The Situation

Last year we relaunched Clear, and among other things, it attempted a pretty experimental business model: a totally optional cosmetics shop in a productivity app.

This experiment started promisingly, and the level of support from some of you was frankly kind of mind boggling. But as the year went on the sales steeply diminished and it was quickly apparent the launch months were a venting of 10+ years of pent up energy from the super fans vs. something we could count on in a more sustaining way. 

I’m still kind of glad we tried it, because it would’ve kept me up at night wondering if it would’ve worked. But disappointingly, it didn’t quite land, and we now need to figure out another backbone for the business.

Our simplest idea that feels like it would work is…

Clear Pro

The idea overall is to keep Clear’s core experience free, and pitch a package of features and perks for the fans and power users.

Compared to the shop, Clear Pro offers a more rounded bundle of perks and upgrades to more kinds of Clear users than just the ones who enjoy its collectibles. This feels like a healthier center of gravity for the business moving forward. Here’s what the screen looks like in the app:

As you can see, most of Clear Pro’s launch features will be existing features now gated behind Pro, and as legacy users you are grandfathered into these features for free.

We will also be offering a  discount on the membership, bringing it down to $2.99/month or $24.99/year to existing users, and are figuring out something proportionate for those who purchased many things from the shop.

New Pro features moving forward will not be grandfathered. But to be clear, we will be continuing to roll out non-pro features as well. For example, Siri support feels like it should be part of the free core experience, but perhaps Shortcuts when they return will be exclusively Pro.

This feels like the right model for Clear, aligning our business to improving the app’s usefulness moving forward, while also helping us keep the core experience focused on Clear’s charismatic minimalism.

Sync

We hope to begin testing cloud sync with some of you as soon as next month. (iOS sync + Clear Web Alpha.) But to be upfront, it will not be free. We see it anchoring Clear Pro membership when it ships later this year.

There will be server costs with cloud sync, and more development pressure on multiple client apps to maintain and support moving forward. There are also enough of you out there that it would be irresponsible for us to promise free ongoing service and support.

I’m sure some of you will be disappointed that we cannot offer this free. Some part of me is disappointed too – I would love to market free sync for Clear, but I think this would be dishonest to our indie business reality.

(And frankly, kind of repeating our original sin with Clear 1.x – we took on sync and other platforms too early without adapting the business to support it, and it crashed us out!)

Longterm Sturdiness

Zooming out a bit, Clear has proven uniquely useful to its current base for 10+ years. If there is any singular goal or dream for Clear, I feel most of you would agree, it is making sure it’s still there for you, great, and supported for decades to come. (And yes, with sync.)

We love working on Clear and it would make us happy to be improving through the foreseeable future.

We have Clear Pro largely ready but would love to see community sign-off and some level of consensus on the sensibility of this plan 🙏 If you have any questions or feedback, email me at [email protected] and I will be doing my best to respond through this week.

Team Clear circa 2019 picking up groceries during WWDC

Next Update…

We hope to roll out Clear Pro soon, following community discussion. With that out, our next priority will be kicking off some testing for sync and Clear Web alpha. Will keep you all posted!