No trial. No hidden tier. No "premium features coming soon." Just free.
It's a fair question. You've been burned before. Some tool said free, then locked the useful bits behind a paywall after you'd already got attached. So when SpicyLister says free, your brain says: yeah but.
Here's the actual answer. Not marketing copy. The real one.
In 1999 Chris P Tee opened GlowGadgets Bristol. Rave supply shop. But really: a community. Hundreds of strangers who became regulars who became friends. The rave scene ran on PLUR — Peace, Love, Unity, Respect. Nobody put up a paywall before they let you feel that.
You didn't earn your way in by spending money. You belonged because you showed up. SpicyLister inherited that.
Ian — StrangeMole — is one of the people whose spirit is woven into this project. The kind of person who helps because helping is just what you do. No invoice. No conditions. SpicyLister is built in that tradition.
The world has enough tools that charge you to use them and don't care whether they actually help you. This is something different.
SpicyLister is free because Chris built it for people like himself — AuDHD, with a pile in the corner, who needed the friction gone. Charging for that felt wrong. If the person who most needs this tool is also the person least likely to have disposable income for another monthly subscription, then a paywall is the wrong architecture.
Free forever is a choice. It's a values statement. It keeps the tool accessible to the people it was actually built for.
There's a Patreon. Villager £3/month, Elder £7/month, Founder £15/month. If SpicyLister has genuinely helped you and you want to put something back in, that's the place. But it is never a condition. It is never a nag. It is never the reason a feature exists or doesn't.
Patreon supporters are people who chose to invest in something they believe in. That's beautiful and it's enough.
There are affiliate links on site — books, coffee gear, tools Chris actually uses and actually recommends. If you buy through one, it sends a small percentage back this way at no cost to you. That's the full commercial picture. No mystery.
Take a photo of something in the pile. See what SpicyLister does with it.