A markdown editor without a subscription

Markd.ly Pro is a single payment: $19 at launch, $29 at retail, lifetime. One purchase covers the Mac and Windows desktop builds. There is no annual renewal, no monthly fee, and no separate cloud charge. When you stop paying — because you never start a recurring payment — nothing turns off. The editor you bought stays the editor you have.

The reason this matters with markdown specifically: a .md file you wrote five years ago should still open instantly in five more years. A subscription editor that lapses can leave you locked out of the tool that organizes your own files. Markd.ly avoids that on two fronts — the license is permanent, and the files were always plain .md on your disk, openable in any editor regardless of Markd.ly's state.

Before Pro, Markd.ly Free is a complete local markdown editor on every public platform — Mac, Windows, iPhone, and Android. Create, open, edit, and save local .md files. Live preview. Mermaid diagrams and KaTeX math render for free. On Mac there is a CLI render path and read-only MCP access for AI tools, also free. You can do real work without ever paying.

Pro adds the deeper desktop toolset: Pandoc-compatible export (DOCX, PDF, EPUB, Reveal.js slides), vim mode, AES-256-GCM encrypted documents, a snippet library with variables, a custom CSS / theme editor, advanced workspace search, and MCP write access for AI agents. Pro is desktop-only (Mac + Windows). The deepest Pro toolset is on the Mac direct-download build today; the Windows Pro tools are rolling in across the 1.x series, not all shipped yet.

A one-time license has a real trade-off, and it would be dishonest to skip it. Markd.ly has no sync and no cloud. Subscription editors often fund continuous cloud sync, mobile parity, and a steady release cadence with that recurring revenue. Markd.ly does none of that — there is no sync service, no account requirement, no cross-device anything. If you need your notes to follow you between a laptop and a phone automatically, a one-time local editor is the wrong tool and a synced subscription app is the right one. Markd.ly also has no paid mobile tier — mobile is a free local editor only — and no plugin marketplace. Those are deliberate boundaries, not coming-soon promises.

Writers, consultants, PMs, and developers who keep documents as files and resent paying rent on a text editor. People consolidating off a bundle subscription where a markdown editor is one of the few apps they actually open. Anyone who wants the tool they use for their own files to keep working without a billing relationship.

If automatic sync between your devices is a hard requirement, a synced subscription editor will serve you better — be honest with yourself about that before you buy. If you only ever edit on a phone, the free mobile editor is the whole product for you and there is nothing to purchase.