Larry Shelby Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 In this time of falling prices Avid does the opposite... Avid Are Changing Pro Tools Pricing On July 1st 2019 Is This Good Or Bad News For You? Avid is to change their Pro Tools Pricing structure with effect from July 1st 2019 to encourage Pro Tools users to move to subscription rental plans. There are winners and losers in these changes with these changes. We have the latest details on the new pricing plan. We understand that Avid will be sending an email to all Pro Tools users but the headline changes are that Avid are reducing the rental pricing for Ultimate users BUT are doubling the price of Pro Tools Standard Perpetual license annual upgrade plan from $99 to $199 as well as increasing the price of most Pro Tools Standard Rental plans. We have the latest details on the new pricing plan. Read more now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidney Earl Goodroe Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 Let's hope that Cake is not moving to a rental only licensing model!!!! That article is rather disturbing!!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bapu Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 Meng has said repeatedly that CbB will *always* be free. For now I'm going to continue with that belief. 5 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matthew Sorrels Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 As long as people insist on continuous development as a must have feature, subscriptions are going to become somewhat inevitable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Walton Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, Matthew Sorrels said: As long as people insist on continuous development as a must have feature, subscriptions are going to become somewhat inevitable. Not true at all. If it was a necessary feature the companies could bank on users paying for upgrades or upgrade plans. The reality is subscription is seen as a way to require end users to continue to pay even though a large chunck of users do not insist on continuious development at a regular pace. The market is saturated and the programs out are so mature that the average user can be one and done for many years. I know many full time professionals that use Adobe CS6. That was discontinued 6 years ago. The DAW market is no different and this is the same timeframe Sonar X3 was released, a still very capable and impressive DAW. Avid has never been a low cost leader and it is no surprise they are trying to squeeze more money out of their user base. They have done this for years. Edited June 18, 2019 by Brian Walton 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mánibranðr Studios Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 So Avid decided to pull a Gibson/Adobe? Sad! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kitekrazy1 Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 1 hour ago, Brian Walton said: Not true at all. If it was a necessary feature the companies could bank on users paying for upgrades or upgrade plans. The reality is subscription is seen as a way to require end users to continue to pay even though a large chunck of users do not insist on continuious development at a regular pace. The market is saturated and the programs out are so mature that the average user can be one and done for many years. I know many full time professionals that use Adobe CS6. That was discontinued 6 years ago. The DAW market is no different and this is the same timeframe Sonar X3 was released, a still very capable and impressive DAW. Avid has never been a low cost leader and it is no surprise they are trying to squeeze more money out of their user base. They have done this for years. Agree. I can't see Reaper or FL making this decision. It would have been done by now by most developers. Most developers do have a subscription of some sort. If your market is relying on only professionals you are limiting resources. It's the hobbyist and small producer that keeps the market going. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandolin Picker Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 (edited) 1 hour ago, Brian Walton said: Not true at all. If it was a necessary feature the companies could bank on users paying for upgrades or upgrade plans. The reality is subscription is seen as a way to require end users to continue to pay even though a large chunck of users do not insist on continuious development at a regular pace. Exactly. Subscriptions came about when the various software programs matured. Microsoft did this with Office. I have Office 2010 (use to need it for work) and there is no credible reason to switch to a newer version. In fact, I could probably go back to Office 2007 without any issues. Writing a document hasn't changed in the past nine years, spreadsheets still perform their calculations as they have done for the past nine years, presentations are still using the same stupid animations, and they are trying to phase out their Access database. Why should I upgrade or pay monthly for what I already have, that works, and works well. In fact, since I retired I hardly ever use Office and instead use LibreOffice, the free open source software suite. Edited June 18, 2019 by Mandolin Picker 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris.r Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 (edited) 2 hours ago, pwalpwal said: given that you have to authenticate every 6 months(?) i'd say it's a free rental I said the same once here on the forum and instantly got bashed heavily! Edited June 18, 2019 by chris.r Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marcL Posted June 18, 2019 Share Posted June 18, 2019 I think it's obvious, the companies try to make money by bringing no substantial changes. That's the idea of subscriptions! If they would develop valueable changes there was no need to invent new sale models like subscriptions, because the customers would be interested in having the new versions anyway. But those minor overprized modifications are difficult to sell, who wonders? As I said once before IMO subscription prevents somehow that the customers are able to rate the product progress, because they have to pay wether they like the changes/improvments or not! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jesse g Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 I can see it now, Bye Bye Pro Fools Tools Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kennywtelejazz Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 (edited) I don't have a dog in this particular fight , since I do not have or use Pro Tools .I can say right now I am rather disenchanted with the whole subscription approach to DAW's and Musical software in general .. Anyway that's my two centavo's , Kenny Edited June 19, 2019 by Kenny Wilson 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vernon Barnes Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 Companies would often prefer to lease equipment so it probably true of software. There are tax and cash flow advantages in paying monthly rather than shelling out a lump sum in one go. If Avid consider their market to be "pro" they may take this into consideration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted June 19, 2019 Share Posted June 19, 2019 17 hours ago, pwalpwal said: given that you have to authenticate every 6 months(?) i'd say it's a free rental Thank you, more precisely what Cakewalk by BandLab's licensing is is a free subscription, like Tape Op. We all know about Tape Op, right? Don't cost nothin', but once a year they contact you and at that time you need to confirm that you still want it and that your mailing address is still the same. Then they keep sending you your monthly issue. Similar deal with CbB, only the terms and mechanism are slightly different. There's a little program that contacts their servers and blesses your installation of CbB and it just needs to do that at least once every 6 months or CbB will slip back into demo mode. Anyone who wants to try to "bash" me for stating that obvious truth, step right up. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starship Krupa Posted June 20, 2019 Share Posted June 20, 2019 (edited) It looks like Avid are turning their backs on the hobbyist and semi-pro segment and focusing on the stratosphere a la Sequoia and Pyramix. They know where their money is coming in from, I don't. This might signify that they acknowledge that so many in that segment have already turned to Logic, Cubase, Cakewalk, Studio One, FL Studio, Ableton Live, Reaper, Samplitude, Waveform, Mixcraft et al that there's no sense in them trying to compete there. Is the DAWniverse split into these two segments: one where the users use the DAW as a music creation tool, composing, editing, recording, looping, making beats, singing, rapping, sampling, all that, and then another where the DAW is used strictly for recording, editing, mixing and mastering? From looking at the marketing pages for Sequoia and Pyramix, it would seem that way. Maybe Avid wants Pro Tools in that segment rather than bundling AIR softsynths and trying to come up with a performance panel or cloning some feature from Ableton Live, licensing loop packs, etc. If that market is lucrative enough, I actually think that might make sense for them, despite the traumatic effect it would have on the Pro Tools users in the other segment. Obviously, We Who Have Time To Post On Forums skew toward the hobbyist/semi-pro DAW-as-composing-tool segment, so we would tend to think it would be a shame for them to make such a move. What say ye? Edited June 20, 2019 by Starship Krupa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now