Theme Updater & Backups | OOTS

I just wanted to Upgrade from Turbo to Flex but not anymore. If you don't move back the pricing of the updater app to free plan and pro , like it was before, you will loose all your clients. I was told when purchased the Turbo theme that we have free updates forever, doing this manually is impossible. Especially when the previous version has glitches , and now we can't do anything without paying the extra buck.

I did a lot of research and selected OTSB for our theme choice. Never had an issue, questions were answered timely, and no problem with previous updates. I didn't so much mind the $9/month if it kept my theme updated which I assume is the proper thing to do. So I did sign up, did update the Responsive theme with this latest update, and now ALL of my critically important options are a mess apparently from some light customizations for options and for the cart by another popular and commonly used app provider. Even on the product pages the options are all out of order! I submitted a ticket 2 days ago to OTSB w/no response yet, and then submitted a priority ticket yesterday, which I should have done initially not realizing how critical this problem is.. The timeframe for a ticket response says the same thing- 1-2 days so what is the priority ticket advantage? And I do NOT want to talk to someone from zendesk with a generic response that never takes care of a problem. What is the advantage of updating if it deconstructs the current theme/website? I could have stayed with wordpress for that! This was our whole purpose of selecting OTSB for shopify! We are launching this site NEXT WEEK!! I contacted a shopify expert and they want hundreds of dollars to update these few lines of customization! WHAT??? No thank you!!! I am also reading all the complaints here and the responses from OTSB do not sound very empathetic or helpful to those having problems with the update. We were fine with previous updates and NO ISSUES until this most recent one! I am hoping to hear from someone TODAY and how this will be taken care of! I would advise anyone considering an OTSB theme to hold off. I am happy to provide a previous positive review AFTER this has fixed! UPDATE: I did receive an email back from OTSB and they did take a little deeper look at the issues we had with the theme update. They were very courteous and somewhat helpful but basically threw it back to the options app we were using to fix the issues. Interesting that one of the suggestions was NOT to do the update, or use a previous saved version before the update, and work out the issues later. This is opposite of what OTSB suggests on their site. We did work with the options app and they have been very very helpful. Again, we did not expect OTSB to fix these (light) customization issues, but did expect a heads up notice that upcoming updates can and most likely will affect the architecture of your site. The majority of Shopify users are not web developers, coders etc. . Most purchase a theme so as not to have build a site theme from scratch (note: a big selling point on the themes is you can customize it however you want), which is why we switched to Shopify/OTSB..It was our expectation that this would resolve the Wordpress issues of a current site, however at least Wordpress always gives you a heads up on major updates. We are continuing with it for now as we have quite a bit of time and money invested, but we are wiser to the communication and limitations we experienced and hope that OTSB sees all these reviews and will give their fellow business owners and customers a better experience in the future as promised on their sales pages.

I've been a loyal and happy customer for years having purchased the Parallax theme and now on the Turbo theme. Received the email like everyone else and decided to update prior to the price increase for the basic plan. All of a sudden updates that were smooth with no user input from me, changed to 'we cannot update these three customizations'. Following the instructions to manually update the code, I keep getting an error on one of the customizations. Emailed support multiple times and no response AT ALL which has never happened in the past. Why all of a sudden is there radio silence from a support team that was very responsive in the past [even though I upgraded to the PRO plan as they wanted which is supposed to get me priority support]. I'm very disappointed in Out of the Sandbox. If you're going to start charging for updates then at the very least offer support for your products. Given my current situation and the feedback of other irate customers, I would NOT recommend purchasing a theme from this company in the future. Developer response is useless as it seems that they haven't even read my review. I've already submitted two support requests with NO response.

I'm in complete agreement with all the recent (re)views of this company. I've bought two of their themes; Turbo ($350) and Flex ($450). One of the main reasons we chose to buy these themes is because the FREE Theme Updater helps to make their very high price tag slightly more digestible. Their recent decision to start charging for this app is a ridiculously shady move; luring people in with a free service and subsequently charging for it is the ultimate form of greed. ...And before someone replies to this review suggesting that manual theme updates are still free - the idea that manually updating the theme is supposed to replace the Theme Updater is laughable. This behaviour coupled with THE WORST customer service we've ever come across, is enough for us to leave $750 on the table and go in search of a company that values their customers. This is quite frankly disgusting behaviour. AVOID AVOID AVOID.

Really obnoxious bait-and-switch money grab. I've bought several themes from this company in the past but won't do business with them in the future, and am on the hunt for a new theme now.

Really obnoxious bait-and-switch money grab. I've bought several themes from this company in the past but won't do business with them in the future, and am on the hunt for a new theme now.

