How is a Mac app priced?
A Mac app is sold in one of three ways: free, a one-off purchase you own, or a subscription you keep paying for. Which one it is has become genuinely hard to tell from a pricing page, because the page usually leads with a monthly figure whether or not a one-off option exists.
On this board
Across the board, 2 of the 8 apps listed have an established price model: 0 free, 2 a one-off purchase and 0 a subscription. The rest are blank because we have not read a pricing page for them yet.
What the three models mean
Free means no payment is required to use the app. It does not mean there is nothing to buy — a free app may sell an upgrade, and that upgrade may itself be a subscription. It also does not mean open source, which is a licence rather than a price.
A one-off purchase, which this site calls pay once, means you pay a single price and keep the version you bought. Most apps sold this way still charge for a major upgrade a few years later, and that is the normal arrangement rather than a catch. What matters is that the copy you have does not stop working when you stop paying.
A subscription means access ends when payment ends. Some apps soften this with a perpetual fallback licence, where cancelling leaves you on the last version you paid through. That is a meaningfully different deal from losing access, and it is worth checking on the app's own page.
How we read it
From the app's own pricing page, or its App Store entry where it has one. Every listing that states a price model links to the exact page the reading came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Where the App Store is the source, note that a subscription app is listed there at a price of zero — the purchase happens inside the app. So a zero price is not evidence an app is free, and this site never prints one as a price.
What it does not mean
Nothing here is a judgement about value. For an app with a running server cost behind it, a subscription is often the only arrangement that keeps it alive, and a one-off price on a complex app can mean the money to maintain it ran out. This site separates the three because readers ask for the distinction, not to rank them.
A blank price model means we have not established it, which is not the same as free. Pricing pages move, and an app whose page we could not read keeps a blank rather than a guess.
Apps with nothing recurring
Free or a one-off purchase — every app here whose price model we have established as something other than a subscription.
Read-only scan, then delete only what you choose. Apple-notarized; no analytics in the app.
—
The grey block Apple never explains, itemised in plain words — and a before-and-after bar you watch shrink.
—
Questions
How can I tell if a Mac app is a subscription before I buy it?
Look for a per-month or per-year figure and for the word renews. If the only prices shown are recurring, it is a subscription. On the App Store, check the In-App Purchases list on the product page — a subscription app is listed at no price and sells access inside the app.
Does pay once mean free updates forever?
Usually not. Most one-off Mac apps include updates within a major version and charge again for the next major version. The distinction that matters is that the version you bought keeps working, whereas a subscription stops when payment stops.
Why does this site show no price for some apps?
Because we have not established one. A price we cannot read from the app's own page or its App Store entry is left blank rather than filled with a guess, and a blank is not evidence that an app is free.