New Pricing for Reason 12 - Upgrades now 199 from 129

[joeyluck]

Anybody who is on the fence getting in at the $129 price now, you can wait until the end of September and reassess then.

Maybe there will be another update to the roadmap before the price increase? Maybe a little something more they can share?

And then beyond that, you still have 30 days to return after purchasing, so you could buy it and then see how you feel before the end of October. And again, maybe more roadmap news to assess end of October?

Those are my thoughts about that.

[StephenHutchinson]

anyone who thinks the price increase will lead to reason getting better is kidding themselves. The VC and CEO running the joint are awful people and do not care about you or music makers. People say "it's just business" but I think people who operate business that way are simply not people to trust.

As someone else in this thread said, Props/RS have jumped and basically failed on every marketing/biz bandwagon. Things started to go bad the day the brought in Alihoopa. It's been garbage after garbage since, with a few silver linings like VST.

I am sad and fearful of what is ahead with these ominous previews.

I think that's ultimately pretty fair feedback - this company has tried its hand at a bunch of different ventures (social, hardware, mobile) over the years, none of which have really stuck. Leaving aside the issue of whether companies should try continue to innovate and invest in burgeoning areas (that's truly another topic for another day), you can call me biased but I have a slightly more optimistic take on where we are at now. Let me explain.

When Niklas took over the CEO role in 2019, the company stopped focusing on anything that is not related to Reason itself. Allihoopa was shut down, development was stopped on the mobile apps, we stopped investing in other potential platforms like the web and all the internal resources and focus shifted back onto Reason and how to setup Reason for the future - and make it the best and most creative music making experience out there.

This wasn't going to happen overnight though, it had to happen in stages to ensure we'd be setup to succeed over time, not just in the short-term.

First, we invested in the Reason Rack Plugin (R11) to ensure Reason can be used by as many music makers as possible regardless of where they make music, we then focused on building out Reason+ to ensure we have a way to keep the Reason content as fresh as possible and that we have a business model and way to get Reason that is equipped for the future (because subscriptions are only going to become more ubiquitous, but yes, we'll continue to support both models) and then finally, we rebuilt huge parts of Reason under the hood to make sure we have a solid base to move forward from.

Now that this groundwork is in place (RRP, R+, tech overhaul), we now enter the stage where we will really get to work on some of the more core parts of Reason itself, which we've stated in the latest roadmap blog post (vst3, m1, workflow, sequencer etc). We have also stated that we plan to move to a continuous delivery model where we try and update Reason more often and we've already shown that we plan to be more transparent and open with our roadmap and product priorities.

So yes, it's been a few years since Niklas took over in 2019 and I know that has been frustrating for many of you, but the truth is, all these initiatives over the last few years have led to that this company is entirely focused on Reason (whether that be DAW, RRP, R+ or Perpetual) and making it the most creative and best music making software and experience we can. As many of you have already pointed out, with our historical forays into other ventures, that hasn't always been true, but it is true now, and I think that's really exciting.

Now, everyone is free to disagree of course and we'll definitely make mistakes along the way (we're only human), and we surely won't be able to please everyone with what we choose to build or how we choose to market the products, but we're out here, listening to you all, and trying to do our best.

I have pretty thick skin (working in startups and software for over a decade will do that to you!), but reading that some of our users genuinely believe we are driven by money or bankers or selling the company to the highest bidder is the one thing that really can get to me! We are a tight, committed team of 43 creative humans who come to work everyday because we just love music and love trying to make our company a better place to work and a successful company in general. Whilst the commercial realities of running a business exist, and it's of course great to see the business growing and doing well, those sorts of things are a mile away from being what really drive the people at this company to get up every morning.

OK, wow, that turned out longer than I had originally planned and I hope that didn't come off as too defensive, but I just wanted to share these thoughts and reflections with this community.

Have a nice evening everyone and happy music making! <3

Thanks James, for the clarifications. I have been a Reason user since version 1.0, and I've loved every iteration of it since then. It is understandable that Reason Studios has tried to make forays into other avenues including apps, and whatnot, but it's refreshing to see that you really are dedicated to getting things right with Reason going forward.

I have bought most of the major DAWs out there and they all have their positives and negatives but when it comes to just putting something together in a fast and intimately creative way, nothing beats Reason for the shear diversity of instruments, effects, etc. It was inspirational 20 years ago and it still is, now more than ever. Having read the last umpteen pages of this thread, it's clear that people aren't happy with some of the ways Reason Studios has dealt with pricing. We're still in somewhat of a "pandemic" economy, and pushing up the price to Reason 12 upgraders, giving them only a 2-week grace period, seems a bit heavy handed.

I'm a Reason+ subscriber since April 2021, and I got the $99 US yearly deal (about $121 Canadian) and I'd love to continue with Reason+ in April 2022, but at a price point of $199 US (which is currently around $241 Canadian - not $259 Canadian on the recent blog post), it's a hard decision for I and others to make.

