How Much Does a FiLMiC Pro v7 Subscription Cost?

Is the Subscription Model Fair?

Recently i decided to download FiLMiC Pro as I’d heard how brilliant it was from friends and colleagues.  It was definitely the ‘go-to’ video filming app, despite stiff competition from other Apps such as BeastGrip, Pro Camera from Moment, Cinema P3 and many others.

When i was at the point of downloading FiLMiC Pro v7 from the App Store or Google Play it was confusing, this was now a subscription based service and £3 a week!  That’s £155 a year, every year, wow that’s a lot for an iPhone app!  Also I noticed that it only had 3 out of 5 stars, which seemed odd when everyone said how brilliant it was.  The reviews were full of people moaning about the subscription fees and how bad FiLMiC were, saying they didn't care about their customers.  So i went online too and the blog posts were saying the same thing, subscriptions are bad, FiLMiC are bad.  This is shite I thought, why have they done this?  After researching this further i found they’d recently merged with Bending Spoons from Italy and they prefer subscriptions so may be someone has decided as FiLMiC is so good customers will pay anything they ask.  It felt a bit cheeky, especially as the competitors apps are much lower price point to buy.

When you download FiLMiC Pro v7 the first screen offers you a choice of a free one week trial or a £2.99 a week subscription, nothing else.  So i clicked on continue and again it just offered the £2.99 a week, no annual subscription option.  WTF???

  

To be fair a lot blogs and social media posts feel like ‘click-bait’ and seem more interested in you clicking on their pages rather than helping to explain, in this case what the pricing was.  Negativity sells, look at the news!  There wasn’t any clear pricing on filmicpro.com own website either, or the App Store or Google Play, so the only option was to message them.  Go to the horses mouth so to speak which was definitely the best option.  Russ from FiLMiC Pro explained to me that the £2.99 a week subscription was for those film-makers who wanted to use FiLMiC Pro on an occasional basis and there was annual subscription of £51 a year.  This made sense and not unreasonable.  For a top App £51 isn’t that much to pay and if you only needed to use it occasionally then £3 a week is a bargain.  Use it four times a year and that’s only £12.  I did go back online and found a couple of people saying this, i guess the negative voices shout loudest and if you look long enough you will find the answers.

For businesses owners and sole traders you will know that you need to make money as you don’t have a monthly wage, this also true of larger companies.  Research and Development is expensive, it involves lots of testing, lots of ideas that don’t work.  The reality is that any business operating a one off payment is surely committing commercial suicide in the long term.  Think about it, once you’ve paid for the app how do they continue to make money and pay bills?  There are only so many in-app purchases you can buy and if you think they can make updates and create new innovations for free, think again.  It costs time and money.

Would you rather buy an app for £5-10 as a one off and they ma not be here in 2 or 3 years time or would you pay a sensible price and know that company will be here in 5 to 10 or more years time.  You will have invested your own time and money into learn that app and understanding what it can and can’t do, so will feel comfortable using it.  No matter the app or camera it is nice to feel confident using a tool to create what you feel.

So to make it simple these are the FiLMiC Pro subscription costs

    Weekly             £  2.99

    Annually            £50.99
There further in-app purchases if you want those features (again no prices on the website!!!)
    Filmic CineKit        £14.99

    Film Looks             £14.99

Currently to access the annual subscription of £50.99 a year ignore continue on the first page but click on the cross in the top left hand corner.  The next page is Subscribe or OK, click on Subscribe and it'll take you to the Yearly subscription option.  Really not sure why this wasn't on the first page or why it is clearly labelled on the App Store or Google Play.  I did suggest to FiLMiC Pro it would best to be more transparent earlier on, this would save customer confusion and the negative feedback, hopefully they will change this. People will always moan about change, increased prices so you can't do much to prevent that, but at least be clear.

   

Personally I don't think this price is that bad, it's a pound a week and it's a brilliant tool, plus you can cancel at any time.  If you only need it for short project then buy it on a weekly a basis for £3 a week, if like me you might want to use it more often buy the annual subscription.  Either way you are getting what you pay for.  All these app creators need to earn money and pay the bills, they are not trying to con you, being self employed is so different to earning a salaried wage.  If you want and need this app then it's worth it www.filmicpro.com if not then buy an alternative.

For previous FiLMiC Pro owners there is Legacy, which is free for those purchased before August 25th 2022 filmic-pro-v6/ for the rest of us there is version 7 and it's your choice if you want it.  If you want a business to survive it needs funds, otherwise it's dead in the water.

Apple App Store links:     FiLMiC Pro v7  &  FiLMiC Pro Legacy

Google Play Store links:  FiLMiC Pro v7  &  FiLMiC Pro Legacy