Ongoing product value and paid upgrades

General Discussion
82

I understand why this change has happened. Without an ongoing revenue stream Topaz Labs doesn’t have a viable business and the $99 per year for every update to owned products is not horribly expensive.

On my blog I’ve consistently praised Topaz for their previous free upgrade policy and criticised the poor upgrades released by some competitors, whose upgrades are just tiny feature wise and the costs are high.

My own policy to paying for upgrades is simple - unless the upgrade gives me something I will truly benefit from then I skip it. That said, as a software reviewer who benefits when someone purchases on the basis of my review, I have additional reasons to get hold of the upgrade.

I hope that Topaz release genuine upgrades in the future that do more than tweak the product or fix a bug or two. To be honest, with the products being separated into features such as noise reduction and resizing, I can see a time when there’s nothing substantial left to add. Particularly things like JpegToRaw are limited in scope for substantial improvements (imho) but I won’t second guess what Topaz may come up with.

I also wonder at the legality of this change as far as existing users are concerned. The page promising free updates for life is now no longer available, but a case could well be made that any sales made prior to its removal are still covered by that promise.

Andy

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83

Like many here, I believe I am one of your biggest supporters as my account consists of paid licenses of every product you have ever offered. I purchased the licenses in good faith on the terms offered. Retroactively changing the terms does not show good faith on your part. I recently purchased your last offering of Mask AI, a product that has crashed everytime I have tried to use it. I was just going to wait it out until it worked - but now there is a clock running. I don’t necessarly disagree with you business reasoning, but not grandfathering the previous terms will make many reconsider any future purchases. Some of your software is fantastic. Others are OK. All have substitutes. I hope you’ll reconsider these actions in whole. There is some middle ground where we all win.

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84

I agree with DiverDon55. You already are selling variations of products that are closely related and for one feature we had to buy a whole other program which easily could have been incorporated in with another product say “sharpen and denoise”. I bit the bullet and bought them all and frequently switch between them which is a pain in the butt to work on a single image. I think you’re already dollaring us to death in that regard. Now you want to make us to pay again after we purchased a multitude of products expecting free upgrades? I bit the bullet hard to get all the products. Why not lump them together like they should be? I don’t know how much more money your gonna milk me for. I already don’t like not having batch processing and seeing things like “clarity” as a plugin and such. Expand your imagination and earn the extra money instead of bilking us and making us keep buying the same thing over and over with maybe a menu alteration and nothing really to show.

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86

I purchased a full suite of products recently and find mask ai the only useful one after being comfortable with photoshop and NIK. I have spent countless hours trying to install the recent update and resent every minute. The first install was problematic also and I had to install the “trial version” to get it to work. Am not impressed with a company whose installation process is that “buggy.” You competition’s upgrades are seamless for me at this point. ( spent so much time the first time haven’t even tried the new set of instructions sent because I am so exasperated) It has been over 25 years since I experienced this kind of upgrade and installation frustrations.

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87

I too understand the difficulty of running a software company in a competitive market - revenue is required to move forward. Got it.

However, I also agree with the many thoughts that existing customers, e.g. those who have purchased prior to this announcement should be given some consideration for our prior agreement.

It is worthwhile stressing that your software is buggy, and although eager, the support is spotty and inconsistent. This does not even mention the lack of backwards compatibility - Studio 2 to Classic to Standalone. I have wasted countless hours trying to get something to work in one release to work in the new and better one.

You guys do some cool stuff that I can’t find elsewhere, but because of the prior +/- fair pricing, I was willing to put up with it. At the list of $99 per module, with a lot of overlap between modules, I am going to need to rethink the relationship.

Lastly, the “Making Changes to Better Serve You” spin is nothing short of patronizing marketing spin and unworthy of a relationship. Sorry…

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88

I do not want to be part of this very different pricing model. I will put in refund request for my positive account balance.

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89

Eric: I get it. So, the upgrades need to be compelling. If they are, then no issue here. Just keep cranking them out and continue to expand what professionals can do.

90

I’ve been a Topaz customer for many years and despite being accustomed to free upgrades, I don’t blame you for changing your policy. However, the prices of $50 and $100 seem excessive.

With more reasonable prices, I would have no hesitation to purchase the account-wide upgrades annually. Topaz would earn more with lower prices because with the current price plan, many of us will wait until an upgrade reaches “must-have” status.

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91

Your answer makes the most sense of any in the list. Thanks for being an adult in the room.

Too many these days just want ‘free stuff’ and the problem with that is, it’s a fallacy. Free music, free software, free apps, free plug-ins, free lunch, free tuition, free medicine…it’s all baloney.

People just don’t want to admit that they choose to spend their money on whatever they please; 4 dollar lattes, trips around the world, dinner out 4 times a week…all self indulgent pampering of their whiney small selves.

Who has taken the risk in the equation? Most it’s Topaz Labs that takes the risk and we the consumer take a far less risk. We pay 49 bucks or 99 bucks or 299 bucks and use the product for a long long time, yet Topaz has to do all the development, marketing, customer support…which is worth a lot and it costs them money to provide all that. Someone said they are offended that Topaz makes profit. Wow! Just wow!

That level of ignorance reveals a lot about that person’s understanding of the reality. Profit is what Topaz should be rewarded with after assuming the risk and sticking with their part of the bargain. And do they really make all that much profit? Maybe Eric could share the company financials with some of us. You may think you see big numbers in the balance sheet but if Topaz is losing out on 8 million dollars it seems to me that their risk/reward ration is suffering.

