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Ask HN: What SaaS or Apps are you paying for?

25 points by busymichael ↗ HN
I am curious to know what saas or apps are HN user's paying out of their own pocket for? Not business apps, but for your own personal use. Personally, I pay for feedly (rss reader), G Suite domain (for my personal email), todoist premium (task/to do app). Not an app, but I pay for the Wall Street Journal.

It's been nearly 2 years since I ask this question so I thought it would be good to get an update.

29 comments

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newsbinator
Screenflow has paid for itself multiple times over- business use, personal use... I use it easily 5 to 10 times a week.
aosaigh
Also a big fan of Screenflow. I find it so much easier to record a quick 5 minute screencast when trying to get a point across.
busymichael
Isn't screen recording built in to windows, macos, ios now? Why pay for a separate tool?

I use quicktime to record screencasts all the time. The biggest issue I have is having to upload the video to youtube to easily share it. They are usually too large to just email around.

aosaigh
Yes screen recording is built-in, but something like Screenflow allows you to do a lot more, for example adding other audio or video (like camera for example), adding transitions, effects, annotations etc. This won't be important if you literally just want to record your screen, but if you are publishing anything these sorts of tools are useful.
peruvian
1Password. It's $4/mo, which (forgive me for sounding privileged) is nothing, and it works well across all devices.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
_alex_
lastpass

bunch of aws services (s3 for file storage, some r53 domains, some resources backing alexa skills my family uses)

twilio for an sms bot

washington post sub (thinking about picking up wsj and economist)

robokiller

rameshs
Have you tried BitWarden? I recently switched after using lp for the last 6 years. Couldn't be happier. Things just work with BW. It's simple and convenient. Also being free doesn't hurt.
tootahe45
I've used LP for 4 years and can't recall things not working?
itnAAnti
There was a period circa 2014-2015 that LastPass was pretty glitchy on Firefox in MacOS, but for quite a while I've had no problems at all with it - it just works. Even my non-technical wife has no issues with it, and sharing secure passwords is a breeze.
dublin
Actually, I don't pay for hardly any SaaS or Apps. Microsoft Office is the only exception, and the only thing I really need there is OneNote. (I use Word and Excel, but only because I've already paid for them to get OneNote - neither is essential.) Other than that, the only thing I pay for is storage for backups in S3. I also have a recent copy of CorelDraw Suite, but they've gone subscription now, so I'll have to find an alternative. Other than those, it's all open source.
itnAAnti
lastpass; office 365; fastmail; digital ocean; wallabag.it; you need a budget; twilio & spaghetti detective for 3d printing notifications; backblaze;
ztc
1Password, Spotify, Netflix, Stoa Meditation
itnAAnti
How long have you been subscribing to Stoa? Have you been able to stick to it, and do you find it beneficial?
replwoacause
Hulu, Spotify, Netflix, Amazon Prime, GSuite, Notion (now free), HEY, YNAB, and Bitwarden.
Cyph0n
Netflix, Emby, DigitalOcean/Vultr, Spotify, Amazon Prime, GDrive, iCloud, and a few domains.
zzo38computer
Nothing that needs recurring payments. If I cannot find a suitable program, generally I will try to write it by myself instead. Also even with proprietary programs I have already paid for, I will try to make a free software which is better.
akg_67
Apps: Netflix, Notability, MindNode (discontinued), Memrise (discontinued)

IaaS/ PaaS/ SaaS: Digital Ocean for VPS, Stripe for subscription billing, GoDaddy for domains, Dropbox for online storage and file sharing, Google Voice for phone number porting.

Recently, I have been thinking about setting up a blog based site, not sure whether to setup my own on DigitalOcean or go with something like Wordpress.com. I just see too many attempts of WP exploits on my non-WP site, and haven’t come across any decent non-WP based blog driven site CMS.

tstegart
Digital Ocean has one-click WordPress installs.
pknerd
Interesting to know. Do they provide support of transferring existing one?
tomjen3
lastpass, although I am looking for a better alternative,

Office365

Adobe photoshop and lightroom

I am also paying for todoist and newsblur, although I moved to newsboat and will probably have to find another task manager. Maybe I will just use org-mode.

busymichael
I forgot about password managers: I do pay for one; but I also use the built in keychain password manager
yarapavan
Setapp, Evernote, Textexpander, Cloud storage for backups, Magzter (magazines), and couple of financial services in India.
maps7
HEY, Netflix, Disney+, Dropbox, iCloud, Todist (won't subscribe to another year when it is up)