Harvest Software Users Outraged by 1500% Price Hike Following Acquisition

Businesses are reacting with outrage after the invoicing software Harvest increased its prices by up to 1500% following its acquisition by Bending Spoons. The new owner has replaced flat-rate pricing with a complex usage-based model that many SMEs find unaffordable and unpredictable. As a result, many loyal customers are now abandoning the software in favor of less expensive alternatives.

Key Points

• Harvest users are reporting price increases as high as 1500% following the company's acquisition by Bending Spoons.
• The pricing structure has shifted from a flat per-user fee to a complex usage-based model including projects, clients, and revenue.
• Bending Spoons has a history of aggressive monetization and price hikes with other acquired companies like Evernote and WeTransfer.
• Small business owners describe the new costs as 'unaffordable' and 'daylight robbery,' leading to a mass migration to competitors.
• Experts criticize the lack of transparency in the new model, noting that customers cannot easily predict their monthly bills.

Sentiment

The overall sentiment is strongly aligned with the article’s criticism of the Harvest price hike and deeply negative toward Bending Spoons. Hacker News broadly agrees that the change is customer-hostile and emblematic of acquisition-driven SaaS extraction, though commenters split over whether the best answer is owning software, stronger portability, open-source alternatives, or simply switching vendors when market signals change.

In Agreement

• Bending Spoons is portrayed as following a repeatable acquisition playbook: buy sticky products, raise prices sharply, and depend on customer inertia to preserve revenue.
• Many commenters argue that subscription software leaves customers exposed to sudden vendor decisions because they rent continued access instead of controlling the software and data flow themselves.
• The Harvest case is viewed as another example of enshittification, where a product with accumulated trust is monetized more aggressively after ownership changes.
• Several participants say businesses should treat a Bending Spoons acquisition as a signal to migrate immediately rather than hoping legacy terms will remain tolerable.
• Commenters connect the story to broader lock-in problems, including closed platforms, difficult migrations, proprietary data, and the operational friction that keeps unhappy customers from leaving.

Opposed

• Some commenters argue that SaaS exists for good reasons: customers avoid hosting, security updates, mobile maintenance, monitoring, and other operational burdens that owned software would shift back onto them.
• A few participants push back on nostalgia for older software markets, noting that enterprise lock-in, expensive migrations, and abusive vendors existed long before modern SaaS.
• Some defend the market response, arguing that if a vendor raises prices too aggressively, customers can leave and competitors gain an opening.
• There is skepticism that AI-generated or open-source replacements can fully solve the problem, because running a dependable software service involves operations, support, security, and ongoing maintenance, not just code.
• A minority view suggests acquired companies may already have weak economics, making aggressive monetization a predictable consequence rather than a uniquely malicious act.