Darkroom NotesSeason 2STIL.TOONPart 5 of 6
A watermark is a limit and an advertisement — why I don't hold the free tier back
If the AI is free for everyone, where does Pro come in? STIL.TOON's answer is a small watermark on export. It's both a doorway to Pro and, every time a free user's image spreads, a way for my name to travel along with it — not a loss, but an acquisition channel.
Last time, I wrote that along with removing accounts, I made the AI free and unlimited for everyone. Turning a face into a drawing runs inside the device, so no matter how many times it's used, my cost is zero — which is why I stopped counting. (I wrote the same idea for the first app in I stopped counting.)
Which leaves the obvious question. If everything is free to use, where does Pro come in? STIL.TOON's answer was a small watermark on export.
The watermark's first role — a limit
Export a photo on the free tier, and a STIL. watermark goes onto the image. Go Pro, and it comes off. That's the whole difference.
Rather than holding features back and building a wall — "paid from here on" — I let people use all of it, and put Pro at the point where the work goes out into the world. The watermark is a quiet, ever-present marker standing at that border. When you're serious about a piece, you take it off. No hard sell.
The watermark's second role — an advertisement
Here's something I noticed while building. The watermark isn't only a doorway to Pro.
A free user shares their finished image on social media — and the STIL. name on it travels along too. Free users spreading their images is, in itself, my advertising.
Once I saw that, the picture flipped. A free user "scattering watermarked images around" isn't a loss to me. It's an acquisition channel that carries my name places without costing me anything. So there's no reason at all to hold the free experience back. Far better to let people enjoy the making, and enjoy the sharing.
It fits TOON especially well
This mechanism sits well with STIL.TOON in particular. Where TOON ends is a photo you share with family and friends. Because the faces are now illustrations, you can show it to people without worry. And the further that now-shareable photo travels, the further the watermark travels with it. The thing I built to protect turns out to be the thing that delivers.
What Pro is for
Since the AI is free, Pro came to center on taking a finished image out into the world as your own work: export without the watermark, library sync across all devices, unlocked styles and stamps, high-quality export. There are three prices: $2.99 a month, $19.99 a year, or a one-time $24.99.
Even on the free tier, the part that matters most — turning faces into illustrations and sharing them without worry — is all there. Pro is the option for when you get there and think, "I want to take this out cleaner, and more fully mine."
Next time
Next is the finale. How this second app went from kickoff to the App Store shelf in a single week — and what was going on outside the code while it did.
STIL.TOON is out on the App Store.
