I have been using Topazlabs for many, many years and it is excellent software. I myself am a software designer from the 80s and agree that free upgrades were always doomed to fail or at best stifle development. BUT you are at a crossroads here and I think you are doomed to fail as your new pricing policy is disproportionate especially for those like myself who have multiple products. I feel your customer base does not reflect the type of user that would wish to fork out $49 or $99 per year especially as they are practically all participating as your Beta testing team especially around release periods. I would suggest that at the rates you suggest your average user would upgrade per 2-3 years so I would ask you to consider that if you asked $19 single and $35 multiple per year you will stand a better chance. So in reality a user is likely to upgrade to an affordable $19 or $35 per year, in 3 years you will make $57 or $105… Whereas I feel under your proposed pricing you will lose customers and your monetary forecasts will fall flat also opening the door for competition, which is mounting especially as the market is swinging rapidly towards Android. Other big names have failed in the last few years due to overpricing on upgrade plans with too little improvement to offer. When you move into this area you’ll find you are under pressure to try and please the customer with new content they don’t really want just to justify the cost. The biggest company in the game do exactly this with their average end user only upgrading every 2-4 years but use this ideology as a springboard to attract many end users into their industry standard products and subscription plans. You are a great team with great products and a good base of loyal customers so follow your nose, your gut, and your heart and not the delusional claptrap of so called marketing experts. Tread carefully and here’s to the future… 
Existing customers should be GRANDFATHERED in from the previous policy. I only purchased your software because of that policy. If I knew I was being lured in by false advertising, I would have never would have bought any of this software at all and shopped elsewhere. I feel extremely cheated by the new policy and don’t know why existing customers need to be part of your “we aren’t rich enough” scheme.
Ben
Mind reading is not a human skill so please stop telling me and others what we feel or think or what Eric/Topaz think/feel.
If you bothered to read the context I was replying to someone who said they’d rather pay $9.99 a month rather than $99.99 a year. Ummm the maths don’t add up there do they?
I’m not jumping for joy over this change of policy and neither have I been bought. But I am trying to understand it without imputing bad motives simply because I don’t like their decision.
just to reiterate topaz has stated in their emails the upgrade policy here is a short clip from a dec 2018 email - just over 1 year ago
“During our Holiday Sale, we’re selling our Topaz Everything Bundle , which includes every Topaz Studio Pro Adjustment, Plugin, and Standalone product we make for $499.99. But since you already own some of our products and you only pay for what you don’t own, your price will be even lower - it’s like your own special deal! With lifetime free upgrades and endless possibilities , this is our best deal ever. But hurry, because this low price is only available until December 25th!”
The simplest way around this commitment would be to declare bankruptcy, sell the IP and customer assets to a new company that doesn’t have that obligation, and close the old one. They’re just skipping the part where they pay the lawyers a pile of money for the fig leaf.
Just a note the last Luminar upgrade was charged.
So sad you are going in this direction. The reason why I have spent a lot of money on your products(I own most everything you make) was the assurance of free updates. Doubt I will be using you that much in the future.
Funny, that only two weeks ago I touted your company, in A YouTube comments section, for not gouging your customers with spendy updates. I guess I’ll have to take that back.
Yes, I have similar emails - right up to January 2019 the free upgrades for life policy was in their product and upgrade announcement emails.
The questions being debated are:
- Is the change legal?
- Is the change ethical?
- Is the change necessary?
I can’t answer 1). A lawyer trained in software licensing law might be able to give an opinion. I would be astonished if Topaz had not consulted their lawyers before making this move. So, I’m going to assume it is legal especially as the EULA makes no mention of upgrades, let alone free ones. I could be wrong, of course.
Question 2) is simpler. Is it ever ethical to break a promise? I’d say, yes it is IF and ONLY if there is no realistic way of keeping it. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with admitting you made a mistake and Eric’s original announcement was suitably apologetic and admitted they had made a mistake.
Question 3) is harder to assess. A number of decent alternatives have been proposed here. The ideal one is to grandfather current users. The rest are compromises - cheaper upgrade prices for existing users and so forth.
But what if the ideal, grandfathering, solution would bankrupt the company or reduce them to just making bug fixes - no budget for upgrades or new products? If that is the reality then those who would force Topaz to stick to their old policy would cripple the company and free upgrades would actually equal no upgrades at all.
Without access to Topaz’s accounts, forecasts and so forth, no one here has enough information to judge whether this change of policy is a cash grabbing exercise, a desperate attempt to stay afloat or a strategic move to enable Topaz to provide leading edge solutions. There are other scenarios as well… https://dilbert.com/strip/2020-01-25
A class action, if it succeeds, would be a pointless act of revenge that could cripple the company. Eric has already offered a refund of every penny you’ve invested in Topaz - a very, very fair offer that would mean you’ve had the software free for years plus cash in the bank.
