The price anchor
| Reelsnag | Downloader subscription sites | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $0 — no subscription | $10–15/mo |
| Annual | $0 after purchase | $144 |
| 5-year total | $24 | $720 |
| 10-year total | $24 | $1,440 |
Subscription figures from the vendor's published pricing ($10–15/mo, ~$144/yr); the Reelsnag column is the full price, paid once.
Break-even analysis
Pays for itself in under 2 months versus a $12/mo converter subscription — everything after that is free.
- After 1 year: Reelsnag has cost you $24 total — Downloader subscription sites has cost $144.
- After 3 years: Reelsnag is still $24 — the subscription is at $432.
- After 5 years: Reelsnag is still $24 — the subscription is at $720.
What you get for $24 once
- Paste a URL → probe. Fetches title, thumbnail, duration, uploader and every available format via yt-dlp -J.
- Format & quality picker. Grouped by resolution, audio-only option, "best" default, automatic video+audio merge via ffmpeg when needed.
- Real download queue. Multiple jobs, 1–3 concurrent, live progress/speed/ETA, cancel, retry, remove, open-in-folder.
- Trim per job. Optional start/end trim — fast stream-copy with an automatic accurate re-encode fallback.
- Extract MP3. Audio-only downloads with a bitrate picker (128/192/320 kbps) — perfect for podcast backups of your own episodes.
- No renewal, ever. The license does not expire and there is no per-seat meter — $24 is the whole price.
Pricing questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — the full source is MIT at github.com/bensblueprints/reelsnag-mvp and always will be. $24 buys the packaged Windows installer and lifetime updates instead of running npm start yourself.
Is this legal to use?
Reelsnag is built for personal use: backing up your own uploads, content you have rights to, Creative Commons / public-domain media, and material a platform's terms permit you to download. Respect each platform's Terms of Service and copyright law — it is not a tool for redistributing or pirating other people's content, and that's on you to avoid.
What happens when a site changes and downloads break?
That's why the "Update yt-dlp" button exists. The engine is the actively-maintained yt-dlp project, which ships extractor fixes weekly — one click pulls the latest release from GitHub.
Does anything get uploaded or tracked?
No telemetry, no analytics, no accounts. The only network calls are the one-time yt-dlp binary download and whatever URL you explicitly paste in — both clearly surfaced in the UI.
Reelsnag — $24, one time
Or get Reelsnag plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.