It’s not nessararly the pricing model, but subscription burnout. I know with Adobe they lost a lot users when they went to subscription based, because these home users and hobbyists are also paying subscriptions for all kinds of software. For corporations, government agencies and schools/universities it’s manageable, but not for the average home user. They say when Windows 12 launches, it will also be subscription based. I won’t pay rent for software!
I’ve been using CS6 for over 10 years, but when Adobe went to subscription based pricing with CS7, I stopped upgrading, and this is with employee discount through my sister. Recently Photoshop came up in conversation with my sister and she asked if I wanted to upgrade using her discount, but even with that, I would be locked out of the software if I stopped paying. With CS6, I’m still using it, without any problems. That’s the difference.
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Can we know where you read that Windows 12 will be subscription-based to activate it?
They say within Windows 11, they’ve been adding incremental code changes, so eventually when Windows 12 launches it will be seamless transition from pay-once to pay-as-you-go subscription. Microsoft said the this is an exaggeration (linked), but others question why code has been added to Windows 11, which will eventually make this reality in Windows 12. You can judge for yourself. I plan to stay on Windows 10 Pro for as long as humanly possible. I see no reason whatsoever to do anything different.
Why do I have to renew my yearly video ai license from October 2nd now in March? I expect it to last a year…
Both of your licenses are active:
Were you able to resolve this @tjalve.aarflot?
also curious
No, I did not see that on mobile. Now the Video license expired and I lost the renewal price I was on.
I empathize and understand. I’m a home user/hobbyist who occasionally uses Video AI for her personal enjoyment. I do things like enhance and upscale classic music videos I download from video-sharing social media sites. My use of Video AI doesn’t generate income for me, directly or indirectly. It’s fun when I use it, but it’s not $150-per-year worth of fun.
I bought a perpetual license to Video AI, and I paid for a subsequent upgrade. I expected that it would continue to be upgraded and supported for years to come, and that I would pay for upgrades when I found the new features to be compelling.
Now it’s pretty much abandoned, and the only way that we can retain access to the replacement product is to pay Topaz Labs as much as they demand every year.
If you only develop it once, I’m only paying you for it once. If you want more of my money, then do something new to earn it: Release a compelling major upgrade that justifies me whipping out my credit card.
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At this point I’m willing to pay $999 for a perpetual license for at least two years with updates. Topaz please go back to perpetual!
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Hi.
I empathize and understand. I’m a home user/hobbyist who occasionally uses Video AI for her personal enjoyment. I do things like enhance and upscale classic music videos I download from video-sharing social media sites. My use of Video AI doesn’t generate income for me, directly or indirectly. It’s fun when I use it, but it’s not $150-per-year worth of fun.
I don’t work for Topaz but, I can appreciate as occasional user the yearly commitment may not be the best for you however there are other options available more on that later.
I bought a perpetual license to Video AI, and I paid for a subsequent upgrade. I expected that it would continue to be upgraded and supported for years to come, and that I would pay for upgrades when I found the new features to be compelling.
Companies change policies change we may not like it sometimes I’m afraid that’s the way it is they need to adapt for the future.
Now it’s pretty much abandoned, and the only way that we can retain access to the replacement product is to pay Topaz Labs as much as they demand every year.
Topaz hasn’t completely abandoned any Legacy Products Topaz have actually said they will continue with minor compatibility issues with future Operating Systems plus, I have seen people with versions that are several years old still recieving help from Topaz Support and the Community and besides, if you decide to give up your Subscription your current Perpetual License version should work for years to come.
Paying you for it once. If you want more of my money, then do something new to earn it: Release a compelling major upgrade that justifies me whipping out my credit card
There has actually been several updates for Topaz Video over the last few months including new Models.
As I mentioned there are other options available for instance, and this is merely a suggestion if you contact Topaz Support there may be a chance you can upgrade your current Subscription to the full Founders Status where you buy Gigapixel and your Subscription will increase by $13 a year to $163 per year but you will receive 300 monthly Video Credits worth around $75 a month free wouldn’t that make it a bit more desirable plus you’ll receive everything Topaz has to offer including Bloom and Astra for Video like I say only a suggestion.
You have the option of cancelling your Subscription and continue with your Perpetual License version as mentioned above.
This option again involves cancelling your current Subscription then only purchasing a month at a time as and when you need to Enhance your Videos for $59 a month.
Alternatively, use the Topaz API service I have to admit I know very little about it or where you access it from you’ll have to speak to Topaz Support about that
Here’s an idea of how it works, you give the App your original video for example, a five minute video at 720p and tell it you want to output this video using Starlight Precise in 4K. The Topaz API will do the calculations and give you a price for that one video obviously, there’s more to it than that but, you get the the idea here’s some more information about the Topaz API although you’ll have to speak to Topaz Support about where to get this service.
Finally, I have a word with the good people at Topaz Support about options here’s the link to contact Topaz Support directly
Hope this helps
Thank you for all of the effort you put into your reply.
There are many software companies that have not gone the way of software rental. I continue to purchase from of such firms.
That provides little comfort to those of us who thought we were buying into a product that would be enhanced and upgraded for years to come.
Last year, I probably upscaled and enhanced about five videos, and they were just music videos. At $163/year, that would work out to about $32 for each roughly three-minute video.
Thanks, but they’ve made the decision to eliminate perpetual licenses and I don’t pay recurring license fees just to retain access to software I use.
