Ask HN: Which paid apps and services do you use?

[asaddhamani]

Can be exclusively paid apps/services or ones with a free tier available. Examples could be Pinboard, Instapaper, Zapier, PostHaven, Lastpass, anything really.

[FiloSottile]

Sorted by amount:

    Linode ($20/mo)
    Cloudflare ($20/mo)
    Freshbooks ($20/mo)
    DreamHost ($8.95/mo)
    GitHub ($7/mo)
    FastMail ($40/yr)
    Tarsnap (some bucks/mo)
    Pinboard ($25/yr)
    Amazon.it Prime (10€/yr)
    Instapaper ($12/yr)

    AWS (???)
    Gandi (???)

    1Password ($50 + $18)
    Sublime Text 2 ($70)
    Dash ($20)
    Tweetbot

And I love them all.

Thanks for asking, it made for a good reflection on what I pay for, and what value I get.

[Retric]

IMO, it's useful to look at reoccurring payments not as a minor drain, but cost over 30 years ignoring inflation/ROI. This is also about how much money you would need to invest to cover it indefinitely.

So for example: Linode ($20/mo) + Cloudflare ($20/mo) + Freshbooks ($20/mo) + DreamHost ($8.95/mo) + GitHub ($7/mo) = 27,360$. Which could easily be worth it but just another way of looking at things.

[cperciva]

what I pay for, and what value I get

Out of curiosity: How much value do you get out of each of the above services?

(Patrick, Thomas: Please don't turn this into a discussion about Tarsnap being underpriced. I'm asking because I want to hear FiloSottile's opinion about all the other services he uses.)

[codingoutloud]

I'm a software consultant. These help me run my business: Freshbooks (invoicing - integrated with Toggl) Toggl (time tracking - integrated with Freshbooks) Dropbox (free doc management across many machines) OneDrive (free doc sharing - more business oriented than Dropbox) Evernote (free, used to be Premium, years of notes and ideas in here) OneNote (free, currently using to manage client notes) Highrise (free tier, currently using to track business prospects) Amazon Prime (fast delivery) Lastpass (password store in cloud) Any.DO (keep me organized - first sustainable todo app) Scanner Pro (iOS scanner app - so i could dump my old flatbed scanner) Google service for business email domain (I forget what they call it) WordPress.com (for my blog, paid tier to have custom domain blog.codingoutloud.com) Skype

These help me stay sharp and up-to-date: Audible (app on iOS, books on tape) Podcasts (app on iOS) Pluralsight (video training on iOS and Surface and desktop) Meetup.com (I run a user group, bostonazure.org, and attend many)

Coding: GitHub (code, mostly free, but use a few private repos at $7/m) Azure cloud (various storage, VMs, Websites, databases, ...) Sublime Text (programmer-friendly customizable editor) PyCharm (Python development environment)

Fitness: Fitbit (paid for device, app came free)

[atmosx]

Well here is the list:

    Spotify (7 eur/month)
    VPS (12.50 eur/month0
    flickr pro (40/year although I dont use it yet)
    Skype (subscription 6 eur/month, calling Greece landlines ulimited)
    Tarsnap (low amount, ~20 USD in 3-4 months.)

That's the services. Now as for software I'm using a mac and use really a large mount of payware:

    - 1Passwd (both iOs/OSX versions)
    - iCompta (I didn't like v5 that's why didn't upgrade)
    - iWork suite (both iOs/OSX)
    - Littlesnitch (monitoring outgoing connections)
    - ExtFS for OSX (paragon)
    - iStats (display usage mac stats)
    - Acorn (simple photo editor, enough for me)
    - Alfred (application launcher)
    - SpamSieve (spam filtering)

These are the ones I upgrade with each version, regularly. I had a budget about 45$/month on applications max. Now I don't spend that much anymore. As for donations, last one made for Wikipedia, very small one.. about 10 USD.

[rahimnathwani]

I'm only listing the ones which come to mind immediately. There are others (particularly apps with one-off up-front payments) which I don't use regularly and turned out not to be important to me.

