I came.
I saw.
I built.

The short version

I'm an 80s baby. I was a kid when AOL, ICQ, and CD drives were still new. I was working in a phone store when the iPhone 3G launched. I've watched apps evolve from the start — and somewhere along the way, we got hit with subscriptions, and it's never been the same since.

The deal that used to exist

Back when I was growing up, the deal was simple. You made something. I bought it and I owned it, forever.

Software came in a box. Games came on cartridges. You paid for a thing, you owned it, and if you never spoke to that company again, your stuff still worked.

That wasn't just how it was sold. That was the unspoken contract. A person made something useful. Another person paid a fair price for it. Done.

I never liked subscriptions

Not for software that didn't change. Not for tools I'd already paid for. Not for apps that held my own data behind a paywall after I'd committed to them.

Every time a company I was paying pulled another feature behind a monthly fee, I'd think the same thing: there's a better way to build this. Not a cheaper way, a better way.

So I built one for people like me. And if I'm the only one who cares, that's fine too.

This isn't about price

Here's what I actually think. You might disagree, and that's fair.

Companies spend a lot of time optimizing for profit. Fair enough, they're companies. But somewhere along the way, "maximize revenue per user" became the only thing. And the way you maximize revenue per user is by making sure the user never stops paying.

That's why old purchases get disabled. Why features move behind paywalls after you've already bought them. Why apps hold your data like a hostage negotiation. Why the app that worked fine on day one suddenly needs a monthly fee to keep working the same way.

It's not malicious. It's just what happens when the only question a company asks is "how do we make more money from this person."

I think there's a different question worth asking: is what we're doing right?

Are we treating the people who paid us the way we'd want to be treated? Are we honoring the deal that was in place when they bought? Are we adding real value, or just charging for things we already charged for?

That's the question Rackd was built around. Not "how cheap can we be" — but "what's the right way to do this." At least the right way for me.

Some subscriptions make sense. Most don't.

AI tools — real compute costs, real ongoing expense. Subscription makes sense. Streaming services — new content every week. Subscription makes sense. Cloud storage — you're paying for actual storage. Subscription makes sense.

A workout tracker? The app that works on day one is mostly the same app six months later. Bug fixes aren't premium features, that's just doing your job as a developer. New features have to be real ones, not a re-skin of what was already there.

Charging someone every month, forever, for that? Feels more like rent than software to me. Plenty of companies run it that way and do great, more power to them. I just couldn't build Rackd that way and feel good about it.

So here's how Rackd works

Buy it once. Keep it forever.

Pay for what you use, one time, and we're square. I'll keep fixing bugs and keep making it better, that's not optional. That's my end of the deal. (And honestly, it also makes sense if I want to keep getting new users.) It's what you pay a software maker to do.

If I build something genuinely new a couple years from now — a real new set of features, not a marketing gimmick — I'll put it in a pack. Buy the pack if you want it. Skip it if you don't. Your app keeps working either way, and nothing gets taken away.

No held-hostage data. No "by the way, that thing you paid for last year is now on the premium plan." No dark patterns. No manufactured urgency.

Just a workout tracker that does what it says.

And if you'd rather subscribe, there's one of those too

Some people prefer monthly. Less upfront, easier to cancel, feels less committal. Totally fair.

So yes, there's a Rackd subscription option that unlocks everything while it's active. Pay for a sub if that's what works for you. I'm not going to argue, and I'm definitely not going to guilt-trip you about it.

I built Rackd around one-time purchases because that's how I think this should work. The subscription exists because you might think differently, and that's cool. The one-time is the pitch. The sub's there if you want it.

What Rackd is not

Not a social app. No feed. No followers.
Not trying to be everything, you have better apps for all of that.

Rackd is a logging app. A good one. Made by someone who thinks the old deal was better, and built it the way he'd want to use it.

Glad if you like it too.

— Ali, Rackd

(I read every reply.)