No, there is a threshold for the amount of subscriptions/SaaS I tolerate, and it’s basically a tiny handful of them and they’re occupied by streaming services etc. So your feeling is right, when it comes to me at least.

The App Store model of small one-off payments works for this use-case. But no matter how useful a web tool is I don’t think I’d ever sign up for a small monthly fee for it. The ”mental overhead” of that is absolutely massive.

Sadly even one off payments for web tools are a poor UX since there is no central broker to take care of it. Next time I visit I (maybe a different browser etc) it’s a hassle.

I’d much rather just use a worse tool that is free. Because SaaS fatigue is real. Sorry hobbyists and startup dreamers I’m not paying money for your SaaS. Not because it’s not good enough but because it’s nearly impossible to be good enough to make me go through a subscription process. Even as an older person who can afford it and is used to paying for things, I’d much rather waste hours of my own time than pay a subscription. Importantly, I’d also much rather pay $100 once than $5/mo even if I don’t foresee using it for more than a year.

Make it an App Store app and you can easily get $10 from me though, is the sad reality of it.