We started secapps.com with the vision to change the way we use and think about information security tools. Our goal is to deliver a cutting-edge, simple to use and universally accessible platform for information security applications that extend our ability to perform security assessments, to research and to investigate.
Along the way we had many stumbling blocks and we made more than our fair share of mistakes. Our existing platform for example was designed in a different time with older technology which over the last two years have become difficult to extend into the modern web. As a result of this realization we began rewriting our tools using a fundamentally different approach that is inline with our vision and goals.
Step by step we changed our existing toolkit by rebuilding every application from scratch hitting many milestones along the way. Today I am happy to announce that we are on the verge of completing yet another important milestone which will take us even closer to our vision in the long run.
Where are we today
While we like quality and free and open source software as much as the next person we realized long time ago that this is not a big enough force to take us closer to our goal. From the early days we had a commercial offering alongside many of our free tools. We charged a subscription fee for the non-free tools and there was a mandatory trial period to make sure that our clients are 100% happy with what they were getting into.
Needless to say, paywalls are not a good way of promoting any software especially when you want to go beyond being a successful company. Regardless how well you position your marketing materials, targeted emails and twitter messages many people are simply not going to try your software because getting into a trial requires putting in a credit card even when no charge is going to be made.
Where we will be in the future
For the last year we have been thinking really hard how to put our tools in more hands and we came to the logical conclusion that we should make them available to anyone without entering into a trial with a credit card or registration. The tools must be free and this is why many of you are already enjoying the latest versions of Rest, HTTPView, Scanner and many others without getting into a contract with us.
We are not planning to change that.
We are however introducing a single, simplified upgrade plan (simply Pro), which not only gives you access to some private APIs and features, which are impossible to make free without subsidy, but also make the tools suitable for commercial use - i.e. you can use them at work because the license allows you to.
Upgrading to Pro is completely optional and while we would like to see many of you upgrading we are not going to force it down. At the end of the day we are in the business of making good quality tools and if you like them and you are planning to use them for work, there are more than one good reasons to upgrade.
This lead us to the next topic which is about cost. How much does it cost? I must admit that our current pricing structure matches closely some of our competitors pricing structures without improving on them. Why? There is no good reasons. Just because other people are doing something it does not mean that it is right. After looking into the problem we came to the logical conclusion to change that as well.
Currently we have a number of plans at different price points. Once we finish the roll out of our new site there will be just one price point (the Pro) which is currently priced at $49.99 for 12 months. Yes there is a significant reduction in cost but we believe this is way more accurate and better for the the end user. It is also better for us because more people will use our tools for day to day activities.
Some final words
So here we are. I really hope that this change is one you have been looking for and that we are going to deliver something meaningful to you and the rest of the world. Now that we are pass this milestone, we can go back at doing what we do best - building more and better security tools. I am really excited what is coming up next.
The most recent version of the upcoming site is available at secapps.com.
