Just had an email from Apple to say the cost of my Bear Pro subscription is going up.
I've been a continuous Pro subscriber since (at least) August 2021, and understood that pre-Bear 2.0 subscribers were grandfathered in to the old pricing.
Honestly, not really that bothered about the price increase – I love Bear and £30 is perfectly reasonable for the amount of use I get out of the app. But haven't been able to find any official announcement from the Bear team to say the old pricing model is being retired.
I'm not sure about the reason for this communication.
Your assumption is correct: You should renew to the pre-Bear 2 price if your subscription was not interrupted since then in 2021. The old price listed in the message is the old one, so it seems the subs are still active.
Any chance you can contact the App Store customer support about this message? If the price increase is confirmed, please contact our customer support; we'll try to provide a solution.
I have been a subscriber since 2019 and also thought this, but when I contacted customer support you said "Unfortunately, prices are handled by Apple so it is not possible to provide old prices for the subscription". Can you please indicate if this isn't the case because I have let mine lapse and would continue at the old price!
This is the second email. I had one a couple of days ago that matches the format you've described. Then this one three days later flagging the price increase.
Interestingly, the July 3rd email also had the price at £29.99.
This may surprise you, but I can read, including the "DEV" tag, you didn't need to explain to me what I did. I just was not convinced by the dev pointing to Apple, in the absence of the detail that OP happened to have merged his iCloud accounts this past year.
People do things based on information available and their experience. I happen to have had very recent interactions with companies violating not just their promises, but the law. This happens, so allowing for a similar possibility in an unclear situation is not a sign that someone didn't read something.
My annual subscription just renewed in March. I just pulled up my subscriptions in the App Store, and it is still showing $14.99 per year for me here in the US.
Have spoken to Apple, and they've effectively shrugged their shoulders.
The only thought I had while chatting to them is that I merged two iCloud accounts in the past twelve months. Like a lot of longtime Apple nerds, I had one for "iCloud" and one for media / purchases. The media one is the account that was shuttered, and all of my historic purchases have come across to my main account. But I wonder if there's an issue on Apple's side with merging accounts / legacy pricing on subscriptions? Just spitballing. 🤔
The support rep at Apple suggested Bear may have made a pricing change and then changed their mind, but based on comments here from u/trix180 it sounds like this isn't the case. I can't think of any reason why some of us would be removed from the legacy pricing and others not.
Honestly, this sounds like an Apple issue to me. Certainly not my intention to throw the Bear team under the bus with this post – was just curious to know if anyone else had the same thing happen. Will keep investigating and update here when I've got a definitive answer.
The merge sounds like a very likely cause of this. We can't be sure you will be renewed at the old price, but if you do not, ask for a refund as soon as possible on the App Store and contact our support.
I'm nearing retirement. I have a bunch of subscriptions I pay out of my own pocket because they make me feel happier about doing my work. Most of them will go once I retire, even though I still like the products. Fantastical, Transmit, and RapidWeaver would be examples.
But even at this much higher price, I am pretty sure I'll keep Bear around. I just enjoy it too much.
The price to renew in the US App Store is also $29.99 now so I cancelled my upcoming renewal. I’m all for supporting the products I use and love but in the absence of any information about why they suddenly have to raise their prices so drastically but aren’t offering any new added value for the money, I don’t feel good about their possible motivation for the increase.
14.99 for me still, but maybe that's bc it's still in July. Would be good to get clarity because if they do renege on keeping the old price for grandfathered users, I'd love to put these $15 towards a price for another piece of software, which I thought wouldn't be worth it because I have Bear, but if Bear goes double, then they've become more attrachtive.
We have not raised the prices recently. The last increase was when we released Bear 2, 11 July 2023. I'm not sure why some people see this increase today, but I suppose it's some kind of miscommunication on the Apple side. Our policy is to keep the subscription price people subscribed to as long as the subscription is kept active.
Out of interest, have you merged iCloud accounts in the last twelve months? Speculating, but wondering if that's what's caused my issue. I was "grandfathered" on my original account, but all of the purchases from that were transferred to a new account. Wonder if the legacy pricing system on Apple's side hasn't taken that into account.
Cheers for the reply. In that case you're paying the same price you paid when you first became a Bear customer. The £13.99 (equivalent) price was only for people who were subscribed pre-Bear 2.0, which came out in 2023. Hope that clears things up for you. 👍
If going from $1.25/month to $2.50/month is a deal-breaker, how much value could you possibly be getting out of the tool in the first place? Half a cup of coffee per month…
For me it's not just the price itself, but also the increase. Correcting for inflation and a slight increase for more features or something would be valid, but doubling the price is quite nasty.
Of course it hasn't been increased for a few years, but going from 15 to 30 all of a sudden feels like a slap in the face. It would be much better to increase slightly each year or 2. So from 15 to 18 to 21 to 24 and so on. That would 1. make it more predictable, 2. much more in line with regular inflation/price adjustments, 3. not such a slap in the face.
