Software for humans.
Be plain about what it does, what it costs and what it collects. Let people leave.
The Sincereware Receipt.
Six lines, in plain language, published inside the product. A privacy policy is written to survive court. A receipt is written to be read in thirty seconds by the person paying.
If a line can't be answered plainly, the product has a decision left to make.
- Free
- the core capability that stays genuinely useful
- Paid
- specific features, services, or ongoing costs
- Data
- what is collected, in plain language
- Never sold
- data, attention, behavioural profiles
- Leaving
- export, deletion, and what stays yours
- Growth
- what changes for users as the product scales
- Free
- Every feature: habits, goals, logs, reminders, sync and export. You need an account.
- Paid
- Looks only, bought once: palettes A$3, record styles A$4, all ten A$24 (less anything you already own). No subscription.
- Data
- Email, habits and history, usage analytics linked to your account ID, and error reports. Task names stay out of analytics.
- Never sold
- No ads. Nothing is sold or shared with advertisers.
- Leaving
- Export your habits and history as JSON any time. Delete your account in settings.
- Growth
- No recurring price, so nothing to scale yet. Any future subscription would follow the Community Rate.
A tool, not a trap.
Useful and restrained
Do one clear thing well. Complexity added to create dependency is a defect, not a roadmap.
Users are not inventory
No advertising or surveillance as the business model.
Honest payment
Charging is fine when it funds real value or real cost. The objection is extraction, not revenue.
No unjustified subscriptions
Recurring payment needs recurring value or cost. What you bought once stays yours.
Agency, including the exit
Clear pricing, accessible data, and a real way to leave.
No behavioural coercion
No manufactured urgency, streak anxiety or notification loops built to retain people.
Growth shared with users
Where a product runs on recurring support, scale should lower what supporters pay.
Inspectable claims
Every commitment must be checkable in the product itself. That is what the receipt is for.
The Community Rate.
A feature costs money to run and improve. As more people support it, the price falls — for everyone, including the people who joined first.
Reductions apply to everyone
When a threshold is met, existing subscribers drop to the new price automatically. No loyalty penalty.
Collective, not referral bait
No "invite ten friends" tricks. The benefit is shared, or it isn't offered.
Prices can still rise
If costs change materially, that is explained before anything changes.
Only for real ongoing cost
One-time purchases stay owned. A recurring price needs recurring value or expense behind it.
Status: proposed. No product currently runs a Community Rate, and no membership numbers are published here because there are none to publish.
A habit tracker built around returning, not perfection.
Most habit apps run on loss aversion: a streak you can break, and an app that makes sure you feel it. Consistently starts from the opposite idea. Missing a day is ordinary, and the question is what makes returning easy.
There is no guilt copy, no confetti and no badges. Every feature is free. The only purchases are looks, bought once and owned.
It isn't perfect, and the list beside this says where. That is what the receipt is for: you can check.
What Sincereware is not.
- — Not "everything must be free." Software that can't survive isn't automatically ethical.
- — Not anti-business. A good product can charge fairly and profitably.
- — Not a badge, a scheme or a certification. Nobody audits anybody here.
- — Not a movement, yet. One product practises this, with gaps it names. That is the honest count.
Take the language, if it fits.
Nothing to apply for, nobody to approve you. If these words describe decisions you already make, use them, and publish your own receipt so people can check.
Start with the receiptA standard nobody polices is worth more than a badge somebody sells.
Software made in good faith.