PA May Loyalty Vouchers and CHANGE

[Olong Johnson]

[Yan Filiatrault]

Some quotes from Dirk Ulrich

Quote:

As the email states... we will have offers for you this month that won't even require vouchers to be amazing. There are complete months when PA doesn't even give out vouchers (XMAS / December, for example), and the offers are always great, and you guys do spend with us in these times (thank you!), so please show some faith here. That's really all I can say for now. New releases and Soundwide bundles (!) and iZotope plugins and Native Instruments content coming shortly, and the prices will be great as always.

Quote:

Concerns? The first move we did was to gift everybody 8 amazing plugins via Soundwide. Then we followed up with $30.99 deals on some of our TOP plugins. Now we are launching LISA as part of FOREVER 29. And we're rolling out affordable music distribution.
This week we'll launch an AMAZING value-bundle. You decide what you spend your money on, of course, and I respect that 100%, but I honestly don't think you have anything to be concerned about with PA, BX or Soundwide.

Quote:

Who says we won't just send you a deal for a $15 plugin in the future and you don't even need a voucher then? ?

 

[chris.r]

Anyone up for my monthly voucher...?  

[Brian Walton]

19 minutes ago, chris.r said:

Anyone up for my monthly voucher...?  

Is it for $50 with a $700 min spend?  ?

[chris.r]

23 minutes ago, Brian Walton said:

Is it for $50 with a $700 min spend?  ?

Sadly no, it's only $25... but minimum $675 in cart is less too ?????

Edited May 2, 2022 by chris.r

[Bapu]

So I went with 4Evah29 and got hot Lisa for $1 (well, plus the monthly $29.99).

 

Next month I'll probably get the MC77 because I may not have enough 1176s on hand.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Bapu

[Zo]

6 hours ago, Bapu said:

$75 voucher now requires $125 net cart total. 

Maybe Forever $29 is not such a bad deal after all.

That s the goal , PA seems more forcus on making money that providing something consistant on the table ...

[Brian Walton]

59 minutes ago, chris.r said:

Sadly no, it's only $25... but minimum $675 in cart is less too ?????

I bet it looks like this:   

 

[dubdisciple]

Sometimes I wonder if consumer entitlement is trying to catch up with corporate greed.  We are seriously complaining that a company that regularly keeps products that are on par with products costing far more are not giving us enough coupons? I have yet to buy a PA product that was worth less than what I paid with or without voucher. No, I'm not a fan of subscription models but it's hard to complain about their prices, even if it is the Waves method of undercutting their own list price every month.   

[Quick Math]

That sounds disappointing but we don't know what we will have. I'm pretty sure they will offer special Voucher that doesn't require minimum spend or something similar.

They gave us a lot of plugins for free. They will be having something like that maybe.

I already have a lot of plugins from them. I can wait. I also have GAS.

[Brian Walton]

23 minutes ago, dubdisciple said:

Sometimes I wonder if consumer entitlement is trying to catch up with corporate greed.  We are seriously complaining that a company that regularly keeps products that are on par with products costing far more are not giving us enough coupons? I have yet to buy a PA product that was worth less than what I paid with or without voucher. No, I'm not a fan of subscription models but it's hard to complain about their prices, even if it is the Waves method of undercutting their own list price every month.   

I think the issue is that without seeing these new deals the loyalty program suddenly feels a lot less like a perk for those that are buying enough to be a part of it.

Asking a customer to spend $50 as the minimum entry fee (if they are at the $25, $50 or even $75 level) based on prior experience feels like we got priced out of the market a bit when the "forever 29" deal well...is sounding like a better deal even though some of us spent crazy amounts of money to hit a $75 tier.  

Edited May 2, 2022 by Brian Walton

[Heath Row]

Yeah, I hit the Forever29 deal, it's pretty cool, takes a long time for a month to go around though, but hey. I got about 80 PA plugs, there's not many more I want, I certainly don't 'need' any more, with all the other dev's I purchase from. At least you can cancel the Forever29 whenever you like.

It's crazy really, there's got to be something wrong, some diagnose-able physiological disorder.?  

Edited May 3, 2022 by heath row

[Zo]

1 hour ago, dubdisciple said:

Sometimes I wonder if consumer entitlement is trying to catch up with corporate greed.  We are seriously complaining that a company that regularly keeps products that are on par with products costing far more are not giving us enough coupons? I have yet to buy a PA product that was worth less than what I paid with or without voucher. No, I'm not a fan of subscription models but it's hard to complain about their prices, even if it is the Waves method of undercutting their own list price every month.   

You re right , but it s more like 

1) they re changing policies like underwear 

2) dev that makes vauchers not worth are just taking us as dummies , just don t and make sales 

3) Don t get me started on transfert fees ...

i always have this feeling that costumers are treated like a « proie » not valued as people that support your bizness ...

[ALC]

I counted 64 plugins in my account (from 2019).  About half of them I got for free (intro, PreSonus, free after the $20 vouchers).  The rest were all $10 or $15, with an occasional $25, mostly once a month to pick up a sale item.  I don't think I'd spend as much if the minimum was $50.

