Hello to all the new newsletter subscribers! So happy to have you here, where you can stay updated on my plans and thoughts for Simplify and let me know how you think I can do better. 

Thank you for all the feedback on Simplify v2. I tried to reply to every message, comment, or report – if you didn’t hear back, please email me at hi@simpl.fyi or submit feedback here.

Status of updates: Since the launch, there have been five updates addressing your feedback and reports. We even found a bug in an upcoming version of Chrome itself! There is a big update in testing right now (v2.3), which should go out to everyone by the end of the week.

Updated pricing

Before we talk about what’s coming in the next update, let’s talk about pricing, which comprised a lot of the feedback and comments. 

The top three concerns were for the pricing to be:

1. Fair

2. Easy to understand

3. Flexible enough to support multiple ways of using Simplify

I hear you. Here’s how I am addressing your feedback:

• Per-account pricing is too expensive. Pricing is now per-person instead of per-account. Each person on a subscription gets 10 email accounts and you can contact me if you need more.

• Sliding-scale pricing is confusing. The price is now locked to $2/mo/person (paid annually) for an individual, and $1/mo/person for each additional person on a plan. Paying monthly costs a little more to cover the additional fees.

• Auto-renewing subscriptions feel like a trap. I can relate: subscriptions can feel like a treadmill you can’t ever get off. For Simplify, auto-renewal will be optional at sign-up for annual subscriptions, and I’ll be sure notifications go out before renewal for those who elect to keep it enabled.

• Keep it simple. I’ve scaled back the subscription to be only for Simplify Gmail. I will figure out how to integrate future products as options when they are ready.

• Can I get it for free? Maybe. I’m grateful that so many of you see Simplify as a service worth paying for. But some feel that the price is still too expensive. While I can’t please everyone, I have a couple ideas that might help. One is to reward those that spread the word about Simplify. I’d much rather pay you for successful referrals than pay Facebook to spam people with ads. I’ll explain more about how the referral system will work in the next newsletter.

Here is what the pricing page might look like with all these changes:

The next update (v2.3)

Beyond pricing, how is the actual product changing based on feedback and suggestions? Most of the updates thus far have been to fix bugs and visual oddities.

The next update starts adding new things:

• It’s safer! Simplify now blocks 170+ email trackers (more than I previously said)

• Improved support for the high contrast theme and the dark theme

• Improved compatibility with other extensions (esp. Copper and Hubspot)

• Improved performance and a lot of little improved design details

• And lots of new options!

Here are the options coming in the next update:

• Make the composer dark for the dark theme (on by default, but an option for those that prefer black text on a white background for compose)

• Customize the width of both the list and conversation view including the option to let it span the entire screen. I’ve long resisted this but a few people wrote with compelling use cases, like how they get a lot of email with large tables.

• Reverse the order of messages in a conversation. It’s a rare user who wants this, but after looking into it, I realized it wasn’t too hard to support.

• Disable hiding the pagination count until hover. You can opt to always show the count in the list view, message view, or both.

• Disable matching the font size of the body to the rest of the interface (increasing it from 13px to 14px). Some use other fonts where the increased size feels too large.

Phew! That’s a lot of options. And I’ve got three more in progress for v2.3.1.

With all these choices, Simplify options are now a laundry list of toggles. I know! This is not the ideal experience. I am redesigning the options interface in the near future to make it more visual and give you a preview of what each option does.

Get updates first: Introducing the Canary Channel

The v2.3 update will go out in the next couple days. If you use Chrome, Edge, or Brave and want to get these updates now (along with future updates before everyone else), you can switch to the new Canary Channel.

Here is how:

1. Join the Trusted Tester group: test.simpl.fyi

2. Disable Simplify under chrome://extensions (you do not want two versions of Simplify running)

3. Add Simplify Gmail Canary: canary.simpl.fyi (you have to be signed into the Chrome Web Store with same account from step 1)

4. Refresh Gmail