Why Do You Charge Money for Locked Novenas?

Our Pray Catholic Novenas app is free. And, the majority of the novenas are unlocked, which means they can be prayed by anyone at anytime.

But, we do “lock” a minority of the novenas, all of which are unlocked by becoming a patron through an in-app purchase.

Why don’t I have everything completely free with the app?

Here’s more background on what it takes to make an app and why I chose this model:

My technical partner and I have put in countless hours over 4 years to make the app.

We pay an Android developer to do the Android app, and adding one feature costs thousands of dollars.

We pay Amazon Web Services to host our server so customers will not lose their novena history and can pray across multiple devices.

We pay a database company every month to host the database.

We pay Apple every year a developer fee that they require.

We pay the source code control company every month so that the app’s source code will not be lost.

We pay an email service hundreds of dollars a month to send out novena reminders to people.

And after all that, the app itself is free, and the majority of the novenas are unlocked and freely accessible.

For the minority that are locked, we pay for a website that has all the novenas that people can use to pray even those for free:

https://catholicnovenaapp.com/list-of-all-novenas/

One can pray novenas in many ways: from prayer cards, books, websites, email reminders, and with using our app.

Our app makes it convenient to pray, keeps track of the day you are on, reminds you to pray each day in case you forget, and tells you when the next novena is.

All that technological work costs money, and Catholics who appreciate how the app helps them are willing to support the work, at a small cost (less than what most people spend on coffee each week!).

So if you can become a patron, wonderful.

If you cannot, no problem at all, and I am happy to provide the app for most of your novenas and my website for the others.

God bless, Devin Rose