The reality is Perpetual Licenses are not making a return anytime soon if ever so, I’ll be sorry to see you leave but, rest assured your current Topaz Video AI should work for the foreseeable future without any further costs as you own the Licence to use it and hopefully without any issues and if there are any you can always come back here for help both from Topaz Support and the Community.
I wish you all the best for the future
Andy
When you consider how often Topaz updates fell short of hitting the goal of a functional, bug-free app and I paid for another year of updates, I’m not sure my “perpetual license” wasn’t already sort of a subscription. I can’t think of any other reason why I didn’t react to the Topaz business model change the same way I did to similar changes from Microsoft and Adobe.
Long term, I have every expectation that eventually we’ll end up seeing some open-source “LibreVideo” kind of suite nipping at Topaz 's heels. All cutting-edge tech has an inherent expiration curve to its profitability.
They didn’t return to Adobe, either, which is why I now use Affinity Photo instead. 1Password isn’t going back to a perpetual license, which is why I moved to Bitwarden.
Thank you again AND-E, for your thoughtful and courteous replies.
I agree, and I expect to see affordably priced perpetual-license alternatives appear in the marketplace.
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You make that sound like it’s a wonderful thing you have done by turning your back on Adobe and saying enough is enough I can get what I want cheaper elsewhere however, I beg to differ on that issue.
Let’s examine the Adobe Subscription for a moment and use myself as a real world case study:
In 2012 I paid £376.93p for the Photoshop CS6 Extended Upgrade and £50.00 for the Lightroom 4 version Upgrade a total of £426.93p and like most people I would only Upgrade every other version.
Let’s assume for one minute every other version was every two years/a twenty four month period and using simple math let’s divide the the Upgrade prices by twenty four months
£426.93p ÷ 24 months = £17.78p a month over twenty four month period.
£426.93p divided by two years equals £213.46p a year
In comparison the Adobe Photography Plan which includes Photoshop Extended Lightroom and a whole host of other applications cost £10.00 a month for twelve months which equals £120.00p or over two years equals £240.00p
So, for argument sake over a two year period I have saved £186.92p or £93.46p a year or £7.78p a month on the Subscription Plan compared to the Perpetual License.
Therefore, with my Adobe Photography Plan Subscription since 2012 I have saved a total of £1,214.98p in comparison if I was able to continue with the Adobe Perpetual License for Photoshop and Lightroom combined.
By the way, that Upgrade price for Photoshop and Lightroom would have increased substantially over that thirteen year time span.
In conclusion, the Subscription Model is better value for money for myself then the Perpetual License would have been if I continue down that path and it’s a similar story with Topaz as I will save a lot of money in the long run with the Topaz Subscription.
Yes, it can be argued that some people would only Upgrade when they needed to and that would be their choice not yours, not mine or anyone elses we, all make our own choices in this life.
My choice is My Photography is My Art and for myself I demand the latest and greatest applications from both Adobe and Topaz to achieve my goals and I’m not about to cut off nose 
to spite my face.
Meaning, I’m not going to make a decision out of anger and cancel the applications I love because off a mere Subscription or Plan that would ultimately lead to self-sabotage and essentially put me at a disadvantage.
In conclusion, of the conclusion, essentially Subscriptions aren’t a bad thing and in most cases can lead to substantial savings and I can’t see the point of cancelling a Subscription because, from my point of view all it does is highlight the futility of seeking revenge in a way that backfires on the person taking the action and harming oneself more than, the intended target or targets.
In addition, I have recently as have a lot people Downloaded Affinity Studio simply because it’s free making it another weapon in my Arsenal I didn’t opt for the Canvas Premium version as the AI and other features don’t even come close to the Adobe offerings.
I actually don’t. As I see it, the AI enhancement options will probably be divided between the “latest and greatest” cutting edge stuff that requires the purchase of a subscription, cloud processing time or local processing hardware that no normal person who actually works for a living can afford, or “last year’s latest and greatest” that is volunteer-created freeware you download from Gitlab.
WRT Microsoft and Adobe, my primary complaint was a new release every year that never seemed to add anything I thought was worth the expense of an update. I have one PC at home running Office 2010 and Acrobat XI. At my last in-office gig in 2022 I was using the most recent releases of these apps, and didn’t find a single function in either that wished I had at home.
It was Adobe that turned its back on me, not vice versa. I purchased perpetual Creative Suite licenses, including one for the last one they offered, CS6. I was ready to continue that business relationship with Adobe moving forward, purchasing upgrades based on my needs and the perceived value the upgrades offered to me.
That’s a straw man fallacy that, essentially, paints me as a cheapskate. For me, this is about control and (relative) certainty. I don’t want to give Adobe, Autodesk, Microsoft, Topaz Labs, or any other software vendor a virtual kill-switch for software on which I rely – one that they will flick to the “Off” position when I stop paying their license fee de l’année.
Hindsight is 20/20, but that’s no guarantee of what Adobe will do in the future as far as license fees. It’s not like Adobe has never priced itself out of a market before {cough…PostScript…cough}.
I enjoy photography, but it’s not something that I’m passionate about. Therein lies a problem with annual license fees. You “demand the latest and greatest {photography} applications,” and I don’t. I was fine with upgrading less frequently than you did, so the math is different for my use case.
As you said earlier, perpetual licenses for Video AI are not coming back in the foreseeable future, and I accept that nothing I do is going to change that. All that I can do is support companies that support a business model with which I am comfortable.
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