Nine days ago I shipped KeepGoing Hub, a Pomodoro timer for the Mac menu bar that gives each project its own desktop. I wrote two things about it: it is free, and it makes no network requests at all.
Today it ships as 0.3.0, under a new name, KeepGoing Den. Part of it now costs money, and it now sends two things over the network. Both of those sentences contradict the last post, so this one is about where I drew the line and why I think it is the right one.
what changed in nine days
The release that matters here is 0.2.0, which taught the app to update itself. That is the first of the two things it sends: a request to GitHub for one file, with nothing about you in it, and you can turn it off.
0.3.0 renames the app to KeepGoing Den. An installed Hub updates in place and keeps your projects, your history and your settings. It also adds a notch panel: hover the top centre of a display to see what you are working on and that display's desktops as tiles you can click.
the line
Here is what stays free, for good, on every Mac:
- Focus sessions, the room and the pet.
- Time per project, budgets, history and a TSV export.
- The Claude Code statusline.
- Two desktops bound to projects.
- Drift, leaving a project's desktop mid-session, is always recorded, licensed or not.
Here is what a licence adds:
- The nudge, and the pet's Drift expression.
- Switching desktops from the notch.
- More than two bound desktops.
The whole app exists to keep me on one job at a time. Everything that measures where your time went is free. What you pay for is the one thing that acts on it in the moment: one quiet nudge from the pet when you wander off. The other two paid parts are for people juggling many projects at once; the nudge is the reason the licence exists. If the nudge does not earn its price for you, the record of every drift is still there, and you can read it yourself.
the price
A licence is USD 14.99, one time, no subscription, updates included, on up to three Macs. Until 6 December 2026 it is USD 9.99.
Every new install gets all of it for 14 days first. No key, no email, no sign-up. When the trial ends, the app says so once, and any desktops you bound during the trial stay bound and keep recording.
You buy it from the Licence tab in Settings, whenever you like. Anything locked in the app has one line, See the licence, that takes you there. There is no count-down, no pop-up and no reminder.
if you already had the Hub
You are licensed, for good, with no key to enter. Settings will say Licensed. You had the Den before it was sold.
I said the Hub was free. For anyone who took me at my word, it stays free, all of it.
the second thing it sends
The other thing the app now sends is your licence key, and nothing about you, to Lemon Squeezy, the store that sells it. That happens when you activate a key, at most once a month to re-check it, and when you deactivate a Mac. Without a key, nothing goes to Lemon Squeezy.
Everything else is unchanged. No account, no streaks, no notifications. What it stores lives in ~/.keepgoing/hub/, which you can read or delete.
try it
KeepGoing Den is a signed, notarized DMG from the releases page. macOS 14 or later, Apple Silicon and Intel.
Run one session and drift to another desktop on purpose. The nudge you get is the part I am charging for.
Top comments (4)
I think your line holds because you kept measurement free and charged for intervention: time per project, budgets, history and drift recording stay usable without paying, while the nudge is what actually pulls me back. That distinction is clearer than most freemium splits I have seen. I would still watch the trial edge: in my own side projects, a feature that vanishes mid-session feels like a break, not a paywall. Does the nudge stop at day 14 even inside a running session, or does it finish that session first?
Thanks! Honest answer: right now it stops at day 14 even mid-session. The drift is still recorded, just no nudge. You are right that it feels like a break, so I am changing it to let a running session finish first.
letting a running session finish first fixes the break feeling. keeping the drift recorded makes that change clean.
The line that feels right is measuring for free and charging for the nudge. Grandfathering everyone who installed Hub while it was free, no key, is what keeps the price change from reading like a bait switch. A one-time licence and a trial that just ends, no countdown, is the version I would want to stand behind.