For some context 📊

As of now, we have around 2.25 million users, with less than 1% ever having made a purchase. The average number of journal entries at the moment sits at 21, with the user with the highest number of entries at around 55k, and the lowest at 0. That means the 100 free limit is 5 times the average number of 21 entries.

Storage and hosting fees for journal entries is our highest cost. And with every single day that passes, business users are creating 200-300+ journal entries per day. It's not a small amount of users that do this either, and most of them are not paying customers.

This app used to run on deck purchases. With the rise of counterfeit decks you can get on Temu, that revenue stream is basically almost dead. I tried taking them down; I even paid thousands of dollars to own the Chinese copyright for these decks, and somehow even that does not solve the problem. For every one that gets taken down, a new one comes up. It is no longer worth it for me to create tarot decks, because the pain of seeing them get stolen and knocked off is too much.

Without those sales, this app is not sustainable and has not been for quite some time. I've constantly delayed this update because I know I'm going to get massive anger and lots of low reviews for this. I've been feeling deeply apprehensive for a long time, but it has to be done. I've already gotten my first death threat as of July 5th, even though only 1% of users have gotten the update so far. Fun times!

I gave myself about 6 months to see whether I could cover costs without having to set limits. I made a bunch of new features for premium. It was not enough. It doesn't matter how "creative" I get; the amount of core free features we provide is so much more than what most users actually need.

The reality is that if nobody has to pay for the app, nobody will. We gave away so much for free. And we still do.

I know it’s frustrating, I get it. When you’re used to getting a free service it’s a hard pill to swallow that you will need to pay. That transition is never going to go well.

I started soliciting feedback for this change starting in March, but it was mostly through newsletters and if you were not subscribed I can understand how jarring it feels. I admit that's where I could have done better.

To make sure this doesn't happen again, and everyone -- not just folks who are subscribed to the newsletter -- can get their feedback heard, I'm also going to be working on an in-app messaging system.

Changes to Journal Entries 🌕

1. Each free user has a maximum of 100 journal entries.
2. If you don't want to pay, there are ways to export your readings outside of the app, so you'll never lose them. You can do this any time. Here's how to do it: https://help.labyrinthos.co/article/87-how-can-i-export-my-readings
3. If you only want more storage space, there are one time purchase items ranging from $10 - $40 that are permanent upgrades. Even if we pay monthly for storage, you only need to pay once. Here's how to do that: https://help.labyrinthos.co/article/88-where-are-the-one-time-storage-upgrades
4. Unlimited storage is one feature included in premium ($10 monthly).
5. There is also a "Starter Pack" available, that includes 265 extra journal entries (for a year of daily readings in storage), 777 credits, and special premium thank you avatars that add up to be about a $20 discount. Also a one time fee.

To reiterate, these changes are needed so that at least the costs do not keep spiraling.

Most tarot apps lock many of their readings behind a paywall or advertisements. In Labyrinthos you can get as many readings as you like, with any of the available spreads, as well as custom ones. The reason so little folks pay for the app is realistically, they don't need to. We have generous free features, and have kept it that way without ads. But it can't stay that way unless the costs for keeping this running are put under control.

I hope this gives everyone at least some understanding about why this needs to happen. This has not been in any way an easy decision. It's deeply affected my mental health this year and I am struggling.

About Always Free Exports ✍️

You never have to pay an extra cent to do this. I personally don't think it's that big of a deal if there's ways to keep your journal entries, especially in a pretty PDF format.

No entries will be deleted, you just can't save more until you go under the limit.

Exports are always free, and you can do them whenever you want from the profile tab. You don’t need to keep track of journal entries; if you reach a limit while trying to save, you’ll be prompted to export the oldest logs until you have just enough space to save this reading. Or you can purchase upgrades. You will not lose the reading on the screen.

Plaintext and secure JSON readings have no limits on bulk exports. PDF processing is somewhat expensive computationally, depending on what device you have, so there is a 10 reading limit so it's not so taxing on your devices. All these export features are released together with the limits. For free users, that means you will never have to lose any logs, they will just live off the app and somewhere safe on your computer instead.

How to Export 💡

Please view this link to learn how: https://help.labyrinthos.co/article/87-how-can-i-export-my-readings 

Future Changes this Unlocks 👍

Option to auto-save: One of the most requested features was auto-saving readings. Clearly, without limits, my existing problem will only compound. I will never be able to make a feature like this work without limits. With limits, nobody will ever go above a number that is unsustainable! Yay!

Right now, I also want to state, that while I am the lone front-end developer / illustrator / UI UX designer for this project, the only way some new features can be built is also having a back-end developer. I have a lot of things I'd like to do in the future, some of which was already requested by users.

So far, the person who has filled that role has been my lovely husband, Luis, who also has a real job that provides me with health insurance and stability so I can muck around with Labyrinthos. That means everytime I need his help, this poor man has to dedicate his weekends -- on top of his 9-5 job -- and that sucks. I know I make this app, but he has made me making this app possible, and that is no easy feat.

Ideally, I would like to be able to make enough to actually hire a back-end engineer to do this work, so it's not dependent on charity. But that requires funds. My sanity, and being able to hire help, even part time, so that not everything is falling on my tired, exhausted, barely functioning shoulders, requires funds. The app can't continue like this, and neither can I.