Pricing
$79 a year. That’s it.
No newsroom licence. No AI upsell. No “contact sales.” You shouldn’t need an institution’s budget to work like a pro — that’s kind of the whole point.
You can’t buy this yet. There is no checkout and no licence system in the app — that work is in progress. These are the intended prices, published now so nobody finds out later. The beta is free.
Annual
Recommended$79a year
The price, presented first because it is the one that makes sense.
- Every feature. There is no “pro” tier and no upsell.
- Support for cameras that do not exist yet
- Ongoing releases while you subscribe
- macOS and Windows on the same licence
Monthly
$8–10a month
For a season of work, or if annual is not how your year is shaped.
- The same everything, billed monthly
- Cancel whenever the season ends
- Exact figure lands with checkout
Founding member
$59a year, forever
Beta users keep this rate permanently — not for the first year, permanently.
- Grandfathered for as long as you keep it
- Everyone in the beta qualifies
- Free until checkout exists
The honest bit
What you’re actually paying for
Three things, and they are all treadmills rather than one-off costs:
- Cameras that don’t exist yet. Every new body brings a RAW variant. Supporting it means getting a real file, writing or fixing the parser, and running it through the harness before it goes on the format page. That happens for as long as cameras keep shipping.
- Releases, not just fixes. Collections, contact sheets and saved presets are all missing today. They get built because people are subscribed, and they arrive for everyone who is.
- Someone answering you. On a Saturday, from the person who wrote the code. That stops being possible if nobody pays for it.
For comparison, and because you should be able to check our arithmetic: Photo Mechanic is $149.00 / year or $299.00 one-time, including one year of updates and support, and Photo Mechanic Plus is $249.00 / year — read onCamera Bits’ own pricing page on . We are not claiming to be better than it. We are claiming to be a lot less than it, and honest about the difference — thefull comparison lists everything Photo Mechanic still does that we don’t, which is the part worth reading before you decide on price alone.
Beta founders keep $59/year. Forever.
Questions
About the money
Why a subscription? Photographers are sick of them.
Because the work never stops. Every new camera body ships a RAW variant that has to be parsed, tested against a real file and shipped, and that is not a one-off cost — it is a treadmill someone has to run for as long as you use the software. A perpetual licence prices in a year of that and then either goes stale or quietly stops working with your next camera. We would rather charge less, keep shipping, and let you leave the moment we stop earning it.
What happens if I stop paying?
You stop getting updates and support. We have not settled what happens to the last version you paid for — a JetBrains-style perpetual fallback, where cancelling leaves you with the release you had, is on the table and we are not going to promise it casually before it is decided. When it is decided, it will be written here and it will not change retroactively.
Is there a trial?
There will be: 14 to 30 days, fully featured, no credit card. Nobody buys culling software they have not run on their own cards, and we would not either. Right now the whole thing is free while it is in beta.
Why can’t I buy it right now?
Because there is no checkout, no licence-key system and no trial mechanism in the app yet — none of it is written. We are not going to take money for something that cannot be activated, and we are not going to put a fake buy button on a marketing site to test demand. Join the waitlist; you will get the founding price when there is one.
What about tax and invoices?
Checkout will run through a merchant of record, which means VAT and sales tax are handled properly wherever you are, and you get a real invoice for your accountant. That is a deliberate choice over rolling our own payments.
Is there a discount for students, or for multiple machines?
Not decided yet, and we will not pretend otherwise. Ask on the waitlist form and it goes into the pile that shapes the answer.
Get in before there’s a price.
Everyone in the beta keeps $59 a year, permanently. That is the entire founding-member offer — no tiers, no countdown, no urgency theatre.
The signup form isn’t connected yet — we’d rather show you a dead button than quietly drop your address. It goes live with the first beta wave.