Write down the file you expect on disk tomorrow morning. If the sentence is "a block inside the React app we already run," you are looking at one product. If the sentence is "a repo that already signs a user in and charges a card, on web and on mobile," you are looking at the other. Pay only after that sentence is boring and specific. This checklist is adapted from the full comparison on OTF, which I update when a price changes.
I am Dave Kurian, and I build OTF. One branch of this checklist ends in our kit. Another ends in Shadcn Studio. A third ends in spending nothing. I would rather you take the third than buy a skeleton for a button.
Sort the job into one sentence
Use one of these, and drop the other:
- The app already exists. The missing work is blocks, pages, and templates copied into it, plus a Figma file and a theme tool.
- The product is still a folder. The missing work is login, data, and Stripe, for web and mobile, in a repo you will keep.
Both can be true across a year. They are rarely both true this month. Buy the month you are in. Screens: catalog. A stranger who still cannot pay you: kit.
Shadcn Studio is the catalog, on a one-time license. OTF is a free SDK plus paid kits. The SDK is $0 and MIT. A landing template is a separate $9 file. A kit is the wired product.
Checklist A — buy the catalog
Mark yes or no. Buy Shadcn Studio when the yeses are the ones that match your week.
- A React app already exists. Accounts and data are already settled.
- You want a dense gallery in that app: marketing blocks, dashboard and application blocks, ecommerce blocks, pages, templates.
- You want the Figma kit, the theme generator, the MCP server, the builder, and the IDE extension on the same license.
- The path you will actually use is the CLI, the MCP server, or a prompt. The work is paste-into-this-repo.
- You have read two clocks, not one: lifetime access, with new components, blocks, and templates monthly, and one year of premium support.
- Day one does not need to charge a card. Your app already knows how, or that work is out of scope.
Smaller door: Flow, one template, was $59 on the 2026-09-24 fetch. The same view also showed "Get all access." If the template is the whole purchase, confirm the control you click is the $59 template.
Sampling is free. Community is the free tier. The license page adds a Commons Clause to MIT: no resale of the components, and no product that competes with Shadcn Studio. Free MCP reaches free components and blocks only. Paid blocks are a separate gate.
A kit does not satisfy this list. You would be cloning a login flow to get a dashboard shell.
Checklist B — buy the kit
Buy an OTF kit when these are the yeses.
- Someone still has to stand up login, stored data, and a card charge.
- Web and mobile should come from one SDK, in one repo you keep.
- You can live with 12 months of updates on a $99 kit, or you want lifetime updates and will take the Everything Bundle or Team.
Three kits are on sale at $99: SaaS Dashboard, Fitness, and Arcade. Choose by the product, not by collecting all three. For a standard SaaS, start with SaaS Dashboard, on its template page.
The SDK stays free. There is no paid badge on a component. Checklist B fails, correctly, when the only hole is a control you could ship this afternoon.
A landing is not a kit. Fifteen landing templates are $9 each. Buy one for a page.
Checklist C — spend nothing
- You need a button, a form, or one settings screen. Use the free SDK, or the free Community pieces if the catalog's app is the one you already have.
- You need Booking or Marketplace shipped today. Skip us for now. Booking is a Preview. Marketplace isn't for sale yet and isn't part of the Bundle.
- The real wish was a Figma kit and a monthly run of new blocks for an app that already runs. That wish is checklist A.
Prices to paste into the note
Shadcn Studio numbers are as fetched on 2026-09-24. Check their pricing page before you buy. Struck figures sat beside the live price that day. I am not translating them into a discount. OTF numbers are the public ladder. Team has no printed dollar amount, so this note has none.
| Line | Shadcn Studio, as fetched 2026-09-24 | OTF |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Community, $0 | SDK, $0, MIT |
| Entry paid | Basic $99, a $219 figure beside it, 1 seat, 48 business hours | Landing template $9, fifteen of them |
| Main paid | Pro $199, a $359 figure beside it, marked Best Value, 1 seat | Kit $99, 12 months of updates: SaaS Dashboard, Fitness, Arcade |
| Team | $449, a $719 figure beside it, 15 seats, 24 business hours | 5 seats, by email, lifetime updates, no dollar amount |
| Top | Enterprise $849, a $1,299 figure beside it, unlimited seats | Everything Bundle $149, struck $531, Save $382, lifetime updates |
| Single file | Flow, $59 | A landing, $9 |
| Updates | One-time payment, lifetime access, new pieces monthly, unlimited projects | 12 months on a kit. Lifetime on the Bundle and on Team |
| Support | FAQ: one year of premium support | The printed promise is the update window. No support-year figure is added here |
Copy two Studio sentences into the note, separately. You pay once and the FAQ describes later components, blocks, templates, and AI tools as included. Support on that purchase lasts one year. People keep the first sentence and lose the second.
On our side the mix-up runs the other way. A $99 kit includes 12 months, then you still hold the code, and you do not hold a claim on the following year. The $149 Bundle is the lifetime-updates line. Team updates are lifetime too.
OTF figures live on the pricing page. Kit status changes are posted on the changelog.
Score the sheet once
- Checklist A matches the week: buy Shadcn Studio, or Flow alone if one template is the deliverable.
- Checklist B matches the week: buy one named kit, or the Bundle if you want lifetime updates, the live kits, and the fifteen landings.
- Checklist C matches: do not pay. Stay on the free SDK.
- A and B both look half true: buy the artifact for this month's work. A catalog license leaves payments in the app you already wrote. A bundle does not include their Figma kit, their theme generator, or their block gallery.
I keep the full, updated comparison on OTF.
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