So we are talking about 4 single function plugins that will cost as much as Capture One each year and twice as much as Cubase (a Pro digital recording studio with tons of plugins)?
Don’t you think the pricing is a bit out of balance? To say it nicely!
And Sharpen AI gets sharper every upgrade?
I don’t mind paying an upgrade fee if it’s reasonable, but this is crazy! Despite the fact that I can easily afford it!
Don’t think they mean $99 for every product and bundle…and PS/LR is a thousand times more powerful than anything Topaz offers.
For me the C1 upgrades cost $159 … Unless I buy when there is a discount.
You are going back on your word that you will give free updates for life. I find the products excellent but do not approve of this, now, devious trading practice. You can legitimately and morally do it for new customers but existing customers should be able to keep to the original conditions. I am at a complete loss as to why some of your customers who are about to be swindled are taking your side.
Graham S.
I ordered the Utility Package two months ago. The promise of free upgrades made it easier for me to spend so much money for software utilities that I do not need every day. Now you tell me I have to pay $99 for every year of upgrades I want to have?
I believe that software development costs money. But what about thinking about existing customers? Wouldn’t it be an idea to offer upgrade years to existing customers at a reduced price ($29 for one piece of software and $49 for the whole package)?
Just my 2 cents,
Christoph
Eric,
Got your message about the change to your upgrade policy. From a business standpoint I understand but as a customer who owns just about everything that you ever put out on the market. I must say that now I will now change my automatically buy decision to a try for 30 days and then decide policy. That way I will only buy what I truly need for my work. This is particularly necessary as your products maintenance costs now approach or exceed the cost of the Adobe CC Photographers yearly subscription.
One thing that you didn’t mention in your email was how you would be handling customer support for older versions of your products once the initial period with free upgrades expires. Currently you can download old versions and license keys for your licensed legacy products. Will that remain the same for the AI Products if we chose not to upgrade?
Sincerely,
Bob Atwell
hello Ellemat2,
Do you belong to Topas staff ?
I haven’t read 99usd/year for all topaz products but only 49usd/application so more than 400 usd…
where did you read it ?
marc
It’s in the original email:
Here it says I saved € 36,94 so normally I would pay: € 131,40
You can get a discount every year when you know how to! This year it was pre sale!
All I’m saying is the pricing is ridiculous for only 4 plugins!
How is Steinberg doing it? They make big profits every year and the TAX pressure in Europe is 5x as high as in the US.
An upgrade to Cubase a complete Pro digital recording studio with tons of plugins included:
An upgrade to Wavelab a complete Mastering studio application including metering plugins and tons of other plugins:
I have been a loyal purchaser of Topaz from the beginning. I can understand the rationale for the company decision at this point. One thing that has set you apart from the rest of the industry was the special offerings of your upgrades. It is one reason that I have continued to purchase your other new or improved products as they become available.
Having said that I will continue to use your products but when it comes to upgrades and or purchase of a newly developed product I will need to consider the options.
Adobe PS made a radical decision years ago to adopt a subscription-based platform. Its business model has not been as successful for them since Luminar came to market.
I am sure that many might renew but honestly, I will evaluate future upgrades to see if they merit their purchase.
What about those of us who purchased Topaz many years ago with the promise we would NEVER have to pay for upgrades? Your offer to us is meager. This is just what successful companies do, Bait and Switch… You should keep your promise to the early adopters who helped made you successful. Or give more generous compensation than what you are offering. I am disappointed, but not surprised.
There must be a limit to the extent to which a product can be “upgraded” - the law of diminishing returns comes to mind. So saying Topaz will charge annually for upgrades risks a situation whereby each year the improvement will be less than the year before i.e. the improvements will not justify the expense. I suspect the new policy will not generate the expected revenue over time.