[pseudopop]

7 hours ago, dubdisciple said:

Sometimes I wonder if consumer entitlement is trying to catch up with corporate greed.  We are seriously complaining that a company that regularly keeps products that are on par with products costing far more are not giving us enough coupons? I have yet to buy a PA product that was worth less than what I paid with or without voucher. No, I'm not a fan of subscription models but it's hard to complain about their prices, even if it is the Waves method of undercutting their own list price every month.   

I don't think it's as much about entitlement as it is about the fact that, with patience, we have consistently been able to buy certain plugins for a certain price ($15 has been the target for me). Because of that we now perceive that price to be the monetary value of those plugins. When PA prevents* us from buying them at the same price, they are basically raising the prices, but in our eyes they are not doing anything to increase the value of the plugins, so the price increase seems arbitrary, ie. greedy.

If you don't want to sell your products for cheap, then you shouldn't do that all the time.

I can understand the need to raise prices if, for example, your distribution costs go up, but I don't think that's the case here.

* or that seems to be the fear, here

Edited May 3, 2022 by pseudopop
gramma

[Carl Ewing]

7 hours ago, dubdisciple said:

Sometimes I wonder if consumer entitlement is trying to catch up with corporate greed.  We are seriously complaining that a company that regularly keeps products that are on par with products costing far more are not giving us enough coupons? I have yet to buy a PA product that was worth less than what I paid with or without voucher. No, I'm not a fan of subscription models but it's hard to complain about their prices, even if it is the Waves method of undercutting their own list price every month.   

It's not really a typical subscription model. I gt a $200 voucher every year for spending $150 on Mix / Master subscription.  It's a complete no brainer if you already plan on buying $150 PA plugins in a year, which is quite easy to do. I'm curious how many people will blow $150 on the Forever sub in a year, get 5 plugins, and realize they totally wasted their money.

[Heath Row]

12 hours ago, Yan Filiatrault said:

Some quotes from Dirk Ulrich

Doesn't he play drums for Metallica any more?

[MusicMan]

10 minutes ago, Carl Ewing said:

It's not really a typical subscription model. I gt a $200 voucher every year for spending $150 on Mix / Master subscription.  It's a complete no brainer if you already plan on buying $150 PA plugins in a year, which is quite easy to do. I'm curious how many people will blow $150 on the Forever sub in a year, get 5 plugins, and realize they totally wasted their money.

Before this loyalty voucher change it wasn't so clear cut. Yes, with the sub you get a voucher which is higher than the sub, but you can only spend it in one go. From cherry picking the weekend warrior sales and a number of the crazy periodic sales that came up, most of mine have been between free and about $25. Plenty around $10 to $15. That simply isn't possible with a single use voucher, so it might take an extra year, or two of subs, which then makes it less attractive.

Not sure what the new deals will be like though, but I'll wait and see how things pan out. PA have been pretty good to us in the past, so they can have the benefit of the doubt for a little bit from me, but otherwise there are a lot of other companies that I like. I also have pretty much all the PA plugs I really wanted now (and own, not sub), so whatever way it lands it's going to be fine either way ?

If they push everything subscription only, I'll just stop spending money with them.. not entirely a bad thing for the credit card! ?

[Carl Ewing]

30 minutes ago, MusicMan said:

Before this loyalty voucher change it wasn't so clear cut. Yes, with the sub you get a voucher which is higher than the sub, but you can only spend it in one go. From cherry picking the weekend warrior sales and a number of the crazy periodic sales that came up, most of mine have been between free and about $25. Plenty around $10 to $15. That simply isn't possible with a single use voucher, so it might take an extra year, or two of subs, which then makes it less attractive.

Not sure what the new deals will be like though, but I'll wait and see how things pan out. PA have been pretty good to us in the past, so they can have the benefit of the doubt for a little bit from me, but otherwise there are a lot of other companies that I like. I also have pretty much all the PA plugs I really wanted now (and own, not sub), so whatever way it lands it's going to be fine either way ?

If they push everything subscription only, I'll just stop spending money with them.. not entirely a bad thing for the credit card! ?

The point of the subscription is that I get to use a massive part of their catalog for a year + get $200 to buy whatever I want during a mega sale. Why would I be buying $15 plugins - that I've likely never used much other than a demo - when I already have everything to try out for 12 months? And then buy specifically what I want / use in December sales season.

 I don't understand why anyone debates this deal. It's insane. For $150 my entire mixing and mastering needs are covered for a year - by extremely high quality plugins - and the cost of the sub still goes to permanent buys on heavily discounted super sales. This is the best deal in the industry as far as I'm concerned. Not only that, but 2 years of this subscription has saved me tons of money not having to buy shit I don't need from other companies. I haven't bought a UAD plugin, or a single emulation or mix / mastering related plugin from any other company since I started this subscription  - and I used to spend $100 / EACH on those UAD plugins. My studio's plugin expenses went WAY down these last 2 years.

[Yan Filiatrault]

2 hours ago, heath row said:

Doesn't he play drums for Metallica any more?

No that’s Lars Ulrich. Not knowing that is a sacrilege.