14 DAY TRIAL // Cloud apps are all the rage right now, but when you cancel out the noise, few of them and even fewer companies are really living up to the hype. Aviary is one of the few, not exactly a household name yet, but definitely one of the most promising startups in the field. It offers a suite of free web-based graphics tools but the full service would set you back $24.99 per year. Now, in a reverse of the path most startups take, Aviary is dropping the price and making everything free for all users.
"We... chose our company mission to be We make creation accessible to everyone. Our powerful set of tools helps fulfill this mission," Aviary's Michael Galpert wrote. "We have long felt that to better serve our core mission our complete feature set needed to be in the hands of everyone - not just those who could afford it," he added. "As of today, we have decided to make using Aviary's suite of editing tools FREE for everyone."
That sounds awfully nice of them, but idealism is the mark of a great startup, isn't it. Just look at Google, more than a decade after it launched, it still believes in the principles that it set off with. The fact that it brings in tens of billions of dollars in revenue every year might have something to do with that though.
Principles might help you sleep better at night, but they're not going to put food on the table. Luckily for Aviary, it has that covered for now, as it managed to secure the funding it needed from a handful of venture capital investors. What this means is that it can now afford to give away all of its services so that anyone can benefit from them.
One of the reasons for the decision may very well be making "creation accessible". Another reason, which is at least as important, is the fact that the move will help the company get more exposure and a larger user base, crucial to any web service. Whether this new strategy pays off in the long run remains to be seen but, for now, you can save private files on Aviary, customize your watermark or get rid of it altogether and access all the tutorials without having to pay a dime.