I can understand the business model for professionals. However i perceived a gap for the 3d printer hobbyist and maker. I really like the software and would like to see the option to buy an export module for just printing stl models. Is that something you would consider? Or an ad hoc high quality export per model?
Hi, in the next update you will have medium quality STL for free. We think that should be OK for 3D printing at home.
Awesome, thanks for that. However u guys need to make money so we can keep using it. Maybe a donate button?
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Haha thanks, we will consider it 
The medium quality stl export will generate models that are similar to SketchUps quality, so there will be still room for an optional paid high quality STL export for hobbyists.
Interesting. Similarly, I don’t know what sales have been like, but the pro version is way overkill for me.
I can get photoshop and lightroom for 9.99 a month. I think I will try to force myself into living in it on the free version. I can’t really see myself paying that much for it. It would be nice if there was a pay once fee, but I hate subscription models.
I certainly like the idea of a subscription model. I will say though that the price point right now is too high for my usage. I am certain that more value will be created for pro users as you and your team continue to work and add to the software.
One way that would convince me to subscribe in the future would be to offer tiers that unlock certain features. The basic tier offers enough for the user to use the app and having medium stl is great. I can see the pro tier working more as time goes on. Give the pro tier the alignment tools, premade shapes, advanced text options, etc… A medium tier could fit in the middle that still gives some access to exports (like a limited number of files), the use of basic text features, limited alignment tools, svg support for medium and pro, etc… Simply charge less for medium.
Basically, I would love to see middle ground as features become more advanced with your software. I’m beyond basic 3d modeling, but I don’t do it for a living nor work for a company that does. I think if you guys can continue forward for now and make th app robust, the doors open pretty wide for having that sort of middle ground.
Cheers to you guys! This is the most promising 3d app on the app store.
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OK, let me share our thoughts on our pricing. As always we are open to any proposal, even regarding the pricing of Shapr3D. By no means I would like to be arrogant, I just want to share what we have in mind.
- We have some feedback that Shapr3D is more expensive than some Adobe products, Netflix, or two beers. I don’t really see the point in these comparisons. Neither of these products can be compared to Shapr, at least I have never seen anyone making 3D models with Photoshop, Netflix or with two beers (not event with three, maybe after ten, but nobody remembers that ). A more reasonable comparison would be Rhino or other modeling software, and Shapr costs the fraction of those products (indeed currently our feature set is also the fraction of those). But feature set does not really matter. Software is not about the number of features. It is about how well it can solve your problems. We have seen people switching from Rhino to Shapr, because they could solve their problem with Shapr that they could not with Rhino. We are way more affordable than Rhino.
- Our free feature set is really decent. Currently we give ​all​ the modeling features for free, and even reasonable quality STL output (still better than SketchUp). We would like to have a better understanding why is this not enough for non-professional work.
- In the future we might going to have a medium tier, not sure yet.
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For my modelling needs (1 design per month for hobby) it is more than sufficient. What the software enables me to do is to create a model very rapidly without a steep learning curve. Tried Blender but it took me ages to get something out of that. I mastered Tinkercad but Shapr does give me super powers.
Although I got already ahead of the curve with the ability to create very decent models that I can print, I am also very feature “hungry”, I always what more features. I cannot say what will make me move to a professional subscription. Maybe when I start making a living out of design and 3D printing?
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We are developing Shapr super rapidly. We are adding more and more features every week. The next release will be pretty cool, you will be able to use the grid on faces, and it will contain many bugfixes. After that layers are coming, with a bunch of awesome tutorials, and curve tools. After that we will see
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In regards to the free feature set being enough for non-professional work, I would say that what you already have is excellent. The thoughts being shared about the pricing may also simply be a perception problem and not an issue with the business model or your software at all. I suppose the question I was getting at was how do you turn a hobbyist/non-professional into a paying customer?
I must say you have made some very good points with regards to your business model. The software is indeed excellent. I wish you guys nothing but the best!
