My goal is to communicate our pricing thoughts as transparently as possible, with no marketing speak or buzzwords! - Joel Gratz, Founding Meteorologist, Colorado Forecaster, CEO

Here is the main point, right up front:

  • We are increasing prices starting on January 1, 2024, and we plan to make incremental price increases in future years on January 1st so that we keep up with inflation.
  • Many apps and other businesses keep the same prices for years and then make a jump to 'true up' prices for inflation.
  • We would rather make smaller, incremental increases, and avoid the one-time larger jumps, as this is aligned with how we annually increase compensation for our employees, contractors, and suppliers due to inflation and as a reward for their high-quality work.
The price of the Single plan (1 person) will increase from $29.99 to $31.99 per year on January 1, 2024.

  • This is a 6.7% increase and is in line with or just above inflation during the past 12-18 months.
The price of the Group plan (4 people) will increase from $39.99 to $49.99 per year on January 1, 2024.

  • This is higher than an inflationary increase and it is because the Group plan is somewhat too good of a deal (if you invite three of your friends, it works out to $39.99/4 = $10/person/year).
  • We love offering a good deal and appreciate that people want to bring their friends along to follow the weather on OpenSnow.
  • We are increasing the price to ensure a balance between our company making enough money from this plan (about 42% of All-Access users are on the group plan) and keeping this as a great value ($49.99/4 = $12.50/person/year which is still a discount of about 61% per person compared to the Single plan).
All plans will renew at these new prices in 2024.

  • At your next renewal date on or after January 1, 2024, you will pay $31.99 per year for the Single plan or $49.99 per year for the Group plan.
  • In past years, we would continue previous (lower) prices for months or years for current subscribers. This added complexity to our systems and delayed the additional revenue from the price increase.
Without legacy pricing, will OpenSnow do anything to reward loyal subscribers?

  • Yes! Moving forward, we will likely offer a deal/reward to loyal subscribers who renew their subscriptions.
  • At some point in 2024 or early 2025, we will likely extend renewed subscriptions for additional days, weeks, or maybe even months at no additional charge, based on the number of years that you have renewed your subscription.
  • A very, very high percentage of subscribers renew their subscriptions each year, and we will work to reward these people for their business and belief in what we're doing.
Instead of raising prices, can OpenSnow make more money by signing up more people?

  • Yes, we plan to continue to sign up more subscribers which will help support our ability to make useful new products (see a full list of recent product releases below).
  • That said, we do not want subscriber growth to be the only way to keep up with inflation and rising prices. If signing up more people were the only way to maintain our current level of profitability, then it would encourage us to focus more on marketing to new potential subscribers and not as much on improving the product.
All this talk about inflation, yet it seems like it's now under control, right?

  • Yes, inflation in the United States has decreased from 2022 to 2023.
  • Historical inflation averages about 2-3%, which is manageable on an annual basis, but if we do not incrementally adjust our pricing, then these smaller numbers turn into bigger numbers which necessitate a larger price increase at some point, and we'd like to stay away from infrequent, larger pricing adjustments.
Anything else?

  • We always provide a way to cancel the auto-renewing subscription on our website, or within iOS and Android settings.
  • In the future, we might introduce new pricing tiers since new (super cool!) features might cost us more money to implement as we'll need to gather more data, pay for more servers, etc.
  • We have found success in offering a discounted price for the first year to encourage 'people on the fence' to sign up, and then offering the standard price during renewal, and soon we hope to offer  'extensions' at no additional charge for loyal consumers. By rewarding loyal subscribers, we hope to achieve something opposite of the 'cable company pricing model' :-)
Thanks to your support, below are new features that we released in 2023:

  • iOS Widgets
  • Active Fires map
  • Winter & Summer favorites list
  • 10-day weather-focused views (different than snow-focused views)
  • Expanded coverage of smoke forecast maps
  • Seasonal snowfall
  • Historical weather
  • Current location forecast
  • Hourly & daily precipitation forecast details
  • Forecast Anywhere
  • Full details
These are features that we plan to release next:

  • Increase the number of custom points per subscriber from 5 to 15
  • Launch "Live Snow" (Hourly Snowfall from Nearby Weather Stations)
  • Snow-to-Liquid Ratio
  • Community Discussion Forum
  • Base/Mid/Summit Forecasts
  • 3D Maps
  • Global Radar Coverage
  • And MUCH more!
A real person is always available to answer your questions at hello@opensnow.com

Thanks for your support, and here is a link to learn more about All-Access.