This text was initially revealed in March 2023. We’re republishing it now as a result of we’re working the very best sale ever with the Logos 10 Farewell Tour. Reap the benefits of wonderful financial savings on Logos 10 now by September 6, 2024.
Why is Logos so costly? Individuals on the market type of mock us for it, and I’m right here to confess that we really feel just a little delicate on this level. Babylon Bee, for instance, had a headline just a few years again:
When this got here out, my colleagues and I laughed a kind of nervous laughs that you just snigger while you’re the butt of the joke however discover it socially awkward to show your true emotions.
As a result of there are solutions to the query of why Logos prices a lot.
5 solutions.
It really doesn’t price a lot. The free version of Logos is, properly, free—and when you get on our numerous free monthly books e-mail lists, you’ll be able to construct up a pleasant little library with zero monetary outlay. The center of people that work at Logos is to serve the church; I do know that’s my coronary heart. We additionally get hundreds of thousands of hits at app.logos.com, which is free, and doesn’t even require you to create an account.
Logos Fundamentals is $49.99; our model new Disciple packages are additionally very fairly priced (Essentials, Standard, Premium). We all know that not everybody wants a theological and biblical research library the identical measurement as their pastor’s.
Logos options do price cash, however when you take a look at our most costly packages, the true distinction is the quantity and worth of books they embrace. Logos Portfolio, for instance, prices a lot cash due to the books it comes with—books we now have to pay publishers to make use of. To be clear: Logos prices extra or prices much less relying on what number of books you purchase with it. (Final I checked, the identical goes for paper books which might be value having.)
As a seminary pupil, I made actual sacrifices with a view to afford Logos Gold as a result of I knew I’d use its instruments virtually every day for the remainder of my foreseeable life. Many years later, this has confirmed true. I nonetheless purchase Logos books. I bought one today. For me, Logos Gold was value it. Relying in your vocation, occupation, or pursuits, you won’t want a library as giant because the one I wanted, so Logos won’t be as costly for you.
Books make Logos packages costlier, however Logos packages make books extra reasonably priced.
Logos helps you profit from Costco-like economies of scale. Right here’s how that works: many individuals purchase Logos packages, and every bundle comprises many books. That signifies that publishers reminiscent of Zondervan, Baker, and even our personal Lexham Press can cost much less for every e book bought as a result of they know they’ll promote extra. We go these financial savings on to our prospects.
I don’t like saying that Logos books “price pennies on the greenback,” as a result of their price relies on your wants and your utilization of your library. Earlier than I purchased Logos, I made a literal record—a listing I nonetheless have someplace—of all of the books within the Gold bundle I had my eyes on. I eliminated books I felt I wouldn’t use (which is why the worth for me could also be totally different from the worth for you: you would possibly use extra or fewer books in a given bundle—or much less or costlier books), after which I laboriously checked the Amazon value of each single e book that remained on my record. I don’t have the figures in entrance of me, however I recall that the competition wasn’t even shut. Logos beats paper.
Logos destroys paper in one other means. When in the middle of my coaching it grew to become essential to get BDAG, the premier Greek-English lexicon for New Testomony research, I requested my Greek professor whether or not I ought to go paper or digital. He stated paper. He was flawed. I’m sorry, however paper proved so unwieldy that I rapidly bought it and acquired the digital model, which let me search for phrase entries with a easy search perform. Even individuals with an specific desire for a bodily e book of their fingers will often make an exception for reference works.
Paper BDAG is a stupendous e book—however so is digital BDAG in Logos. Paper BDAG prices actual cash—so does digital BDAG. However I take advantage of it much more usually in Logos than I’d if I had the paper model. It’s fairly actually value extra to me in Logos than in paper.
And that brings me to my fifth and closing reply: my books have extra worth to me as a part of the Logos ecosystem.
Logos is a enterprise, and it operates like one, not like a donor-based nonprofit. This enterprise mannequin is simpler at producing a high-quality product. The cash that Bible college students spend on Logos goes to producing specialised instruments of every kind that ship lasting worth to Bible college students and students. I get pissed off after I can’t use the simple-but-powerful instruments in Logos—like when I’ve to quote a e book I’ve solely in Kindle. Or when I’ve to kind out by hand a footnote for a paper e book. When that regrettable prevalence intrudes upon my digital life, I really feel the identical impatient, get-on-with-it feeling I really feel when older generations give me instructions as an alternative of an deal with. Have you learnt how wonderful it’s for a author/editor in an academicky house to have auto-generated footnotes?
Right here’s one other instance of the worth Logos provides. BibleWorks—Logos’s former competitor, and a bit of software program I actually lengthy cherished—had a “Use” tab that was actually fairly useful. It mainly searched the entire Bible for any given Greek or Hebrew phrase each time you hovered over that phrase in a Bible textual content. However it additionally gave me a naked record with no group and just one type of data. The Logos Bible Word Study, designed by our designers and developed by our builders, is among the instruments I flip to extra ceaselessly than every other. I’ve by no means gotten uninterested in how fantastically and usefully it presents word-usage data—plus mainly all the opposite issues I need to find out about a given Bible phrase, multi functional handy and fast report.
I actually might go on and on about what the interconnectedness and availability of Logos books does for my effectivity. The intensive tagging that makes my Bible texts, particularly, a lot extra helpful, is simply enormous to me. And time would fail me to inform of the worth of getting my library with me wherever I’m going on all my gadgets.
However, you recognize, that is the web, so I’m not going to let time fail me; I’m going to fail it:
- As soon as, after I heard a preacher at a church I used to be visiting make a relatively questionable use of Job 31:35–37, I used to be in a position to make use of Logos on my iPad to silently examine a number of translations and commentaries throughout his message to show to myself that I used to be not the loopy one.
- And on this remote-work world wherein I do numerous work from espresso outlets—and even some on planes and in lodges—I by no means have to offer a second’s thought as to if or not I’ll have the books I would like for any writing or educating I’ve to do. Virtually my whole theology and biblical research library (I do nonetheless have some bodily books!) goes with me all over the place I’m going on the earth.
Conclusion
I work at Logos as a result of I’m pushed to assist others interpret the Bible responsibly. And on the finish of the day, I believe the product is its personal greatest argument. A number of occasions I’ve bought books in Logos that I both already owned in paper or had free entry to on-line. The Works of Jonathan Edwards are a sign instance: they’re all free at the Yale site (the fruit of the work of Ken Minkema and his wonderful Jonathan Edwards Heart, at which I took a category as soon as). They’ve been free on-line for years. However the website is relatively tough to make use of, and I lastly simply purchased the set in Logos so I might have it in a way more handy format.
And with Logos 10, you’ll be able to add your paper e book library into the software program so that you just get search outcomes out of your paper books. And future releases of Logos promise extra assist for critical college students of Scripture.
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