So save your money folks and support Topaz if you get value out of their products. Maybe a few less Starbucks coffees per month could help you pay your upgrade fees. Maybe a little self denial will teach you the value of delayed gratification.

Ralf, sorry to put this on your post but, like I said you were the first answer to the announcement that revealed your wisdom.

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92

I agree completely with you that current program bug fixes should be free for existing users and they would be for the six months to a year transitional period mentioned depending on when the AL programs were purchased. Bug fixes are not considered an upgrade in the software owned from other suppliers and I wouldn’t expect that they should be from Topaz either.

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93

Increase your prices - - it makes 'em think you’re worth buying. Anything that stops you going down the road of ON1, Luminer. and other crappo scam, non functioning outfits.
Adobe? Don’t get me going - how much money does a human being want/need? - but I’ll give in and go right back to them as all your employees will when you crumble.
Jeeze, you’re all gonna die one day and for what? To get the biggest Tombstones in the rubbish tip?

94

Eric - I had expected that this might occur at some point as I have long felt that the Topaz business model was not sustainable. It appears to me that Topaz is moving to the ON1 hybrid model of a “one year subscription for upgrades with retention of ownership”. (PLEASE CONFIRM) And if I understand correctly this would cost $99/year for all products. What I have found totally absent in this discussion is Studio 2 and the plugins. I own all of Topaz Products and want to confirm that Plugins and Studio 2 would be covered by the $99 / year “subscription with ownership” .

Finally - I would note that I have not seen any provision for either healing brush and image layer for Studio 2 to make it a viable replacement for Studio. Is there any intention of continued support for Studio 2 as we have been hearing that these were on the road-map and due to be released shortly for months. (hopefully switching to the new support model would mean timely release of critical product features) Support for Studio 2 just seems to have been dropped completely. PLEASE CLARIFY THE FUTURE OF STUDIO 2 AND THE PLUGINS.

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95

$99 a year is a bit steep. I am a long time user of Topaz labs but will no longer be upgrading for more money. I will stick to my adobe sub. There are also alternatives, ie on1, affinity photo, perfectly clear etc.

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96

As a long time Topaz User, I wondered when the free upgrades would end. As I am reaching the "Twi-Light of my years (81) I am gradually losing interest in “plugins”. I have already deleted one major plugin
from my computer and in the coming months will probably not renew the other "subscriptions. Topaz I will stay with you till the light goes out!!

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97

Studio 2 falls short of what is available in Studio 1. I would expect the same functionality or equivalent in Studio 2 as a completed application.

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98

Broken promises, not impressed. I started with Topaz a long time ago and have been very pleased with the software, especially the AI improvements. I bought the ‘lot’. Besides liking the software, the main reason for my supporting Topaz has been the Lifetime Free Upgrades that was offered when I bought in, apparently no longer being honored here. Where is the Integrity? Topaz should honor the people who helped support them in the early days and still do now.
I am disappointed that Topaz has decided to go down this path of 1 year licensing. This is the new ‘norm’ for most software companies as a way of ‘milking’ users. I won’t be doing it when it happens.

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99

I totally agree. For long time customers nothing should change. Bad decision!!!

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100

first, i totally agree with your bussiness stand point. i even purchased one or two software licenses just cause i wanted to support you.

that beeing said, it would be best if you charge for BIG updates. for example:
gigapixel AI 4.x all minor upgrades for free untill the version 5.0 thats when i need to pay the upgrade license.

as well, do more regular updates and checking with the community what are the issues we are having. what hardware/software/quality issues we find along the way. for example at my criteria the old 2018 gigapixel AI made higher quality pictures than the 2019 version. that is just my criteria. surely you can give me a 500 pages explanation why the 2019 is better, yet i dont like the final results. (usually tends to be a bit more blurry than the older version even that its processed faster)

as well, as not sure if i like the idea of automatic updates, to give me the possibility, then once upgraded if my upgrade license is expired, need to unistall and install the older version, and ignore any upgrade advice.

not to mention since i purchased the software, in a span of 1 year or more, just saw 4 upgrades max, and most of the issues where not solved. one version i needed to stop using the newest software and rollback to the older version since it would not even start up.

if you are charging me for updates, i expect sooner updates, perfomance’s upgrades as well as hardware/software compatilibity issues fixed sooner. you ask of us to put more money in, sure but you need to step up the game as well, it cannot be “pay us for the upgrade extra license, and we will fix what we can when we can” you wont give me a upgrade license and tell me “well you can pay me what you can, when you can” so its a give/take situation. if i purchase this license on 2021 and i end up getting 2 upgrades for each of my software per year, i would not purchase it again.

at the end of the day its a problem for both parties. you ask me more money, you need more personnel to debug the program, test it, make more upgrades. so not sure how well will sit you asking for an upgrade license VS the extra expenses of making regular and top quality updates.

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101

Most of the software I use allows users to update within the same major revision without time limits as those are more likely to include bug fixes that all users deserve without having to pay for regardless of time. If your new policy doesn’t allow for that I’d suggest you consider making that change. (Or did I miss this when reading the new policy?)

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102

Agreed - Studio 2 fails to have the critical functionality of Studio and I find myself having to use both on the same image. I purchased Topaz products because of great functionality of Studio 1 and there now seems to be no interest on the part of Topaz for supporting the product.

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