explained the business and practical necessities of Revere being a subscription-based app rather than a one-time purchase. Building new features, providing updates, paying for servers, and handling business services all require significant ongoing investment of money and time. For Revere to continue into the future, it needs to be a money-making project or else it can’t compete with all the other things in life that compete for money and time.
What becomes a paid feature
The guiding principle in deciding what becomes a free feature versus a paid power-up is simply: "Would a reasonable person consider this feature absolutely necessary in a simple note-taking app?" If so, it goes in the free version. If not, it becomes a power-up. When features can't be easily segmented - like using Siri to add notes and reminders - they are made free to benefit all users.
Here are some examples of features with their free and powered-up versions.
Adding people from contacts
Free: Add one person at a time
Power-up: Connect all your contacts
Adding notes
Free: Type or dictate your notes
Power-up: Type or dictate your notes, and cleanup with AI
Organizing people
Free: Everyone in a single list.
Power-up: Option to use groups.
Revere is a very personal app, and the spirit behind it matters a lot. Balancing what features are free and paid — providing genuine utility, while creating the conditions for to build this app for decades to come — is one of the ways that keep this project meaningful and rewarding for everyone involved, including you, a person using it. I hope you feel and appreciate this spirit and find enough value in the app to support it.