One-off (paid or freemium):

  Pleco (Chinese dictionary with paid flashcard functionality)
  Groundwire (SIP client for iOS, including Push notifications)
  GoodReader (PDF reader and organizer for iOS)
  Pushover (trigger iOS push notifications from email, IFTTT etc.)
  MindNode (iOS mind-mapping)
  BubbleUPnp (Android DLNA server)
  SnappyCam Pro (iOS camera)
  Cycloramic Pro (iOS camera)

Regular payments:

  Pandora (streaming radio)
  Several different virtual servers (for web apps and VPN)
  Newsblur (RSS reader)
  DIDLogic (monthly fee to get an inbound local phone number)
  The Economist (print subscription includes online/app access)

Usage-based fees:

  Rebtel (outbound phone calls)
  DIDLogic (outbound phone calls)

[georgebonnr]

Evernote Premium, and that's pretty much it.

It has its flaws, but it's made a big difference as a catch-all brain bin for me.

[jaxn]

Yes, Evernote Premium was the very first thing to come to mind.

I also use RescueTime and OmniFocus. There are plenty of paid apps on my phone / tablet / computer, but those are ones that I would struggle to replace.

The paid app I would love to get rid of: Quickbooks.

[Rudism]

I often revisit my recurring costs to pare the services I'm using down to the bare minimum. Here are the ones I can currently think of off the top of my head:

Hosting/Email:

  Prgmr.com ($8/mo)
  AWS (~$0.60/mo)
  Hover.com (bunch of domains, ~$120/year)
  Fastmail.fm ($80/yr for 2 family users)

Entertainment:

  Netflix ($8/mo)
  Hulu ($8/mo)
  Amazon Prime ($100/year)
  Spotify ($10/mo)

Misc Apps/Services:

  Pinboard.in (~$9 one-time payment)
  Draftin.com ($36/year)
  Backblaze ($100/year for two pcs)

Some that I have used in the past and since abandoned:

  - Pandora
  - Amazon Cloud Player
  - Google Music All Access
  - Easynews (NNTP)
  - Ghost.org

[adrianhoward]

Work:

* Linode - for hosting

* Namecheap - for domains

* CrashPlan - for one layer of our backups (other layers are timemachine, dropbox, and disk imaging)

* Pinboard for links.

* Office 365 - because the £8 per month is worth it for dealing with the MS files that other people send us and expect edits on. No - OpenOffice isn't good enough at conversions.

* Google Docs - for shared editing

* Dropbox - for sharing files + another layer of backups

* ScreenHero - for screen sharing

* Slack - for chat

* Trello - for organising everything

* CloudApp - for random sharing of screenshots

* Buffer - for social account organisation (suboptimal - but best of the bunch that I've played with.)

* Until recently Adobe CS subscription, but our usage dropped so much we've swapped for Pixelmator & Sketch as an experiment...

* Sublime Text 2 - editing on desktop

* Editorial & Writeroom - writing on iPad & iPhone

* OmniGraffle - wireframing, but very rarely used now

* aText - text abbreviation expansion on OS X

* Carbon Copy Cloner - backups

* Air Display - so I can use the iPad as a second screen when I'm on the road

* AntiRSI - reminds me to take screen breaks

* Skype - conference calls

* Transmit - [S]FTP client

* TunnelBear - UK/US tunneling, useful when I'm not in UK for some foolish things

Play:

* Have a subscription to the excellent PseudoPod, EscapePod & PodCastle podcasts

* SMBC comic patreon subscription

* Whatever the amazon streaming video thing is called

* Amazon Prime

* Downcast - Podcasting app for iOS / OS X.

* Steam - games (barely use)

[alexgaribay]

How well has Slack been for you as opposed to Hipchat or something similar?

[chops]

irccloud.com - For running a few open source projects, I find an always-on connection and getting instant mobile notifications to be totally worth the $5/month.

Otherwise, for fun non-worky-type stuff: Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon Prime are the most prominent ones coming to mind.

