The developer Relay for Reddit, one of the remaining third-party Reddit apps for Android, detailed the potential prices for planned subscriptions for the app in a new post on Thursday. The costs of a subscription increase based on a user’s daily average number of API calls, meaning the more things someone does in the app, the more they have to pay. .
In July, Reddit officially moved from free to a paid API, which means that developers must pay the company for access to Reddit data for their apps. The change forced many popular apps to shut down, but some developers, including one that made Relay for Reddit, said they could continue making their apps if they charged a monthly payment.
Suggested subscription prices for Relay are between $1 and $5 per month. Here’s the full list, from developer DRady’s post, which appears to include Google’s acquisition of Relay’s subscription and expected revenue:
$1 – average 45 calls per day, covering ~45% of users (Google: $.15 / minimum $.52 to Relay)
$2 – average 100 API calls per day, covering ~80% of users (Google: $.30 / minimum $.97 to Relay)
$3 – average 200 API calls per day, covering ~95% of users (Google: $.45 / minimum $1.09 to Relay)
$5 – unlimited API calls per day, covers ~99.8% of users making money (I probably take a small loss on the remaining .2% of users but that should be negligible if enough users sign up ).
In the latest Relay release, DRady says they have also added the ability for users to see their average daily API calls. DRady encourages people to share their usage statistics and weigh in on potential pricing. DRady added that the app will remain free “for the next few weeks,” so if you don’t want to pay to use the app, you have a little time until you need to.
Last week, the developer of Now for Reddit also gave an update on their plans for the future subscription. The plan is for a subscription to be launched in two or three weeks from the time of their post and they expect to charge a monthly amount of $3 or $4. “It won’t cover the cost of ‘super users’ who use the app all day, but, in general, it should allow me to pay the Reddit API bill,” the developer said.
Many subreddits and users have protested against moving the paid API in-party because of its impact on the third-party app ecosystem. More than 8,000 subreddits went dark at the height of the protests in mid-June, but at this point, just under 1,800 are still private or restricted, according to the Reddark tracker, and most of the largest subreddits are operating as normal. Users also took out their frustrations on Reddit and CEO Steve Huffman on the collaborative r/Place canvas.
