Neverin gets premium after five years: price 20 euros
Creator Alen Šterpin reveals what has changed under the hood of the domestic app, where the first customers come from, and why introducing a paywall was a logical next step.
Creator Alen Šterpin reveals what has changed under the hood of the domestic app, where the first customers come from, and why introducing a paywall was a logical next step.
The domestic weather app Neverin, which started five years ago as a project to consolidate meteorological data, has undergone a significant transformation and recently received a premium version. Its creator, physics and computer science teacher Alen Šterpin, told Bug.hr that "almost nothing under the hood remains the same" and that the app now relies on its own data processing and artificial intelligence.
The key change compared to 2021 is complete independence from third-party APIs. Neverin now independently processes raw data from about a dozen forecasting models from major meteorological centers, including the European ECMWF, Germany's DWD, and the US NOAA. It has also developed its own radar composite that merges more than 100 sources from across Europe every five minutes, while more than 1,000 weather stations are connected in Croatia.
The entire system is further accelerated by artificial intelligence, and Šterpin points out that a complete forecast for any coordinate is generated on demand in just about 30 milliseconds. "I didn't want to charge for the service until its core became truly better than what is publicly available," he emphasized.
The premium version, priced at 20 euros per year, offers several advanced features not included in the free version. Users get radar precipitation prediction up to four hours ahead, an extended 14-day forecast, and a minute-by-minute rain forecast. Šterpin highlights the latter as his favorite because it provides a concrete answer to whether someone will get wet in the next, say, two hours.
Payment is handled through the Paddle service, with cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay available. New users can take advantage of a seven-day free trial that doesn't require entering card details, and after it expires, they automatically revert to the free version. Šterpin emphasizes that everything that was free before remains free.
"The main reason for introducing Premium is very simple - development and infrastructure cost money. I wanted Neverin to have its own source of funding for further development, instead of depending on how much time and money I have left," he explained.
Although premium has been active for only a few weeks, initial results already show interesting trends. About 75 percent of customers come from Croatia, but subscriptions are also arriving from Slovenia, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Switzerland. Šterpin notes that among foreign users are sailors, tourists, and owners of vessels and properties who spend summers on the Adriatic, using Neverin as a planning tool.
"The first purchases from abroad were a serious signal to me that the product has potential beyond Croatia, which certainly influences our plans for further development," he said. In addition to private users, business entities are slowly showing interest, such as a utility company using the app to track heavy downpours, plan irrigation, and organize winter services.
Future plans include developing a system that will monitor forecasting model errors in real time and learn from them, with artificial intelligence serving as a corrective layer on top of existing physical models. Specialized forecasts are also announced for farmers, with data on soil temperature and moisture, as well as frost and hail risk, and for sailors, with more detailed information on waves, wind, and sea temperature.
"From a market perspective, the goal is for Neverin to grow into a serious regional product. We already have data and coverage for the entire region and wider Europe; it's just a matter of localization, marketing, and support. There's also the organizational side. My goal is to build a small development team, while I would focus more on product, marketing, and sales," Šterpin concluded for Bug.hr.
