There’s been a great discussion this week over at Mountain Project about rakkup.
There’s been particular interest in the mix of subscription options and update options that you all would like to see. Keep in mind that rakkup guidebook prices are set by the guidebook publisher or author, not by us. We have some influence and build the enabling technology, of course.
To quote from the Mountain Project thread:
Pricing is tricky, and what each person is willing to pay is different, of course. We’ve tried to strike a balance between making these guides affordable for climbers and making sure that the authors and publishers find the business worth their while so they keep making and updating guidebooks. Case in point, Wolverine Publishing found that they simply could not afford to keep adding updates to the older apps that never expired, hence the subscription plan. And there are a LOT of updates, and Wolverine’s been awesome about doing rapid updates to their rakkup guidebooks as climbs change or get put up.
The author of the New River Gorge book, Mike Williams, did a great job addressing this and describing the advantages of digital vs. print on his blog this week, check it out:
mikesironcladbeta.blogspot.com/2014/03/nrg-guidebook-app-now>>>
We think the prices are fair for the quality of these books, and tried to provide options that are cheaper than print rather than more costly. The 60-day option seems to appeal to a lot of traveling climbers. Also note that you can buy all of the exact same subscription for around 25% less at rakkup.com than you can via buttons in the rakkup app, thanks to Apple’s hefty surcharges!
Since we are guests over at the Mountain Project site, we wanted to give you a place to weigh in here at rakkup.com. What do you like about the app? What would you like to see? We can also start discussions about each guidebook or about particular topics you’d like to discuss in depth.
Thanks and happy climbing. -Rob and Todd