Why everything is free, and why that will not change

People ask whether Living On Grace will eventually add a premium tier. The answer is no. This is worth explaining, because "free" is usually a temporary state in software. It is a customer acquisition strategy. You grow the user base, then you monetize.

That is not what is happening here.

Free is a constraint, not a strategy

When you build a free product with no plans to monetize, it changes what you are allowed to build. Engagement mechanics that drive subscriptions — streaks, personalized notifications, social features, premium content — become unavailable to you. Not because you are principled, but because you have no reason to build them. They do not serve the product. They serve the revenue model.

Removing the revenue model removes a whole class of design decisions that harm users. The product gets simpler. It gets quieter. It does fewer things and does them more honestly.

The person at 2 AM

There is a person who opens Living On Grace at 2 AM on a cracked phone screen during the hardest week of their life. They are not a power user. They are not a paying customer. They are carrying something they cannot name, and they need scripture written for that feeling, right now, for free.

Every product decision is tested against that person. If a feature would not serve them — if it exists to capture their data, drive their engagement, or upsell them — it does not belong in the product.

A paywall fails that test. An ad fails that test. A premium tier for better verse curation fails that test. The person at 2 AM gets the full product, or the product does not deserve to exist.

How is it sustained then

Right now, self-funded. This is not indefinitely sustainable as the infrastructure scales, but it is honest about where we are. The project is open source. Hosting costs are low because the architecture is local-first: most of the computation happens on your device, not on a server we pay for.

Future sustainability will come from optional donations, grants, or institutional support from organizations that share the values. Any model we consider has to survive the 2 AM test. If a funding model requires compromising the product for anyone, it is the wrong model.

We would rather stay small and keep the promise than grow and break it.