Subscription Fatigue: Why Pay Once for Software Matters

Another month, another $10, $15, $30. Time tracker, note app, password manager, design tool. The subscriptions stack up—and so does the fatigue. For core tools you rely on daily, pay-once software is an antidote.

The Math of Subscriptions

A $12/month time tracker costs $144 per year. Over five years: $720. A $29 one-time purchase: $29. Forever. The same applies across categories—note-taking, backup, utilities. Subscriptions make sense for services (hosting, API access). For desktop software that runs on your machine, they often don’t.

What You Lose with Subscriptions

• Recurring cost — It never stops. Price hikes? You pay or lose access.
• Vendor lock-in — Your data lives in their cloud. Leaving means exporting (if they allow it) and starting over.
• Feature gates — “Upgrade to Pro for X.” Features that used to be standard are now paid add-ons.
• Account dependency — No account, no app. Offline? Sometimes limited.

When Pay Once Makes Sense

• Stable tools — Time tracking, local utilities, productivity apps. They don’t need constant cloud services.
• Privacy-focused workflows — Local-first apps often sell permanent licenses. No recurring revenue means no incentive to mine your data.
• Long-term use — If you’ll use a tool for years, the one-time cost usually wins.

What to Look For

• No account required — Install and run. Optional sync if you want it.
• Your data, your format — Export to standard formats (CSV, JSON). No proprietary lock-in.
• Local storage — Data on your machine, not their servers.
• Transparent pricing — One price, all features. No tiers that hide essentials.

A Different Model

We built Kronux on the principle that professional tools should be yours forever. Pay once, own the app. No subscription, no accounts, no cloud dependency. Your time data stays on your Mac. It’s the way software used to work—and for many tools, it still makes the most sense.