[m0nastic]

Off the top of my head--

Services:

Fastmail.fm (for personal email), Office365 (for more legitimate email), Evernote (had a paid account for a few years, although I never use it), 500px (for non-professional photos), DigitalOcean for VPS, Netflix (not sure if you mean consumer services), Amazon Prime (I only use it for the shipping), Hulu+

Apps (a subsection at least):

Mathematica (I'm happy to pay for the Home version), 1Password (although I've stopped using it since iCloud Keychain Sync), Pixelmator, Capture One, NI Maschine, NI Tracktor, Pretty much every audio app for iOS (iMaschine, Figure, iKaossilator, iMS-20, SampleWiz, Lemur, Vogel CMI Pro, Animoog, Scape)

[benguild]

You actually use iCloud Keychain? It's great for syncing Wi-Fi networks but it seems kind of clunky for anything else

[notduncansmith]

DigitalOcean (still on the trial but I'll be paying when it's up)

Netflix

Spotify

AWS (at work)

LastPass (at work)

Alfred 2

Namecheap

Dash

Trello

Destroy All Software (not an "app", but a fantastic purchase)

---

The most valuable (in order) have been:

Alfred 2 (easily worth 10x the price)

Dash (would have paid double)

DigitalOcean (simplest VPS I've ever worked with)

DAS (still getting value out of this but loving it so far)

Namecheap (great domain service, been with them for years and had 0 problems)

I would cut Spotify but I have a visceral negative reaction to commercials. Can't stand em. I'd cut Netflix, but it's faster than torrenting and the time it saves me is worth it.

This has been a really interesting thought exercise, thanks for posting this!

[thedays]

Tuffmail (has been rock solid IMAP hosting provider for my personal email for over 7 years) | Sanebox (helps keep my email inbox under control) | Sugarsync (solid and reliable file sharing and backup. More flexible than Dropbox - can't understand why more people don't use it) |Mynetfone (good, reliable Australian VOIP provider) | Wordpress.com Namecheap | Netflix | Getflix | Spotify

[philiphodgen]

Basecamp (2 accounts, soon to be 3), Base CRM, Google Apps, Lastpass, Instapaper, Google Apps (multiple), Quickbooks Online (multiple), an entirely disposable time billing program that plugs into Quickbooks that I won't name because I don't want to be sued for libel, Evernote, Crashplan. Edit: Feedly.

Some of these will not survive the earthquake.

[k8si]

Recurring payments: Amazon Prime, Spotify, NearlyFreeSpeech and A Small Orange for hosting, planning to cancel Audible and Wolfram-Alpha because I never use them

Paid for once: Threes, Clear, Convert (for all of my unit conversion needs)

I use but don't pay for: Dropbox, IntellijIDEA, Sublime Text 2

I've also spent a shameful amount of money on Candy Crush...

[clinth]

Cross-platform: Dropbox, Sublime Text, Toodledo, Balsamiq Mockups, Pinboard, Newsblur OSX: Alfred 2, Dash, Pixelmator, Clearview Win: ExpanDrive Other: Linode, Dreamhost (legacy)

Funny enough, my home machine is Windows and I spend far more money on productivity tools for my work (OSX) machine. I'm not counting Steam.

[tekknolagi]

  DigitalOcean ($5/mo)
  Gandi.net ($200/yr)
  Tarsnap ($3/mo)
  CrashPlan ($6/mo)

[binaryanomaly]

  Services
  --------
  Spotify
  DigitalOcean
  AWS Glacier
  Dropbox
  Evernote
  Mykolab.com

  Apps
  ----
  1Password
  aText
  Airmail
  Alfred
  Bartender (awesome!)
  Boxcryptor classic
  Boom
  Fantastical
  ForkLift
  OmniFocus 2
  Parallels
  Sublime Text

[Gracana]

I have a Ramnode VPS. Also xbox live, I didn't think about that until someone mentioned it here. I share a netflix account with my roommate. I buy books from amazon and google for my android tablet. I don't own a smartphone, the plans are too expensive.

[b3b0p]

These are all gifts from friends and family, so I don't pay myself. They are all paid monthly though:

Netflix

Spotify Premium (Thanks mom!)

Sirius XM (Thanks dad!)

The only service I pay for personally is Amazon Prime.

I have not bought any iOS Apps (ever).

I have not bought any Mac Apps recently (this year).

The occasional Blu-ray and Nintendo game.

[lelandbatey]

Here's an estimate:

    Spotify
    Amazon Prime
    Netflix
    Lastpass
    Wolfram Alpha
    DigitalOcean
    Amazon EC2
    OVH (Dedicated server)
    Sublime Text (not really an app, but I still count it)

[hfern]

Cerberus [1] is a must have to keep phones safe.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lsdroid.ce...