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I like seeing the thought process behind this. I think you have very good reasons, and I understand the reasoning behind them. Mainly is you need to be compensated as a developer. I would love to help pay you for the work you guys have been doing, and maybe I just upgrade to pro for a few months in order to do that. Right now I haven’t done much printing lately, so we’ll see if that changes my mind soon. I guess in my mind if this is going to be a program that I use for a long time, (as a hobbyist) I don’t know how much I would pay a month. I guess at least with App store you an use it for a month, remove it, use it again when you ramp up. I’ll keep my mind open about this. It would be good or interesting to hear your sales numbers and such (if you can or want to show) about how many people have downloaded / paid for it.
anyways, thanks for taking the time to respond. I think you have something special here.
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Sure thing, we are trying to do this as transparently as possible.
However we won’t share numbers for a while, but 14 days after the release we can say, that things are going really well
Hey there,
first of all I want t thank you at Shapr for the unbelievably great work with your tool - it’s finally a new approach to 3D modeling and I love it!
I just want to share my thoughts on the business model as I stumbled upon Shapr this weekend looking for a new and fast way to create models for 3D printing
First of all I like the benefit of using a software that is potentially complex - like 3d modeling software normally is - for free. I can mess around and try it to get the point. And I love Shapr to be free for all my needs in private use. It’s an easy an lightweight solution to many of my problems.
but here comes the point: as I looked for Shapr and informed me about the product on your website, it says that only low poly export is for free. So I checked the pricing model, because even for private use I want my prints to be nice and smooth (I just don’t pay few hundred bucks for my printer to get a circle that is basically an octagon 
).
As mentioned by some users, I got a little kick in the butt as I read about the pro versions pricing.
My point is, I personally think, the whole pricing issue might just be communicated the wrong way. If I would have get the impression, that Shapr will be good for my needs in the free version, I might not even have thought about it (and wasted time to find / try other modelers for my iPad). Maybe it would be great to show what “medium quality” means and that it’s great for home usage (in fact the website still says “low quality STL export”).
Another point is, that I think many home users would love to pay for using your awesome tool - just no 25 bucks a month.
So my thoughts about the business model it the idea you might eventually release a version with no import and just STL export (maybe high quality) for makers and a one time or yearly price around 10 $ or so? I think this might give us the opportunity to support you and use your product in full effect.
But that’s just my thoughts. I love the free version so far and can’t thank you enough for giving this to the community
Hope you keep your fantastic work! Thanks so much…
Best regards
Patrick
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Yes, we are doing a poor job in communicating our free plan. But I think it is very decent. (Medium quality STL export produces much better quality output than SketchUp for example)
We have considered introducing a medium tier, but we are not sure about it yet. For example in that construction you mentioned, the current conversion rate should increase a lot to compensate the cannibalized pro subscribers (who only need high quality STL export), and that’s very unlikely, since our conversion rate is already good.
I don’t think you guys are doing a poor job in any way! Hope I didn’t sound like I think so
And I can totally understand your thoughts on behalf of the medium tier model…
Just the thoughts of my weekend experience
Thanks for the great job and the pretty fast response time in the forums…!
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Yeah, sure, actually we really love these kind of feedback, and any kind of criticism. Usually every feedback is really useful. Except this one:
Yes. That’s an actual review from the App Store. 
But everything else that gives us slightly more input on what we could do better, is really helpful.
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I hope you can remove / delete such reviews from the App Store.
No we can’t, but I don’t even want to. Actually these make my day. Really. (But no, please do not start to write 1 star dick reviews, just to make me happy.)
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I understand why you want to keep that one
I was trying to come up with a solution rather than just complaining. What if you created other smaller in-app purchases. 10 dollar one time deal to unlock 10 more workspaces. I think it would be nice to find a few different things that people might need that aren’t willing to shell out the 24 bucks a month. Maybe even an in-app purchase for extra tutorials (expert level and cool tips and tricks)