I honestly think if Reason Studios could somehow hold on to the $99/year pricing (much like the Adobe Lightroom/Photoshop model) you'd make a killing with many more people flocking to the subscription model. Maybe you're already reaching out to different groups of people with incentive pricing, I don't know. Twice that amount is hard for a lot of people to swallow, especially when the software won't be "completed" for quite a few more months. It would be nice to see at least some kind of incentive for users of Reason+/Reason 12 who at this point have software that is not complete.

These thoughts are just my two cents worth. I love Reason so much, and all that comes with the software, and the feeling that I can create anything I put my mind to. I do hope something shifts in the next little while where pricing is concerned. It may help alleviate some or all of the pent-up frustration being demonstrated on this thread and likely others. Thanks for your time.

[Catblack]

Just update the sequencer finally, please.

This.

[DJMaytag]

I just upgraded. I was going to upgrade either way, so this announcement didn't really change anything for me. I suspect this will allow them to hit up the the typical Black Friday & seasonal sales with discounts down to like $159 or something. Some people will pay the $199 if they have to, while others will wait until the sales that ought to happen a lot more frequently if the price is now $199.

[raymondh]

On the pricing;

$199 USD = $280 NZD, add local NZ GST and the upgrade from 11 to 12 will cost me NZ $322, if I wait for a stable release of R12.

Gosh!

[fieldframe]

I would gladly pay $200 for an upgrade if it had a ton of new features and usable devices. A much bigger upgrade than usual. However we can already see what R12 is going to bring once the features have been more developed. It does not excite me and does not look very promising for the future if that's about the size of a $200 upgrade.

It just occurred to me that this is in the range I had been expecting for a Suite-to-Suite upgrade before the tier was discontinued. It seems like $199 would be about right if it included the sold-separately REs introduced since the last version.

Imagine how different the response would be if this scenario had played out instead:

It's May 2021. Reason 12 is announced, with high-res graphics and the yet-to-be-unveiled new sampler and new Combinator. Alongside this is the announcement that the upgrade price will be $199 instead of $129... but going forward, all new Reason releases will include the latest Reason Studios devices. Reason 12 will include Friktion, Algoritm, and Pattern Mutator. And if you already own one or more of them, your upgrade price is... $129. Future Reason Studios REs will be available three ways: Separate purchase for license holders, included with Reason+, or wait until the next major upgrade to get them bundled.

I can almost guarantee the poll above would be flipped, with most saying "still a bargain" and almost no one saying it's "way too much."

[DJMaytag]

I think that's ultimately pretty fair feedback - this company has tried its hand at a bunch of different ventures (social, hardware, mobile) over the years, none of which have really stuck. Leaving aside the issue of whether companies should try continue to innovate and invest in burgeoning areas (that's truly another topic for another day), you can call me biased but I have a slightly more optimistic take on where we are at now. Let me explain.

When Niklas took over the CEO role in 2019, the company stopped focusing on anything that is not related to Reason itself. Allihoopa was shut down, development was stopped on the mobile apps, we stopped investing in other potential platforms like the web and all the internal resources and focus shifted back onto Reason and how to setup Reason for the future - and make it the best and most creative music making experience out there.

This wasn't going to happen overnight though, it had to happen in stages to ensure we'd be setup to succeed over time, not just in the short-term.

First, we invested in the Reason Rack Plugin (R11) to ensure Reason can be used by as many music makers as possible regardless of where they make music, we then focused on building out Reason+ to ensure we have a way to keep the Reason content as fresh as possible and that we have a business model and way to get Reason that is equipped for the future (because subscriptions are only going to become more ubiquitous, but yes, we'll continue to support both models) and then finally, we rebuilt huge parts of Reason under the hood to make sure we have a solid base to move forward from.

Now that this groundwork is in place (RRP, R+, tech overhaul), we now enter the stage where we will really get to work on some of the more core parts of Reason itself, which we've stated in the latest roadmap blog post (vst3, m1, workflow, sequencer etc). We have also stated that we plan to move to a continuous delivery model where we try and update Reason more often and we've already shown that we plan to be more transparent and open with our roadmap and product priorities.

So yes, it's been a few years since Niklas took over in 2019 and I know that has been frustrating for many of you, but the truth is, all these initiatives over the last few years have led to that this company is entirely focused on Reason (whether that be DAW, RRP, R+ or Perpetual) and making it the most creative and best music making software and experience we can. As many of you have already pointed out, with our historical forays into other ventures, that hasn't always been true, but it is true now, and I think that's really exciting.

Now, everyone is free to disagree of course and we'll definitely make mistakes along the way (we're only human), and we surely won't be able to please everyone with what we choose to build or how we choose to market the products, but we're out here, listening to you all, and trying to do our best.

I have pretty thick skin (working in startups and software for over a decade will do that to you!), but reading that some of our users genuinely believe we are driven by money or bankers or selling the company to the highest bidder is the one thing that really can get to me! We are a tight, committed team of 43 creative humans who come to work everyday because we just love music and love trying to make our company a better place to work and a successful company in general. Whilst the commercial realities of running a business exist, and it's of course great to see the business growing and doing well, those sorts of things are a mile away from being what really drive the people at this company to get up every morning.

