JRR Tolkien initially wrote the Lord of the Rings series over a span of 17 years. After it was published in 1954, he continued to tweak, edit, and add to the original stories and extended lore for years afterward. For Tolkien, and many artists, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact moment that a piece is finished — there’s always a final brushstroke, an additional graphic, a pinch of salt, a character clarification, an extra beat; endless adjustments towards an elusive perfection.
Pixite’s apps are similarly positioned — they are released as polished, quality products, but they are, on some level, works-in-progress. However, unlike a book or a painting, continued tweaks to apps are vital for ensuring consistently positive user-experiences. Apps that are released and abandoned eventually languish and become irrelevant as user needs change or bugs appear. Pixite’s team is here to address user concerns and provide continuous updates and new or improved in-app tools. We also collaborate with artists and in-house talent to create tutorials and guides to demonstrate how to create different effects and generally get the most out of our apps.
Paying for Value
“This is an outstanding app. It’s a pity that the only way to access it is through an untenable subscription plan. I’ve searched and searched for another app to replace it, and couldn’t,” reads a one-star review aptly titled “I Give Up.”
“Awesome, but pricey” is a recurring complaint for Pigment, our award-winning app that is otherwise highly rated. A common thread in these reviews is a user admitting that they love Pigment’s brushes, pages, and the user experience that they can’t find in alternative apps — but they can’t afford the price tag, which averages $40/year. (And yes, as developers, it’s a bit frustrating to get one-star reviews that rave about the app.)
It’s hard to know exactly what to say to these users. $40/year is about $5/month or $1.25/week: It’s tempting to suggest the tired cliché of giving up one coffee per month, but this advice is oversimplified and inaccurate. (And, honestly, if your coffee brings you value and pleasure, keep at it!)
Or perhaps we should point out that our apps aren’t released as stagnant entities, but as evolving, perpetually updated programs supported by a team of developers who are constantly weaving user feedback into updates and new product releases. Zinnia, our journaling app, has a monthly release of freshly created content — stickers, pages, washi tape, page layouts — to provide new inspiration and artistic expression for those that may not have the time to create every journal spread from scratch.
Finding a Sustainable Niche
It can be difficult to eke out space as a small tech company in a marketplace dominated by big players with revenue in the tens of billions. Pixite’s brand sustainability, growth, and yes, profit, are important to us — and, arguably — to the broader culture and macroeconomics of the American digital marketplace. According to a 2019 Reuters article, Google and Facebook had 60% of the internet advertising market, and even our polarized American politicians have reached a bipartisan understanding that this issue needs to be addressed:
“How do we deal with the reality that these four large technology platforms are so big and control so much of the market? That they can, with a change of an algorithm, make it more difficult to access their software, make it almost impossible for a competitor to survive? That’s not good for the economy. It’s not good for consumer choices. It’s not good for innovation, and it’s not good for competition.” (David Cicilline, quoted on the Vergecast.)
The inescapable reality of a small business, regardless of competing against monopolies, is this: In order to thrive, and to continue producing high-quality content that (we believe) enriches the world by empowering creativity, we need to charge fair prices for our products. This allows us to do mundane things like app maintenance, and, less mundanely, it allows us to pay competitive wages to Pixite’s (brilliant!) employees who are the living force behind creating and improving our apps.
The Journey
Our apps do not spontaneously manifest; this is not an ex nihilo situation.
Months of planning, researching, testing, coding, writing, developing are behind the launch of each app. Our apps: Assembly, Zinnia, Pigment, Marvel: Color Your Own, Union, Fragment, Matter, are artist tools for a digital age.
The beauty of art is that it starts in your head, but it doesn’t stay there. For your vision to come to life physically, you need to purchase artistic tools: paint, brushes, pencils, paper. For your vision to come to life digitally, you should consider purchasing digital tools (in turn, supporting the digital artists who created the tools.)
Our apps also do not spontaneously maintain or support themselves. “OK — Changing my review to 5 stars based on Kyle’s quick response,” reads a review on Matter, our 3D effects app. The reality of complex apps with capabilities for beginners to experts is that there are going to be questions (and suggestions), and we are here to provide quick and hopefully helpful responses.
Nothing online is free
For some industries, convincing customers to shell out for online products is difficult because they are competing with “free” (read: ad-funded) products. Online journalism has been finding its financial footing for over 10 years now. Go to the website of the “big three” cable news outlets and find a range of (often sensational) ads under the articles. Many of these ads are portrayed as news articles; not ideal for news sites that otherwise expect readers to trust their journalism. Established traditional newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post have opted for paywalls instead of ads, and over time they’ve experimented with different subscriptions and offers — a certain amount of free articles, free temporary accounts, low fees — pre-internet, readers didn’t have a problem paying for physical subscriptions, but for many, the value didn’t transfer online. (Though NYT subscriptions have seen a dramatic spike during Coronavirus).
