Yesterday we launched Indigo Studio, our free interaction design tool (i.e., storyboards, wireframing, interactive prototyping—all that stuff!). Version 1 is absolutely free, yours to keep forever. No strings attached. For real, dude!
“Okay, so what’s the catch?” you are asking yourself. We’ve already had someone say “it’s too good to be free.” So lemme splain to, hopefully, ease your mind. We’re not being sneaky or anything like that, and here’s our plan. Transparency rocks, no?
Version 1 is free. If you download Version 1, you get to keep it. In addition, you will get all Version 1 updates for free as well. Now, when Version 2 comes along, we’ll have added even more awesomeness to Indigo Studio, and that’s when you’ll have the choice to upgrade for a promotional price (a very good deal, I promise!). If you don’t want to upgrade, you can keep Version 1—we won’t make you upgrade. Like I said, it’s yours to keep forever.
All versions from 2 and up will be available as a yearly subscription. This means, you pay the subscription cost and get all updates within the next calendar year included as part of your subscription. Again, I guarantee the pricing will be competitive with other comparably capable products (though nothing as awesome as Indigo, of course!). Yearly renewals will have a discount—so if you stay with us, you’ll always get it less than list price.
In all cases, free V1 and after that, you get included our standard customer support, to boot. Oh, and free, One-Click prototype hosting so you can share your prototypes simply and easily—no extra charge for that!
“Why?! Why would you do that?!?” you ask. Simply put, we think Indigo Studio is the best interaction design tool on the market, but we know there are many tools out there that do this or that part of IxD work that you are using today. We know it’s a lot to ask to get you to try and switch to a new tool, so we didn’t want cost to be a reason not to try Indigo Studio. We’re confident even in our free v1 tool that Indigo will find a place in your heart, and we’re confident that we can add enough ongoing value in future versions to make it worth your while to invest in those, if you so choose.
So don’t worry. It’s not a trick. Try Indigo Studio! We hope you like it.
UPDATE (13 March 2013): Got some feedback that it wasn't clear if you had to keep renewing to keep using Indigo. Indigo is installed software (not a cloud service), so the way it works is that you get to keep whatever version you last paid for (or the free V1 if you didn't pay at all). So if you were to purchase a subscription for V2 when it is released, you would get all updates in the next year, and if you chose not to renew, you can still keep using that version indefinitely.
