Subscriptions in the FruteStore are controlled, not banned. A developer's income through Frutebox is the one-time purchase; a recurring charge is allowed only where the developer genuinely cannot avoid an ongoing cost, and only at cost (no profit margin without Frutebox's explicit, disclosed consent). This rubric is published and applied uniformly to every developer — including Frutebox's own first-party tools. Every decision cites the numbered criteria below.
Eligibility — a recurring charge is allowed only if ALL hold
1. Genuine ongoing external cost — a recurring third-party cost (licensed data/API/feed), or compute that provably can't run locally or on the user's own infrastructure, with evidence (contract/invoice or architecture). 2. Not build-once, not shiftable — build-once work (code, connectors, UI, shipped models) is one-time + paid updates; storage that can be user-side must be user-side. 3. No reasonable non-recurring alternative reaches the same outcome. 4. A one-time or local path still exists for the user — nobody is forced into the recurring charge to use the core function, where technically feasible.
Pricing — if eligible
5. Priced at cost — coupled to the disclosed ongoing cost, passed through at cost; any margin only with Frutebox's explicit consent, and if consented, disclosed to the user. 6. Up-front transparency — before purchase the user sees exactly what recurs, why, and that it maps to a real ongoing cost. 7. No lock-in — on cancellation the user's data stays accessible/exportable and the last-paid version keeps working where possible.
Process
8. Published rubric, uniform application — every decision cites which numbered criterion passed or failed. 9. Evidence-based, never identity-based — decisions rest only on the tool's cost structure and disclosures. 10. Logged decision + appeal + resubmission — every approval or denial is recorded with reasons; you may appeal or resubmit with more evidence; similar cases resolve the same. 11. No self-preferencing — Frutebox's own first-party tools obey the same rule.
Approving a subscription is real review work and carries a subscription-approval fee (the ordinary buy-once path does not). A genuine paid update — a one-time charge for actual new work, optional, that does not expire or disable the version you already bought — is not a subscription.