Premium is Here!

Heya! We've finally gotten some things together in order to start rolling out premium offerings across our main bots. So far we've gotten things set up for Sheep, and pretty soon we'll have some features up for Form Fox as well :D

We wanted to write this post as an introduction for premium, but also as a way to go over what some of our plans and ideas are around premium features. Let's get into it!

Philosophy

Our philosophy on these things can be boiled down to a handful of points:

1. Asking people to give us money is a big deal to us. We always want to offer things in return, and we want our offerings to be valuable to those who are paying us
2. We never want to make our creations fully pay-to-use, and we hate locking features behind paywalls in general. If we can avoid it, we will
3. For the things that we do put behind paywalls, we want them to have the lowest impact possible. We don't want to remove something from thousands of people who are actively using it- we'd rather try to find a happy medium or a niche feature that only a small amount of people need to use

In short, we don't want to make our bots into another Mee6 scenario, but we do want those who pay us to have features they'll actually use. We'd rather keep the vast majority of features free and with very light limits, and we specifically want to target features that are highly optional and less frequently used for premium. That way there, most people will be able to use our bots without issue, and those who truly need the other functionality can consider if premium is worth it for them

Current Features & Stats

Now that we've covered our thoughts a bit, here's a look at what we're currently planning for premium and how it affects our users:

Sheep: Saved color limits

We've implemented a limit to saved colors: users can now only create 10 before needing to upgrade. This may seem like a low number, but it turns out that very few people ever create more than that! When we did the math, less than 1% of our total users had saved colors- and only 18% of that amount of people would be affected by the change. Overall, only about 0.10% of our total users are affected. That's about a couple hundred overall, and it's likely that not all of them will need extra color slots

Don't worry about having more than 10 right now- nothing will be deleted and you'll still be able to use the ones you have. You just won't be able to create more until you upgrade or delete enough that you're below the limit again

Form Fox: Form creation and section limits

We're planning to add a limit of 5 forms per server. Again, this may seem like a small number, but a vast majority of servers actually only have a single form! With a limit of 5, servers can still have verification, partnership, and moderator applications, along with room for a couple more if needed

This change would only affect about 1.20% of servers that are currently using Form Fox. And there's no need to worry about losing anything- like with Sheep, you'll only be stopped from creating new forms, and nothing will be deleted nor will things stop working :3

As for sections, we see them as more of a power-user feature, but we're back and forth on whether we want to fully lock them behind premium or allow them with limits. At the moment, we're thinking of having a limit of 3 sections per form once that feature releases, with an unlimited (within reason) amount for premium users

Ticket Golem: Ticket type limits

In the near future, we're planning to release a feature for ticket types, allowing servers to differentiate between things like support tickets, report tickets, partnership tickets, and anything else servers might need. When these release, we're planning to have a limit of 3 types per server unless upgraded. While we don't have math for this one, we haven't seen very many servers in the wild with more than 3 types, and we can always update the limit later if it's too restrictive ^^

And more to come!

These are all the plans we have at the moment, but we're still going to be working on adding new features and perks to premium as we go along! We also plan to adjust certain things if needed, so please don't hesitate to give us feedback

The Future

So far, we've started rolling out individual subscription options for bots. What's next? What about the dashboard?

These things are still a work in progress, but we're getting somewhere! We're still planning to release the dash, and through it we'll also offer a way to manage your premium status separate from Discord's built-in monetization. Here's how it'll work:

Individual bot subscriptions

We're still planning to have an option for individual subscriptions for those who really only use one bot. This won't change aside from being moved away from Discord's billing eventually

When it comes to server-based subscriptions (like Form Fox), you'll get a "server pack" to decide which servers to give premium to. We'll go over that more down below

Combined bot subscription

We also plan to have a subscription option for those who use multiple of our bots, covering all of them at a reduced price to what it would cost to subscribe to each one individually. We're not sure on exact pricing yet, but we'll be figuring that out when we get there

With this model, you'll also receive server packs for each bot that needs them!

Server packs

"Server packs" are our take on handling server-based subscription perks in a more manageable way. Essentially, you'll have a limit on the number of servers you can apply perks (potentially per bot), and you can increase that limit by purchasing these packs

We're not certain if packs will be a one-time purchase or another subscription (think like boosting a server on Discord), but either way: you'll always have a couple servers to start with, so if you only use our bots in one place, then you should be good to go with the standard subscriptions!

Lifetime purchase options

Subscriptions kinda suck, and we understand that not everyone wants to deal with them. Eventually we plan to offer a purchase option for users who just want to pay once and keep premium perks for life. That way there you can just set it and forget it, and leave it at that!

Closing Thoughts

While we're still a bit hesitant to introduce premium features, we're really hoping that what we offer will make it worth it for those who need it and make it ignorable for those who don't. We still want to keep our bots as free as possible, and we're hoping to continue that streak moving forward

That's all for now! We'll be putting out updates in our support server as we roll more of these features out and build upon the current feature set. Keep an eye out there for more updates!

- Kam