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What a Subscription Autocomplete Costs Over Five Years

I'm going to do some very boring math with you, because "it's only eight dollars a month" is one of those sentences that sounds true until you actually add it up. Eight dollars a month is ninety-six dollars a year. That's already more than most people expect. But the real number is the one nobody says out loud, because nobody wants to be the person doing subscription math at a party.

So let me be that person.

The sticker price you never see

Most autocomplete apps that charge monthly land somewhere around six to nine dollars a month, and they bill yearly, which means the real number hits your card all at once. Let me use eight dollars as the middle of the road and just run it.

Four hundred and eighty dollars. For a menu bar app that finishes your sentences. And that number quietly assumes the price never goes up, which is a bold assumption for subscription software, because the whole point of a subscription is that the number can change whenever the company needs it to.

Why this category feels different

Here's the thing that made me build WriteAmp in the first place. Autocomplete is the kind of tool where the actual cost of running it is nearly zero. The model runs on your Mac. There's no server farm lighting up every time you press Tab. So the subscription isn't paying for electricity or compute. It's paying for the business model itself, a monthly invoice for a tool that costs almost nothing to keep running for you specifically.

I'm not saying the people selling subscriptions are villains. They're building a business, and a recurring bill is a very reliable business. But you're allowed to notice that you're paying a recurring price for something that doesn't have recurring costs, and to wonder what exactly the monthly fee is buying.

The free tier trap

Most of these apps dangle a free tier, and it's genuinely free, which is how they get you in the door. Then you hit the limit. In the case of the big one in this category, the free tier stops suggesting after a certain number of words a day, and if you type for a living, you'll meet that wall by lunch. The free tier isn't a gift. It's a meter, and the meter is what teaches you to reach for your wallet.

If the free tier genuinely covers you, stay on it. That's the honest advice, and I've said as much in the category map. But if you're hitting the wall and grumbling about it, that grumble is the business model working as designed.

What the one-time version looks like

When you buy a tool once, the incentives flip. There's no meter to hit, because there's nothing to upsell. The app doesn't need you to keep paying, so it doesn't need to keep you slightly unsatisfied. It just needs to keep working, and the only thing that makes it money is you telling someone else about it.

I know I'm biased here. I sell the one-time thing. But the math isn't mine, it's just arithmetic, and the arithmetic says the subscription crosses the one-time price somewhere in the first four months and then keeps climbing.

The honest counterpoint

Before you assume this is a hit piece, here's the other side. Subscriptions buy you something real: the company has a reason to keep improving the product, because you can leave. A one-time purchase has to trust that the maker keeps caring after the money is in. That's a fair worry, and I've been honest about what happens when I'm the only employee and how that trade works. Both models have a failure mode. You're picking which one you can live with.

The number that matters

Here's the way I actually think about it. The five-year number for a subscription autocomplete is around $480, and that assumes no price hikes. The one-time number is $29. The difference isn't a rounding error, it's a car payment, and you're spending it on a keypress.

If you want to try the version that doesn't keep a running tab, the trial is free for 30 days and there's a refund window after that. My honest ask isn't that you buy it. It's that you do the five-year math on whatever you're using, because most people have never actually added it up, and the look on their face when they do is the whole reason I built this thing.

The compare page has the full breakdown, and the worth-it post answers the question you're probably asking right now.

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On macOS 26+ Macs, Apple Intelligence mode stays free even after the trial ends — you always keep a working path to suggestions.

Written by Amit Ashwini, who builds WriteAmp and runs its marketing. More: why the Tab key beats the chat box · mini, midi, and max compared · benchmark methodology.