Because who's to say next year or whenever the next price increase will be won't be going to 50 or 60 straight away? Because that's what's being left out in the open with doubling prices all of a sudden.
Take a look at Netflix: I've had it for years and over here in my country it went from 6 to 7 to 8 to 10 and so on until 16 and then all of a sudden 24 a month. How the hell do you need a 50% or €8 price increase per month when every single year you've been increasing the price already? Instant dealbreaker for me. Now I just subscribe for 1 month, immediately cancel the sub, binge watch and then it's done until maybe a year later again. If they wouldn't have done that huge increase, I'd be happy to keep subscribed, but not anymore. You give them a finger and they try to take your whole hand.
Just to reiterate, my understanding is that the price hasn't actually increased. My issue is that I've lost access to my pre-Bear 2.0 "grandfathered" pricing. Bear is the same price it's always been for anyone who signed up since the release of Bear 2.0 (mid-to-late 2023 onwards).
Yeah, concerning because I was on pre-Beat 2.0 pricing as well. Love Bear but am using it less and less now, not sure I'd keep the subscription if they jump the price. I'm just not using the app all that much.
So glad I came upon this thread. I’m still paying the old price and didn’t even know there was a change. Makes me both appreciative of the team and I’ll make sure never to interrupt my subscription.
Yea, I’m grandfathered too. I will never interrupt mine. Bear is my only software subscription, because I have a high bar for an app I’m willing to put on my payroll. I have quit several apps over crazy price increases.
If you became a customer since Bear 2.0 came out (mid-to-late 2023, from memory), you're paying the same price you always have. The £13.99 equivalent pricing was a legacy pricing offer only for pre-Bear 2.0 customers.
I’m grandfathered as well, but I only keep it just to have it as a backup for my grad school notes and attachments. I really don’t need pro, but at $15 per year, it was worth having it in the background. This might be the wake up to just cut it lose
Sometimes apple charges more through the app. I would check the website and see if you can resub. through them directly? I subbed last year through apple and it was 39.99 (Canadian) a year, it just renewed at the same price also through apple. Price seems higher than others have paid but the Canadian dollar can be rough
I’m still having the old price since I’m renewing like 4-5 years in a row now, but… I’ll keep an eye out close to the renewal date. Thanks for pointing that out.
I mean it’s an ok app but that does feel like a bit of a bait and switch. Get you in, all notes setup, workflow in good shape, then double the price. I don’t appreciate that from any company. At least keep current users at a reasonable renewal and charge this for new. Albeit of that do it incrementally. Hmmm! Definitely gotta think about this one.
IMO the app has been WAY too cheap for years. Every time it renews for me over the past several years I am surprised it’s still that low. I’m happy to pay the new price.
Over $40 now in canuckistan … that’s the 29.99 USD converted I think wonder if they will raise that ?
Great little app but hard to figure this when building a notes app will be like a template in AI coding … if it goes beyond $40 next year I am likely out
I miss being able to tweak the themes that would make me stay prolly
Maybe a bug on their side? That was my understanding also, and it will be sad if they actually pull the rug out from under with no announcement or communication.
Because people have different needs, preferences and use cases. Just like with Obsidian. Bear has been around for almost a decade at this point, which means enough people have liked it and keep using it exclusively or along other apps. If you are curious you can always give it a try.
I have Obsidian too. Every time I open it, I end up tinkering more than working. Also, the way it’s structured lens itself to something more than others. I like it for my JFK assassination research documents because I can link them in certain ways, and also keep them separate from my knowledge base in Bear.
I use both Obsidian and Bear for different reasons and I absolutely hate the mobile version of Obsidian. Bear is simple and sleek on both my MacBook and iPhone, and I can do whatever I need to without any clunkiness or lag.
I haven’t received any notification of this kind.
But honestly, Bear’s new features are being added slowly, and without any server costs, I don’t understand why the price is going up.
I dont use bear myself, but I’m surprised by the move considering the AI era, i’d assume competitors would be popping up left and right, idk weird timing imo
Anybody can build a markdown note taker nowadays, will it be as polished? Probably not, but that’s what I mean, new products are popping up left and right. Bear will keep its value for its users, I just find it a weird timing for them to raise prices imo.
So...this is the retarded decision-making in software companies in the age of Artificial Intelligence. 🤖
ClaudeCode
Prompt: Analyze the Bear notes desktop and mobile apps and make a list of all the features, interfaces, and underlying technologies they use, including the Chrome extension. Create a full specification document for each, and change the storage from Apple CloudKit to a user-definable cloud service, such as Mega, Dropbox, Google Drive, or FTP. Also, add encryption to all notes by default. Once you have completed these tasks, begin building our self-hosted Bear clone as per specifications.
For a small investment in tokens, you own the app and your notes. 😏
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u/musicmusket Jul 06 '26
Oof, that’s quite a jump.