Why I ended the free plan — and what comes next

A year in, something had to give

Dailygram has been running for about a year. In that time I've built something I'm genuinely proud of — a quiet, daily digest of the people you follow, no scrolling required. A good chunk of users have been on it since the beginning, and for free.

That was always meant to be temporary. I knew at some point the math wouldn't work, and that point has arrived.

The honest reason

Running Dailygram costs real money. Every digest sent, every profile tracked, every piece of content fetched and summarised — it all adds up. Infrastructure, APIs, email delivery, AI processing. None of it is free.

For a while I absorbed those costs hoping the free users would eventually convert. Some did, and I'm grateful for them. But the reality is that the people paying for the service were subsidising those who weren't. That's not a model I can stand behind or sustain.

It's not about the money in a greedy sense — it's about fairness. If you find value in what I've built, it should cost something. If you don't, that's completely fine. I'd rather have a smaller group of people who genuinely value the product than a large base I can't afford to serve well.

No hard feelings

I understand if this isn't for you. Not every product is right for every person, and that's completely fine. If you've enjoyed using Dailygram over the past year, I hope it's been worth something — even just the reminder that staying informed doesn't have to mean doomscrolling.

And if you'd like to tell me what held you back, I'm genuinely listening. Leave me a note — it helps more than you might think.

What's coming next

There's another reason for this shift, and it's one I'm actually excited about. I'm doubling down on the social media tracking side of things — going much deeper than daily digests.

I'm building out competitor analysis, profile benchmarking, and data-driven insights for the accounts you follow. The kind of intelligence that used to require expensive tools or hours of manual research. Making this sustainable as a paid product is what makes that next chapter possible.

Ending the free tier isn't just a cost decision — it's also clearing the path to build something bigger and better for the people who are in.

Thank you

Whether you decide to subscribe or not — thank you for having been here. You've shaped what Dailygram is today, and I don't take that lightly.