How SoftOrbits is growing its audience by diversifying its software distribution model

SoftOrbits is an image data processing software development company founded in 2006 by Eugene Ustinenkov. Initially a humble startup focused on delivering convenient solutions for everyday editing problems, nowadays it is a team of industry experts that boasts over a million yearly downloads as well as 300,000 users. 

SoftOrbits’ approach to editing software lies in creating small-scale single-feature utilities that enable users to quickly deal with routine, tedious, and boring tasks, leaving more room for artistic expression and creativity. The team puts a huge emphasis on delivering automated and highly accessible tools that don’t require any prior learning to achieve results, which has enabled SoftOrbits to carve a unique niche in a highly competitive market.   

Recently, the company took another step towards increasing user convenience by introducing online versions of 10 of its most prominent tools, enabling customers to edit their images with no hardware requirements. This decision has proven to be successful, with increases in both the active user base and the downloads for the desktop versions of the applications.

“Time after time we see how focusing on providing users with the most accessible options on the market pays off, and we are happy that our core philosophy resonates with our customers. SoftOrbits is a company that puts user experience first at all times — our goal is to save your time and help you achieve results without having to put too much effort into it. Manual photo editing isn’t easy, and ever since the inception of our company, we knew how much energy it can take from photographers and artists. Now we can finally ease this burden even more by enabling quick editing from any device and at any moment,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits and AlarmFront. 

The team behind SoftOrbits also states that its subscription model for online tools combined with the one-time-purchase approach for downloadable solutions has proven to be highly versatile, and its flexibility is highly valued by SoftOrbits’ users. 

“We gained a lot of individual users after we launched our online tools, which makes sense considering how much more convenient it is for one-time users to avoid paying the full price for the product they won’t need to rely on very often. However, new versions of our tools have reached a large audience overall, and that includes people who are absolutely willing to buy a full desktop version of the product. These are mostly companies and influencers who find our solutions useful for different reasons, but primarily because there are no costs associated with learning how to use them,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits with over 10 years of software development experience.

SoftOrbits has also increased its use of AI, implementing new AI-powered functionalities in both versions of its utilities. However, unlike most companies in the industry, SoftOrbits chose a different approach, avoiding image generation and instead relying on AI to deal with mundane and tedious tasks like removing backgrounds from photos, correcting colors, and processing batches of images at once.

“There is a lot of negativity associated with AI-generated images, and most of our audience doesn’t appreciate AI’s generative capabilities. It is commonly criticized for trying to replace human creativity and taking away jobs. There are multiple reasons why we chose a different approach, but this is among the most important ones. Our tools are designed to help users express themselves without any hassle, and we see how our audience appreciates it,” says Eugene Ustinenkov, CEO of SoftOrbits, Candidate of Technical Sciences.

Right now, the team is exploring new ways to implement AI technology while also improving the mobile experience to ensure that users feel comfortable editing their images at all times. 

“We also aim to add more personalisation in the future, but for now we will stick with finding more about what AI has to offer to our target audience. This way, we will be able to capitalise even more on prompt-based editing and natural language recognition, making our tools much more convenient than most solutions available on the market,” says Hannes Jansen, writer and editor at SoftOrbits.

Would you like to connect with SoftOrbits? Whether you’re a client interested in SoftOrbits’ products or a business owner willing to partner with the team, you can reach out at [email protected].