Me? I’m giving Topaz the benefit of the doubt and accepting they had to do this or effectively be hamstrung when it comes to feature rich upgrades and new products. As I own all 4 affected products, it works out as about $25 per product per year if I choose to upgrade each year. It’s not that bad.
This announcement makes me feel uneasy eventhough I understand that developing new products requires a lot of effort and investment. I have been using Topaz products for many years now and I think I own all of them. The early products seemed to work quite well right from the start while later ones had bugs that needed to be fixed until a usable version could be presented. I did not hesitate to purchase new products because I trusted to have a satisfying version one day with all these free upgrades. But still version 2 of Studio crashes when using more than three effects. I bought Topaz Mask AI eventhough I already owned Remasked because I expected better performance in details but I can’t see huge improvements on that and results are still not perfectly satisfying and look very similar to Remask.
Now I think I will be more hesitant because I wouldn’t want to have to pay ‘double’ for a product because it needs upgrades to work properly. Be honest and don’t put products on the market that don’t work properly and expect customers to pay for bugs fixing.
I like the free upgrade policy and my whole purchases where based on that trust. Eventhough changes might be inevitable I would expect a more satisfying solution for existing customers.
I like the Topaz products and I would like to see improvements to be continued. Please lets find a way that serves everyone.
Dear Eric,
I can understand your problems very well, I work in a company myself as a software developer and yes we had similar problems after 15 years as you have now. Our idea was also to finance everything through new customers, but that’s not possible anymore if you want to develop the products innovatively. Software development costs money and of course if you do a good job like you do, you have to be able to make a decent living and have finances to develop products further and make them better.
For me as a customer and enthusiastic user of your software it is ok to pay money for good software updates if they bring me the added value. That is part of an appreciation. I am also curious how you will further develop the Ai. The possibilities are gigantic! Especially if you go in the direction of video it will be really exciting. Your software has already saved me many a photo that was too noisy with a 1 inch sensor.
What is for me as a hobby user a no go, is the strategy of Adobe a subscription model is for hobby users simply too expensive, I would certainly not go along with that.
Makes great software then people will buy ist i am shure!
Guess what? I have DeNoise AI and Sharpen AI, which will cost me almost $ 100 to upgrade annually… Which is not much less than what I paid to get those products. I do not mind paying for upgrades, but this is too much!
Most businessmen I’'m sure would agree that the goodwill of their company’s customers is a very important asset to have. Users who are happy with the company’s products and service will generate new business for you by recommending them to their circle of friends.
Now, Topaz, after many years of building a good reputation, seems intent on sacrificing that advantage.
I hope you will read the long list of comments here and understand how many of your customers are unhappy with your decision.
I have no issues with this new policy if it helps keep Topaz in business developing new AI products and upgrading existing ones. Topaz products are among the best for value for price.
John
That is how I made my decision to buy as well.
This is really Bait and Switch. I understand your need for cash flow but asking customers who have bought your programs, with the understanding that there would be free upgrades, to now pay for upgrades, is really the definition for bait and switch and breach of contract. A fairer solution would be to continue to give loyal customers, who have already purchased the programs, free upgrades and charge upgrade fees for future purchases.
Agreed. However, I haven’t had mine that long and was lured to buy based on now false advertising.
Topaz aren’t charging anything to continue using their software so your point is irrelevant.
My thinking is fine, thank you.
Anyhow, I think I’ve fed this troll enough 
Calm down, you are over the top. No one, least of all Paul, is purposely lying.
The two most common pricing models in the ISV world are:
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$X up front to purchase and then $Y/yr for maint (ie updates); typically called a perpetual license. You can use your original version forever, as long as it works. Paying the $Y maint is optional, but in reality becomes almost a necessity as the SW ages [or if the software is, ahem, less than polished shall we say]. ISV’s push this for obvious reasons.
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$Z annually ie the subscription model
Topaz=Labs has been using (1), but not charging $Y as they have stated, up until this announcement, that upgrades were no-cost. Sad to see it go, but whether that policy was a “binding contract” as you state is debatable and would most likely have to be challenged in court. Feel free to do so.
Paul was just stating that you can continue to use your SW versions “perpetually” without paying any additional if you so choose (and for as long as it continues to work) ie Model-1 without paying for updates. I’m not clear at all how this constitutes an untruth.
I’m not happy that you previously advertised the products as having free upgrades , and now pull that back completely. Having bought several of your products the costs sum up considerably if I want to benefit from the progress. I know that I’m not forced to upgrade (yet ;-)) And though I can see that you want to make money I hope that you offer a trial period for upcoming upgrades, at least, so that the users can test and decide if a given upgrade is worth the costs and changes over the existing version.
Wolfgang
Elements is a one time purchase from Adobe. It’s not nearly as powerful as it’s big brothers, but for a hobbyist, it works just fine.
I like the Topaz plug-ins to augment Elements, but I still use the legacy plug-ins with Studio.
