Membership difficulties (solved)

[Sailor55]

I bought a one-year SONAR subscription on Aug 31, 2024. Thus, that subscription is due to expire in 30 days.  I tried to sign in to Bandlab to find the status of my account. I found that next to impossible. I tried a regular Bandlab sign with my email and the password (I've kept a record of), but that failed. I then assumed I must have signed in with Google a year ago,  so I tried that. That worked but now Bandlab thinks I'm a new member. My installation of SONAR now says I now have a free trial version. I do NOT. I have a PAID subscription. Bandlab seems to have no prior knowledge of me as a customer. And now I've degraded to the free version. Very aggravating... 

[Bristol_Jonesey]

Send an email to support@cakewalk.com

[Sailor55]

Thanks, I shall try that.  

[Bass Guitar]

If you use Google you can go into the password manager. Look for Bandlab and it might show your 2 accounts. Then you can see the correct email and password. 

[Sailor55]

16 minutes ago, Bass Guitar said:

If you use Google you can go into the password manager. Look for Bandlab and it might show your 2 accounts. Then you can see the correct email and password. 

It's quite a frustrating experience. When I sign in with Google I get a screen that says I've successfully signed in and that I may now close the window. There are no other options.  If I go back to the sign in page and try again I get the option to sign in with my now-listed Google account. Then I get a message that I will be direct to my account but that does not happen. Actually, nothing happens, except the "developer info" pop-up disappears.

[Sailor55]

Okay. I'm back to my paid version and the membership nag stuff has gone away.

I had to use the 'forgot password' option to set up a new password which allowed me to access my original account using my original email address. (I'm sure I hadn't forgotten the previous password it seems like BandLab did). And while I was previously trying to log in with Google, I'd generated a new account (a 'free' one) with a new 16-digit user number. Then my SONAR installation immediately switched to the free version.

After I signed out from BandLab and re-signed in again with my proper email address the installation reverted to the paid version showing the original 16 digit user number.  So that's fixed, although I guess there's an orphaned user ID out there somewhere.

All I really wanted to do in the first place was see the state of my account. Now I can. And yes, it expires on Aug 31st. But how and when do I pay for renewal? That is entirely unclear. Is it automatic?  And something else: A new user can now buy a year's membership for $99 US. But, when I renew (in a month) it will be $149.50 US. That seems wrong. And there seems to be no provision to renew early. Does everyone with a yearly subscription have to wait until exactly their anniversary date to renew? And how do you renew? Still lots of questions. 

[Noel Borthwick]

Talk with support. I believe you can cancel and then choose to resubscribe at the new rate after the current membership expires.

[Bass Guitar]

1 hour ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Talk with support. I believe you can cancel and then choose to resubscribe at the new rate after the current membership expires.

That doesn’t work. Once you have a subscription you are no longer eligible for the discount. I just went through this back in early July. And exactly a year ago it was the same story and staff said they were going to sort it out but they didn’t. I had to create a new account to get the discount. 
At the end of June Everybody else was offered the discount of $49 but my renewal was for $149 US which is $205 Canadian. So I bought Studio one instead. Unfortunately they are loosing thousands of users because of this issue with the membership. 
Thank goodness for the free tier version but I don’t expect that to last forever. 

[Sailor55]

1 hour ago, Bass Guitar said:

3 hours ago, Noel Borthwick said:

Talk with support. I believe you can cancel and then choose to resubscribe at the new rate after the current membership expires.

That doesn’t work. Once you have a subscription you are no longer eligible for the discount. I just went through this back in early July. And exactly a year ago it was the same story and staff said they were going to sort it out but they didn’t. I had to create a new account to get the discount. 
At the end of June Everybody else was offered the discount of $49 but my renewal was for $149 US which is $205 Canadian. So I bought Studio one instead. Unfortunately they are loosing thousands of users because of this issue with the membership. 
Thank goodness for the free tier version but I don’t expect that to last forever. 

Thank you B.G. for detailing your experience. That is helpful to me. I don't have the nerve to cancel and re-subscribe in order to get the $99 US price. I fear that would only create a mess of extra problems. It's risking trouble I don't need.  Here's the thing: I like the new SONAR and I'm quite willing to pay for the features available  in the subscription version (yep, a Canadian, $205 CD for me too).

I simply don't know how to go about renewing for Aug 31st.  It is to be automatic? Do I have to let the subscription expire first before being prompted for more money? Is it possible to renew early (in my case, less than a month ahead) to avoid any problems?  Do I need to wait until Aug 31 st?

Most subscribed software (for example anti-virus) starts notifying you when the subscription is nearing a due date. Is that what BandLab will do?

[Bass Guitar]

To tell the truth I don’t remember getting any notifications from Bandlab? Possibly I might have them turned off? 
 

I would think that if you set it up to automatically renew then you’ll be charged on your credit card automatically at the full price. 
 

I find this frustrating as example I use Vegas and they just emailed me an offer with a big discount to upgrade. Cubase has huge discounts for upgrades. Every single software I use has always been this way. 
This membership system seems like it will be more expensive than any other software I use over time. I think this is how most people feel about it.
A year went by for me and now I have no more full version to use. 

[Sailor55]

I now have the answers I was seeking in an email from Cakewalk. They are are below. I started this thread because I couldn't sign in to my account due to an incorrect password and that sent me down a bit of a rat hole (as detailed above). I hadn't changed the password since I got the account and I'm pretty sure I hadn't forgotten it. It seemed as if BandLab had lost track of me, but apparently, all I had to do was change the password.

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Regarding your questions about renewal:

BandLab Membership costs USD $14.95 per month for the monthly plan and USD $99 for the first year on the annual plan, renewing at $149.50 per year after the first year.

Your subscription will automatically renew at the interval you selected unless you choose to cancel.

There isn’t an option for early renewal, but your plan will stay active until the renewal date.