Wow. I'm shocked ... I haven't even used this yet. No idea we were being billed. Surprise, surprise! Why not just do a once a year update and charge a flat fee of $150. That's actually reasonable instead of continually updating ... what a mess.

I recently purchased the Parallax theme and just about have my store set up to open and now I get an email saying to automatically update the theme is now $9 per month. I honestly wish this would have happened sooner so I would have purchased a theme from a different provider.

Seems I am not the only one, maybe this company should take a hint!! Not that great, first I did pay lots of money for a simplistic theme, then they want to charge for an update that is automatic, but of course does not include our customized portions of the theme? Seriously, then they sent an e-mail today letting me know that they will be increasing their Free plan... to $9 a month??! Holy crap that's astronomical for what the app is, so byeee. I will just make my own updater app the only appeal was the free part, then I just copy and paste the custom sections, being that the theme is updated so often I feel the theme is super buggy as well and have had to fix a lot of issues with it in the past. Also a word of advice is update the thing like once every 2 months or more, having to update a theme on a larger site like every 2 weeks to a month is ridiculous.

A good idea when it came out, though it was only partially helpful for complex customizations that had been added to the default themes. Unfortunately, now that even the basic version is to be a monthly subscription, we'll be deleting and finding other options.

Literally nothing happens, it does not function when I try to open the app. Deleted and reinstalled with the same result. Disappointing. UPDATE: I believe this was my cookie settings as I tried on another browser and it updated ok. Review changed from 1 to 4 stars.

Very poor service and underhand fees - simply read the reviews. The app doesn't work very well, and now a greedy developer wants to charge over $100 a year (forever) for an app to update a couple of lines of code. Their themes are full of bugs, support is very slow (at times even leaving bugs in the code - I'm looking at you 'Artisan'), and now they are trying to sneakily charge for something that was advertised as part of their theme purchase. I doubt this is acceptable practice, or legal, in most countries. We have already had to change two Out of the Sandbox themes due to bugs in their software, and now they do this. If I were them, I would be very embarrassed as to how they treat long standing customers. The most insulting thing is the email we were sent, spinning this charge as an 'opportunity'. Please don't patronize us with PR, you are simply milking merchants for all you can get before moving on. P.S. Following the developers response: You seem to miss the point - everyone who purchases an Out of the Sandbox theme agreed to do so with the knowledge that the updating app comes along with it (and we have also paid an initial premium for the theme and updater app). You are significantly changing the agreement by now charging for the app, and I would say that is unlikely to be legal here in the EU. Also, you mentioned in one response that you need the money to fund your IT systems - well, if you can't afford to provide a service, don't offer it for free with the intention of locking customers into a 'blackmail scheme'. Have the dignity to admit you simply want more money by charging customers twice.

A premium theme should not require an additional $9 per month to upgrade the few times per year that is necessary. This will not build good will for Out of the Sandbox or Pixel Union. I imagine this will also impact reviews of their themes directly. I like Empire but would not recommend it to others given this recent sheisty maneuver.

Just received a message that they are now charging for this app even after we paid so much for the theme. It doesn't make sense to pay $108 for something we use 2 times a year. I will most likely move to another theme once my theme becomes too out of date.

Like many others not happy this app is going from free to paid with no details on how to avoid being charged. This app never worked for me due to my custom code.

They just notified that they moved this to a paid app. 100+ a year to keep their app updated on top of what you pay for the theme.

We have used this app once and it worked well but it just sits there majority of the year. Now that they are charging $9/month for this app we will be deleting it. This isnt something constantly used that we can justify paying them for especially for something that should be free with the theme.

I'm a long time online seller and this app has been great the handful of times that I"ve updated in the past three years. But I cannot believe that I paid $350 for a theme (with 1 store usage allowed), and now OOTS wants to charge $9 a month and/or $108 a year (forever) to let an app stay installed in my store that I use two or maybe three times a year at a maximum?? BOO HISS. Horrible. The updater is great so I hate to leave 1 star because of this new policy, but its a complete disappointment to see these guys get so greedy when their themes are highly priced.

Getting rid of the Free Plan and starting to charge $9 for it? Big Mistake! You, As a Company that sells templates (For Big Money!) and charges money in order to update them, create very, an extremely bad business relationship between a provider and a consumer. Does Microsoft charges money for their Automatic system Update? Or Does Adobe Charges Money for their Automatic system updates? I can provide you with many more Companies With good and Loyal Marketing towards their Customers. But You are simply getting Greedy. That will be a downfall for you if you actually gonna initiate your policy. Customers and their Loyalty come First. Without Customers and their Loyalty there is No Business. Don't Forget about this golden rule before getting greedy

This app works like a charm and gets the job done without any problems. Support is also quick and fantastic, often going above and beyond what I expect of them.