← Part of MavenWright Studio

2026-05-22

We moved to monthly subscription — here's why

When we launched StitchKit at the start of May, we sold it as perpetual lifetime: $249 for Pro, $599 for Studio, 12 months of updates included, optional renewal after. We meant it. We thought we'd be the rare embroidery vendor that didn't rent its software.

Two months in, we changed our minds. Here's what changed and what it means for you.

Why perpetual didn't work for us

Three things happened between launch and now:

  1. The roadmap got bigger than the cheque. Between May 12 and May 22 we shipped the Cloud Design Library, version history with 30-day soft-delete grace, the Customer Approval Web Link product, a Cost / Quote Estimator, 6 new fill algorithms (AutoSatin, Spiral, Ripple, Contour, Stippling, CrossStitch, Redwork), the Node Editor, Knife / Trim / Intersect cutter tools, AI Copilot with credit ledger, and RevenueCat + Paddle billing infrastructure. None of that was on the original roadmap. All of it carries ongoing server cost (cloud storage, AI inference, webhook reliability) that a one-time payment can't fund.

  2. Customers actually wanted the AI stuff. The original pitch was "modern embroidery editor that runs natively on Apple Silicon." That's still the core. But Magic Wand, Photo Stitch, and the AI Copilot moved from nice-to-have to the selling point in beta feedback. Those features cost real money to run per request. Subscription credits is the only honest pricing for that.

  3. Continuous shipping is expensive. We do work-in-public weekly releases. A perpetual customer who bought v1.0 and never paid us again has every right to keep using v1.0 forever — but they expected v1.3's Cloud Library and AI Copilot too. That's not a contract we could sustain.

What the new model looks like

Three monthly tiers, all month-to-month, cancel anytime:

  • Starter — $149.99/mo. All 9 file formats, Lettering Studio, density heatmap, 1 machine direct-connect, Cloud Library (5 GB), 100 AI credits, email support.
  • Pro — $249.99/mo. Everything in Starter, plus AI Copilot, 3D preview, version history, advanced fills, Node Editor, Knife / Trim / Intersect, 3 machine direct-connects, 600 AI credits, priority support.
  • Ultimate — $349.99/mo. Everything in Pro, plus the B2B agency stack (Customer Approval Web Link with order context, Cost / Quote Estimator), 2,500 AI credits + 20% off top-ups, multi-brand thread library, batch processing, white-glove onboarding, dedicated Slack.

Detail on the pricing page.

What stays the same

  • Your files are yours. DST, PES, EXP, JEF, VP3, XXX, PEC, VIP, HUS — every export is an open format. Cancel tomorrow, your designs open on any machine for the rest of time.
  • No dongle, ever. License is tied to your MavenWright account, not a USB stick.
  • Mac and Windows are equal-class natives. No Parallels. No "Mac version coming."
  • No tutorial debt. Open file, click, stitch. The toolbar still speaks plain English.
  • Cancel anytime. Monthly. No annual lock-in. No early-termination fee. Billing stops at the end of your current period.

If you bought a perpetual licence at launch

Anyone who bought during the May 8–21 perpetual window keeps their lifetime licence at the feature set described in their original purchase. We're not retroactively rugging anyone. The migration path forward (lifetime → subscription upgrade with credit) is something we'll write up separately once we have the migration UX shipped.

What this is not

This isn't an attempt to sneak Wilcom or Hatch pricing. Our Pro tier is $249.99/mo vs Wilcom's $1,299 perpetual + dealer service contracts. Our Ultimate B2B agency tier is $349.99/mo vs DecoNetwork's $289/mo just for the approval-link product, before you've paid for digitizing software at all. We're trying to keep the same "make embroidery software feel modern, fair, and ownership-respecting" position that we launched on — we just had to pick a pricing model that funds the roadmap we actually want to ship.

Questions? Email [email protected].