I can agree with you on the need for paid upgrade BUT YOU ARE ASKING FOR TOO MUCH/EXPENSIVE THAT MAKES YOUR YEARLY UPGRADE VERY CLOSE TO ADOBE SUBSCRIPTION, FAR MORE EXPENSIVE THAT ON1 RAW which is upping there game at a rapid pace , so if your price gets too high your going to loose customer
Eg ,denoise and sharpening still have not be de-throne dxo lab as yet ,on1 does AI mask , YOU AR PUTTING YOUR CUSTOMER IN A POSITION TO CHOOSE BETWEEN TOPAZ OR OTHER SOFTWARE WHICH DO MORE THAN JUST ONE THINK
UPGRADE PRICE IS TOO EXPENSIVE
While I am sympathetic and agreeable to your reasoning, I think the proposed pricing for the updates is out of line with the pure necessity of your products. Perhaps a proposed pricing around $19.99 would be agreeable to your customers, else I have to fear the shortened longevity of your company and then total loss of support. You should have spent more time thinking out this new price structure verses the inevitable decline in customer base. It’s a shame as I have enjoyed your products for quite some years.
Eric,
Thanks for your well composed and thoughtful reply.
I have found Topaz products to be well built, powerful, stable, and affordable. This is more than I can say for many less capable tools that I have tried.
I think your upgrade policy is reasonable and fair.
Thank You and Your Team,
Danny C Boyce
Emporia, Kansas
I bought Mask AI in November 2019, it still does not work (crashes when GPU acceleration is ON). So, more than three months I payed for nothing. It is regretful, but in the light of the new rules is unacceptable.
I have all your products (I never counted how much money I invested in Topaz for all years, but it is a lot), but I have to use mostly your old plug-ins made long time ago because they are more stable. Your new products AI forced me to upgrade my computer to a very modern and powerful one (though my old computer was not so bad and worked snell with other software), it cost me a lot, but it did not help enough, acceleration with GPU results in issues. It is not stable with Quardo RTX 4000 and i9-9900K. What kind of graphical card will be suitable for your new applications? And now you want me to pay 100 dollars per year just to fix old bags?
Thanks Pat. In all transparency, we’re focused primarily on the AI products right now, so there will be no major upgrades to Lens Effects and ReStyle.
That said, we maintain downloads to all the older products (including Lens Effects and ReStyle) so you can continue downloading them if you need a new computer.
No…I am not Topaz staff. It was in the original announcement.
"* After your first year of free upgrades is complete, you can buy another year at any time in the future - for any single product for $49.99. If you own multiple products, you can activate a year of account-wide upgrades for $99.99.
Hi from me to the CEO.
Not sure if anyone reads this far but here goes. I bought six of your products and tolerated much of the hickups. The issue is this, not all your customers live in the US. Six maintenance contracts will cost me $300 but I still have to multiply this by 15 bringing this to R4500 which is an outrageous amount to all customers like me. Compare this to Affinity Photo, Designer and Publisher and the only conclusion is that I will no longer support you. It would make business sense to put a more realistic maintenance price on your products in stead of grabbing a random number which you have not even explained as a sound business calculation. Your choice is not only between nothing and what sounds like a good figure. There are factors like attracting new business in an increasing measure that will more than compensate you for research and development. So if this is your decision, I can no longer agree with your way of driving Topaz and I am saying goodbye.
Just a reiteration…Sure, the decision to provide free updates was a bad one. But be reasonable. They’re in it to make money too. People hafta be paid. I’ve noticed with most of the “upgrades”, that they really didn’t do much more for me after the upgrade. So you may not hafta buy the upgrade if everything is working. The AI part…don’t see much in the way of machine learning there. Remask 5 works way better than Mask AI IMO! The freebie mentality doesn’t work. Go ahead and vote for Bernie and see how far that gets you. What good would a class action suit benefit you? The lawyers will rake in most of the settlement. Come on. Grow up. If you shoot RAW, and maybe use a tripod, what do you need Denoise for? Eat the expense and buy a RAW processor like DxO. It does a large part of my work. I use Topaz plug-ins as a supplement. So get over it. You can continue to use the Topaz products you have and be fine. I’m assuming they won’t take it away from you. You purchased the license, keep using what you have.
