Why Schaduwplan has no subscription: € 29, one time

Why Schaduwplan has no subscription

Schaduwplan charges €29 per report, one time. No subscription, no trial period with automatic renewal, no “you have 14 days to cancel before you are charged again”. The reason is simple: the usage frequency of a sunlight study does not match a subscription model. Most homeowners go through a permit procedure once every five to ten years; a concerned neighbour ends up in a six-week term on average just once. For that usage pattern a one-off transaction is fairer than a running subscription.

This is not a moral claim about subscriptions in general; Netflix, Spotify and Notion are excellent subscription products because people use them continuously. But for a product you open once every couple of years, a subscription is a form of price discrimination that makes the forgetful user pay extra. We did not want that incentive baked into our business model, so we chose €29 per report, one time.

What a subscription does and does not solve

Subscription models work when they solve three things at once: continuous delivery of value, access to a growing catalogue or database, and a lower threshold to use again. Sunlight studies score on none of the three. The report is a one-off deliverable, the underlying data (3DBAG, BAG, AHN4) is open and free for everyone, and the threshold to use again is usually irrelevant because the user has no question for months on end.

What a subscription does solve for some competitors is simpler: it captures impulse purchases within a free trial period and then keeps charging people who forget to cancel. Zonnegrens charges €2.49 per 90 days for consumers. That sounds cheap, but over five years it comes to €50.62 and requires active cancellation. For a competitor that chooses that model it is a rational pricing strategy. Not for us, because our target audience (Seg 1 concerned neighbours, Seg 2 proactive homeowners) is not the persona we want to live off through subscription fatigue.

Price comparison: one-off, subscription, or firm

The table below places the main tools and models side by side. The cost column is a clear comparison for one concerned-neighbour case (one sunlight report within a six-week term) and for a proactive homeowner who makes three design iterations.

A few observations on this table. First: the truly comparable competitors for the €29 case are ZonInTuin (€9.99, but with manual modelling) and ZonScenario (€39, no TNO testing). Second: as soon as you take out a subscription and stay active for longer than 12 months, every tool runs up costs faster than a one-off transaction. Third: the professional firms cost a factor of 10 to 170 more, and the price for that premium is a signature under the report that, in an appeal before the Council of State, sometimes makes the difference.

When a subscription does make sense

In fairness: there are audiences for whom a one-off transaction does not fit and for whom a subscription or business track would deliver more value than €29 per report. We serve those on request through a business track, not through a disguised consumer subscription for everyone. The four audiences where that could apply:

• Architecture firms and building designers. Twenty to fifty reports a year, many design iterations per project, a need for project dashboards and BIM integration. A monthly subscription with unlimited regenerations and IFC import works better than €29 per report.
• Insurers with home legal-expenses insurance. Firms such as DAS, Achmea Rechtsbijstand and Univé send their clients to sunlight studies. An API subscription with volume discount and a white-label PDF gives them a predictable marginal price per case.
• Lawyers in neighbour law and administrative law. A legal package per case with multiple scenario iterations, a methodology memo and a template letter to clients calls for a different price structure than a consumer flow.
• Municipalities. An internal reviewer tool for testing submitted studies against their own standard. A subscription per department, not per report, with a link to the environmental-permit system.

Any firm or business tier will only arrive once there is clear demand and once we can deliver it without compromising the core product — so no fixed date. Interested as an architecture firm, municipality or insurer? Email [email protected] and we will add you to the list. For all other users the consumer offer stays €29 per report, and that is how it stays.

Who this pricing model works for

The €29-one-off flow is designed for four specific moments of use. What they have in common is that they involve one report within a clear, defined period.

• Concerned neighbours with a six-week term. A permit notification next door, eight to thirty days to file a formal view or objection, one report as an attachment. Time matters more than small cost differences; €29 within five minutes beats €295 over seven days.
• Proactive homeowners who are renovating. One sunlight report as part of the permit application for an extension, roof addition or annex. Possibly two to three iterations of the design with the architect; still under €100 in total.
• Home buyers who want to check daylight before bidding. One report per house, compared with alternative purchases. €29 per report fits the other costs of a house purchase (€400 to €900 for a structural survey); if anything lower.
• Garden designers and landscaping firms who occasionally make a plan. One report per project for client communication about plant choice, terrace location or vegetable beds. For companies that make four to six reports a year, €29 per report stays below the subscription threshold.

For anyone in these segments the message is simple: pay once, hold the full report in your hands, no chasing over cancellation, no email saying “your subscription is about to expire”. That is the product. Do you need a report more than twelve times a year? Email [email protected] and we will look at a business arrangement — for everyone in between, €29 per report stays the fairest price.