Believe it or not, it’s been over 7 years since the introduction of SharpCap Pro back in April 2017. Back then we set up the SharpCap Pro licensing system with goals of affordability and fairness. In particular, we aimed to
- Keep the basic features free – simply working with a camera and capturing images or videos does not require a SharpCap Pro license and never will.
- Allow try-before-you-buy – you can try out almost all SharpCap Pro features before you buy a license to ensure that they work for you and so you can decide if the license is worthwile. Of course there are restrictions on what you can do when you try out without a license – mostly if you try a Pro feature you can see the results on screen but cannot save any images or videos until you restart SharpCap.
- Keep the price affordable – by opting for a subscription model rather than a one-time purchase, the price you pay to buy a SharpCap Pro license can be kept low. Of course we hope that you will love SharpCap Pro and renew your license year after year*, but if for some reason you don’t, you haven’t spent a fortune on software that you don’t use.
Of course, things were different back in 2017…
- There were only five Pro features in SharpCap 3.0 – Dark Correction, Flat Subtraction, Semi-automatic focus assistance, Polar Alignment and Python Scripting. With the introduction of SharpCap 4.1, there are now over 30 key SharpCap Pro features, including Sequencing, Background Subtraction, Banding Suppression, Satellite trail removal, Advanced Live stacking features, Planetary Live Stacking, Smart Histogram, Mosaic automation tools, Seeing Monitor and more…
- SharpCap was still a part-time project back in 2017. Now, since the start of 2021, it’s my full time job. This has allowed much improved progress to be made on SharpCap 4.1 and improving the quality of the software, but it does mean that SharpCap Pro license sales have to be enough to pay all the household bills for this to continue.
Since the last SharpCap Pro price rise back in 2021, inflation has surged, causing prices across the board to rise by around 20%. So far we’ve kept the SharpCap Pro price at the £12/year level, but the time has finally come when we need to increase it.
The price for a 1 year SharpCap Pro license will shortly rise from £12 to £14. Prices in other currencies will also be adjusted to keep them roughly in line with the GBP price. The changes in currency exchange rates since we last updated our prices mean that some currencies will see little change in the price, while others will unfortunately see an even larger jump.
We hope that you will agree that SharpCap Pro licenses are still great value for money – a year’s access to SharpCap Pro for considerably less than the average cost of a thread adaptor ring or extension tube!
*For those who prefer to pay for your software outright rather than pay a yearly subscription, we now offer a ‘lifetime license’ option. See https://store.astrosharp.co.uk/lifetimelicense