MailMate License Model: One Year Later
I’ve previously described the transition to the new pricing model as a huge gamble because I would no longer be selling license keys for $50. This was the majority of the revenue generated. So far, this gamble has paid off since I’ve had an increase in revenue when comparing 2025 to 2024. It does not correspond to what one (where I live) would expect from a full time job, but it does mean that I’m going to continue full time development in 2026. I believe that is good news for MailMate users and I’m really thankful for all of the, new and old, MailMate development patrons/subscribers.
Some users might have noticed that I haven’t uploaded any test releases of MailMate for quite a while (more than 2 months). This is not because I’ve not been working on MailMate. It’s because I’ve been working on some broad changes to very old core parts of MailMate, in particular, related to parsing/editing of emails and memory management.
Previously:
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I don't fault anyone who doesn't like the licensing model but I'm selfishly happy to see it's (so far) worked out. After Postbox failed to go Apple Silicon-native and died a slow death of a thousand crashes, I spent a few years with email clients that I tolerated but never liked. MailMate V2 changed all that. I have my nitpicks, but mostly it's just a really nice email client that lets me operate it how I want without all the obnoxious triage/we-think-we-understand-your-email-better-than-you-do nonsense. Also has the best search I've seen since Postbox, something Thunderbird sorely lacked and something I sorely missed.
Almost all my users say that they hate subscriptions. For my 12 months free updates I get now and then some critiques. But for me this is the best model. Some users stay with the current version and others update every couple of years.
For myself I only have sorta subscriptions with development rated stuff. For everything else the license is the first thing I check and avoid subscriptions.
No, of course I'm not happy. Not really. It's an email client.
But, look, *sigh* I get that email clients for power-users on macOS are a niche, and I'm glad there's at least one that isn't threatening to vanish overnight. For those who are happy paying for updates (as opposed to those who would really appreciate keeping the software they bought), I understand why MM represents a shining beacon in the darkness.
Good luck to them but I'm already avoiding the latest builds … soon I'll simply stop using it.
