gramps
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The commercial plan was spread over five documents written in five different weeks, and they contradicted each other: product.md sold the Store, decisions.md called the Store dead then re-opened, Distribution.md (736 lines) still described Polar as a download host, MARCOM.md quoted "no subscription" next to a paid tier, and README.md promised "free forever". An outsider could not tell what ships. docs/ai/commercial.md is now the only place money is decided: free = whole app at a 921,600 px / 30 fps output profile covering the recording as well as the stream; Pro = $10/mo or $400 lifetime through Polar, key bound to the buyer's YouTube channel ID via a claim page, 2 activations, 7–14 day lease with offline grace, fail closed, never downgrade a running stream; one portable zip + winget primary, Steam and the Store parked; Azure Trusted Signing (~$9.99/mo), no EV; Founding 200 promo; ~$135/yr costs; anti-piracy posture and what is permanently rejected. Everything else now points at it instead of restating it: - product.md — money sections replaced with pointers; packaging rewritten to winget-first, Store parked; signing updated to Trusted Signing. - decisions.md — graveyard with cause of death for free-forever, the Store ordering, the updater, and the 2026-10-30 reversal of the quality-ceiling rejection. - Distribution.md — rewritten to release mechanics only (artifact, GitHub Releases, winget manifest, signing, checklist, takedown): 736 → 120 lines. - TASKS.md — TASK 54 rewritten, TASK 48's route settled, TASK 10 superseded, five new rows (entitlement seam, output-profile gate, licence UI, system messages, packaging). - README.md — "free forever" replaced with the real split. - capture.md — obs-backgroundremoval is GPL-3.0 and so licence-INCOMPATIBLE since the proprietary EULA; the old "compatible" line was falsified by that change. - TASKS/task-10, task-48, task-51, task-54 — superseded-banner at the top of each, so none of them reads as current policy. - HANDOFF.md — rewritten: plan settled, next code unit is the entitlement seam. MARCOM.md and MONETIZATION.md (gitignored) were corrected in place: policy pointer at the top of each, the flash removed from every live claim, the Polar fee break-even corrected to ~$900/mo, and the projections flagged as written against a dead model.
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TASK 54 — Marcom round: free-forever positioning + merch (queued 2026-10-08)
⛔ THE FREE-FOREVER RULING IN THIS FILE IS SUPERSEDED — 2026-10-30. The app is freemium: every feature is still free, and a paid edition exists for higher output quality (free is capped at a 921,600 px / 30 fps profile, stream and recording). Live policy:
docs/ai/commercial.md. Cause of death:docs/ai/decisions.md→ Monetization. Read the rest of this file as the 2026-10-08 record — the merch/gratuity half still stands, the "free forever, no paid tier" half does not.
Catalog:
TASKS.md— status and requirements live here.
Why: the monetization decision changed. LlamaCasty launches watermark-free and free as in beer, forever — no paid tiers, no branding flash. The old watermark-paid-delta plan (TASK 10) is superseded. Money, if any, comes from gratuity and branded merch, never from gating the app.
History of the ruling (creator-led, 2026-10-08): feature set is locked for v1; there are no new pricing tiers to build. The compensation decision: ship the app free and watermark-free, put a coffee jar / merch storefront in front of people, done. Assistant recommendation that was accepted: print-on-demand merch instead of a tip jar for the main channel, because a t-shirt the viewer wears is free advertising a donation is not.
Done so far:
- ✅ llamacasty.com stripped of ALL pricing (2026-10-08): plans ($0/$10/$400), the feature chart,
the "made with LlamaCasty!" flash copy, and the
#pricingsection replaced with a free-forever band: "Free forever. Completely yours." — no watermark, no branding on stream, no subscription, no account. Nav + footer relinked to#free. Deployed + verified live (0 pricing refs). - ✅ Ruling recorded: no watermark, no branding-flash, app ships as-is.
Merch plan (accepted, corrected 2026-10-08):
- Printful as the producer/fulfillment (quality + creative control). Storefront-layer facts
(verified via websearch 2026-10-08 — there is NO free one-site tier that integrates Printful):
- Printful's built-in storefront ("Quick Stores") = US-seller/US-buyer only, no custom domain.
- Ecwid: free Starter plan has no third-party app integrations — Printful's own doc states Printful requires Venture, Business, or Unlimited (Venture ≈ $29/mo annual). Dead on a free tier.
- PROVIDER DECISION (2026-10-08, after websearch of the POD market): Fourthwall, not Printful. It eliminates the storefront-layer problem entirely:
- Real free plan ($0/mo, not a trial), built-in storefront, connect own domain
(
shop.llamacasty.com) for free (Pro $19/mo adds .store domain, 0% digital fees). - Native creator integrations: YouTube Merch Shelf, Twitch product gifting, TikTok Shop, Discord — where the young audience buys.
- Fulfillment incl. Mexico (US/UK/EU/CA/MX/AU/JP partners); Merchant of Record (tax/VAT handled); Fourthwall handles catalog-order customer support.
- No platform fee on physical products — base cost + processing (2.9%+30¢ domestic) only; you keep 100% of markup. Quality-first curated partners (max-ink printing), not supplier lottery.
- vs rivals: Printful/POD = production-only (storefront friction = the whole Square/BigCartel/ Ecwid saga above); Printify = cheapest bases but needs third-party store + own tax/support.
- GO/NO-GO to verify at signup: Fourthwall seller payout to a Mexico-based account (MX shipping is confirmed; seller payouts unverified).
- Design assets (llama 816×1645 @300dpi PNG, back-URL text) port as-is; re-confirm the catalog picks (hoodie, tee, stickers, bottle) in Fourthwall's catalog.
- Small lineup: 3–5 items to start (t-shirt, mug, sticker set — the llama logo is the obvious
draw). Assets live in
llamacasty.web/assets/img/(icon-512.png, logo.webp, gramps-480.webp).
In-app tasks bundled here (small, App-layer only):
- ☐ Branding-flash text becomes "llamacasty.com" (single small mention) instead of the "made with LlamaCasty!" overlay — pending the "no branding, completely yours" wording conflict: a streamer showing zero branding and a streamer showing "llamacasty.com" are different promises; creator to pick.
- ☐ Add the merch/storefront links to the About pop-up so the store is reachable from inside the app at all times.
Marcom write-up: capture this whole decision (positioning, competitor note — Meld Studio runs free core + paid AI tiers and a merch store; ArtCraft monetizes AI credits — the free-forever difference) into the dedicated marcom.md file once the creator creates it. This task file is the working copy until then.