As Eugene Kaneko, Pixite’s co-founder puts it: “People may question the value of subscriptions for apps, but the reality is that it takes a lot of resources to build high-quality products and to keep updating them. Subscriptions ensure that our apps are maintained for much longer since it’s our promise to our customers that we will do so.”
On the one hand, the sweeping availability of ad-funded services like Facebook and Youtube has created a sense of entitlement towards virtual goods and some consumer reluctance to pay for online content. On the other, consumers are steadily increasing their acceptance of online subscriptions: according to Statista, Spotify, Netflix, and Hulu have all seen steady annual subscription growth over the past five years.
Perceived Value
I used to get on this app when I was anxious or stressed but now I can’t even use the app without paying to use…it.
A user left a review on Marvel: Color Your Own that said: “I used to get on this app when I was anxious or stressed but now I can’t even use the app without paying to use…it.”
To this user — we get that it might appear pricey, but we truly believe it provides value worth the subscription. We’ve tried other pricing options (and believe us, this is a continuous conversation), but they didn’t support us enough to keep us afloat as a company.
To users who love the apps and have financial flexibility, but perhaps aren’t convinced they are worth the investment, we’d like you to consider the word “investment”. You invest in education. You invest time and money in activities that make you happy; causes you believe in; your family, your community, your pets. On the face of it, a graphic design app like Assembly might seem incongruous in this list, for good reason — an app or piece of technology is not a necessity. However, we would argue that developing your graphic design skills, flexing your inner artist, and the positive mental health effects of creative outputs are all investments you owe yourself, whether through a creative digital app or with pen and paper.
Ultimately, our pricing is based on two-sided sustainability — after extensive research including customer input — we picked a price point that maintains our operations while being accessible to a broad user base. The average annual subscriptions on our apps — $40 — is the cost of a meal for two. We understand that it still might not be a price that is comfortable or accessible to everyone, but it keeps our lights on.
The average Pigment app user spends 3 in-app hours per week digitally coloring. If this user has an average annual $40 subscription, they are paying less than $1.00/week for these hours. But breaking it down to dollars and cents doesn’t capture the value of the relaxation, artistic outlet, and ultimately the experience of creating original artwork.
Final Thoughts
While running a small business is hard work, there’s nowhere we’d rather be. We hear again and again about how our apps are enabling artists and hobbyists alike to achieve their artistic visions.
We are a team of artists ourselves, and we believe in the power of creating. As Scott Sykora, Pixite’s co-founder puts it:
“There is a calming sense of flow whenever I’m creating. I get into a rhythm and forget about everything else. Then, when I’m finished I feel a deep satisfaction about having made something real in the world from nothing but my own imagination. Creating centers and calms me and makes me feel connected to something bigger than myself. I love that feeling and love finding ways for others to experience it as well. I hope we do that with our products. One of the most satisfying things about shipping these apps is putting them out there and seeing what other people create with them.”
We are proud of the way our apps meet users where they’re at — the creatively curious and pros — and open up worlds of artistic possibilities. These are apps we ourselves use. Creative visions often come as moments of inspiration — each of our apps is designed to get out of the user’s way so that these visions can be expressed easily, intuitively, and precisely. It is our hope that you find tangible and intangible value in your experiences on each one.
For many artists, the initial, unpaid creation process is the bulk of the work and effort. There is an intangible, intrinsic value in creating, but this value, unfortunately, doesn’t pay rent. When you purchase a book, you are retroactively supporting the author’s time, efforts, and expertise, and you are also supporting their present and future creation of new work. Purchasing an app subscription is similar — you are supporting the continuous efforts of a team. You are also supporting your own user experience; user-requested updates, new tools, on-trend content, and tutorials and educational content to support users as they explore the offerings of each app.
Until his death in 1973, Tolkien wrote, edited, and expanded Middle-Earth mythology, and his son continued to publish his efforts posthumously. Though Pixite’s apps aren’t novels, we continue to update, adjust, and expand content for our users, even as we design and build new releases to support the artist community.
“It’s incredibly challenging to come up with an idea for a product, execute on it, keep improving it, and build a business around it,” says Eugene Kaneko, Pixite’s co-founder. “But when all that is done well, we have an app that we and our customers love.”
Honestly, for how much you get with the premium, I don’t regret paying. I’ve paid much more for much less. I use this app every day and now I can use any coloring page I want, use any coloring medium, import to my heart’s content and even create my own color palettes.
— Pigment user (App review)
