Sub­scrip­tion-free soft­ware, unlim­it­ed user installations

Subscription-based software has become increasingly common in scientific instrumentation. For a lab, that means equipment saddled with annual software overhead.

With GelCount, we have deliberately taken a different approach.

The core imaging and analysis software provided with GelCount is supplied free of annual subscriptions or recurring fees. 

Within-version updates are free, and the software is supplied on a site-license basis, with no limit to the number of workstation installations or number of users.

Why should improvements to the GelCount platform mean additional cost for the lab? Within-version updates, including improvements suggested by our international user base are provided at no charge.

The only exception being optional add-ons developed for specialized applications and analyses, including tools that use deep-learning object detection. These are separate capabilities for labs that need them, not an automatic recurring charge for the standard software. 

GelCount software can be installed on unlimited lab computers without requiring additional user licenses. That matters in shared labs, core facilities and groups where several researchers use the same instrument.

The GelCount is also designed to just generate images as rapidly as possible, while the analysis is carried out independently, in the user’s own time and on a separate computer. This frees up the instrument for the next user, while the lab is spared the trouble and cost of juggling the number of software seats to match the number of users.

Our approach is intentionally straightforward:

• No annual software subscription
• No recurring fees 
• Core software updates provided free of charge
• Unlimited workstation installations for no additional fee 
• Single site-wide user license 
• Paid add-ons only for optional, application-specific tools
   

The result is a system that is easier to share, more flexible, better value, and inexpensive to run over the long term.

In a world of subscription-based science, we are happy to be the outlier.