Shaxpir is Shutting Down

I have some hard news to share today: after eleven years, Shaxpir will be shutting down. The service will remain fully operational through April 30, 2026, giving everyone time to export their work. After that date, you will no longer be able to log in to your account.

I know this affects real people doing real creative work, and I want to be honest with you about what's happening and why.

Why I Built This

In January 2012, my wife Emily and I survived a shipwreck. In the months that followed, struggling with PTSD, I discovered something profound: writing saved me. Not just any writing, but the deep work of processing grief and loss through storytelling. I spent a year writing my book, Abandoned Ship, and that process transformed how I understood both suffering and meaning-making.

That experience planted the seed for Shaxpir. I wanted to build something that honored the act of writing - not just a word processor that arranges text on a page, but a tool that understood the elements of craft: character, setting, scene, theme, voice. I wanted to create a space where writers could do their best creative work, and maybe find a community of people doing the same.

That was the dream.

What Happened

I worked harder on Shaxpir than I've ever worked on anything. For most of these eleven years, I was building it nights and weekends while holding down a full-time software engineering job. Later, I went all-in, making it my sole focus. I poured everything I had into making it something special - not just my time, but an enormous amount of my own money. I never took any VC investment, and I'm not rich from some previous startup success - I'm just a regular guy who tried to get a dream off the ground.

But Shaxpir never achieved financial sustainability. Despite having users who loved the platform and found real value in it, I couldn't build the kind of community and growth that would make it viable as a business. The truth is, the demands of building and supporting a complex technical architecture kept me from getting out into the real world, nurturing relationships with creative people and building a community.

Those are hard lessons to learn after a decade of work. But they're real, and I own them.

To Everyone Who Trusted Me With Their Words

If you're reading this, you trusted me with something precious - your creative work, maybe years of it. I've carried that responsibility seriously, and I want to make sure everyone has time to safely export their projects before the service ends.

My hope is that Shaxpir brought some joy to your creative practice while we had it together. That it made the work of writing a little easier, a little more organized, maybe even a little more inspiring. If it did, then despite everything else, something meaningful happened here.

Thank you for being part of this journey.

What You Need to Know

Timeline:

• Today through April 30, 2026: Shaxpir remains fully operational

• April 30, 2026: Service shuts down, logins disabled

All Pro Features Now Free: Starting today, all paid Shaxpir Pro subscriptions have been canceled, and all Pro features are now available to everyone at no charge. This means all users can now export their work in both DOCX and EPUB formats. New user signups have been disabled.

Exporting Your Work: You can export any project as a DOCX or EPUB file from within the application. Full instructions for exporting your books and your other writing are available in the Shaxpir Guidebook. Please make sure to export all your projects before April 30th. After that date, your work will no longer be accessible.

For Former Paying Subscribers: Your subscription has already been canceled and you won't be charged again. If you were on an annual plan, I'll be reaching out individually to discuss refunds for any remaining months.

Questions: If you have questions or need help exporting your work, please don't hesitate to reach out to me at support@shaxpir.com. I'm a solo developer winding down a service, so I'll do my best to respond to everyone, but please be patient with me.

Thank you for being part of the Shaxpir story. I hope the work you did here meant something to you, because it meant something to me.

— Benji