OK, wow, that turned out longer than I had originally planned and I hope that didn't come off as too defensive, but I just wanted to share these thoughts and reflections with this community.

Have a nice evening everyone and happy music making! <3

This for me is more important to hear than the roadmap that was posted last week. That said, I think the increase to $199 is going to be a huge mistake. $169 might be the highest increase that would be tolerable by many, and I don't think anyone would bat an eye at $149. The jump to $199 feels pretty extreme, and could cause a LOT more people to alternate upgrade cycles, especially if there's not a ton of new offerings in each upgraded version. Please pass along a note to seriously reconsider the amount of the upgrade increase, not the idea of an increase.

[flexluthor]

As they are already selling the upgrade for 129 it would make much more sense to say the next version will be going up in price.

Either way I do think they get a hard time and must be very demoralising putting all that work in and then dealing with so much negativity. By all means let them know what they need to improve, but no need to make it personal.

At the end of the day they will need to justify the the cost of upgrading with the improvements they make. So why not give them some encouragement to do that? A happy worker is a productive worker.

I don't care how they feel. I'm the customer. If they do a crap job then then it's not my job to pat them on the back and give them even more money. They exist to provide goods and services to their customers. If they fail at providing those adequately then they don't deserve money or praise. 12 is just giving you basic features that all the competition already have. There is nothing new to differentiate it or make you choose it over something else.

Hi Res? Should have been a thing years ago. Not a feature.
M1 Support? Yeah, sorry, yet again, not a feature. Its the cost of doing business.
New Sampler? Ok, yet again something every other DAW has built in (and most of them are more fully featured).

Oh, and none of this is even finished yet. So why should I be happy to pay them 50% more for an upgrade?

How is it possible that in a few years Bitwig has a fully functional modern DAW and in that same time Reason has just barely been able to add VST support and half baked Hi Res support ‍♂️

[DJMaytag]

How is it possible that in a few years Bitwig has a fully functional modern DAW and in that same time Reason has just barely been able to add VST support and half baked Hi Res support ‍♂️

It probably helps that they stole a lot of ideas from Ableton. ‍♂️

[plaamook]

When Logic 10 came out I didn't really need anything in it and figured I'd stick with 9 but when I tried to open it I was told that it was no longer supported etc. and that I needed to pay 200 to upgrade it.
Bye bye Logic.

So you were on Logic 9 and then expected to get a free full version upgrade to Logic 10????? That wasn't very....logical.

I paid $199 for my L10 upgrade like everyone else in the world, have seen a billion awesome updates, and haven't paid anything since 2013.

No, I expected to be able to keep using logic 9. They just told me that 9 was no longer supported and it would not open unless I gave them another 200.
Id only bought 9 about two years earlier but never really got along with it. I hate using logic actually. I just never expected them to pretty much take my money and delete my license two years later.

[flexluthor]

How is it possible that in a few years Bitwig has a fully functional modern DAW and in that same time Reason has just barely been able to add VST support and half baked Hi Res support ‍♂️

It probably helps that they stole a lot of ideas from Ableton. ‍♂️

How is it possible that Studio One is an excellent fully featured DAW with several unique features and just came out the same time Record did?

Props have no excuse for putting out crap updates that don't even keep pace with their competitors then raising the price on and UNFINISHED update.

[QVprod]

It probably helps that they stole a lot of ideas from Ableton. ‍♂️

How is it possible that Studio One is an excellent fully featured DAW with several unique features and just came out the same time Record did?

Props have no excuse for putting out crap updates that don't even keep pace with their competitors then raising the price on and UNFINISHED update.

Different focus. Reason has an excellent collection of built in instruments and devices. Studio One does not. What S1 does have is great DAW features and great mixing FX. People disagree when I say this, but in Reason, the rack was always the focus. That's why the sequencer and other things now referred to as "DAW" features are behind.

[hurricane]

No, I expected to be able to keep using logic 9. They just told me that 9 was no longer supported and it would not open unless I gave them another 200.
Id only bought 9 about two years earlier but never really got along with it. I hate using logic actually. I just never expected them to pretty much take my money and delete my license two years later.

Lol so many things wrong here.

Not to turn this into a Logic discussion, but:

1) Logic 9 was released in 2010 and supported on OS X Leopard (2007) through Sierra (2016), and it was High Sierra (2017) that no longer supported Logic 9. So you upgraded to High Sierra (I knew L9 wasn't going to be supported, not sure why you didn't), and I believe the "new' Logic X was around 4 years old at that time.

2) Apple never told you to give them another $200 to re-"open" Logic 9. Because see above.

3) You still have your Logic 9 license (just like I have mine), and it was never deleted. I still run Logic 9 on an older Mac.

So you just hate Logic.

[PropitiousME]

As they are already selling the upgrade for 129 it would make much more sense to say the next version will be going up in price.

Either way I do think they get a hard time and must be very demoralising putting all that work in and then dealing with so much negativity. By all means let them know what they need to improve, but no need to make it personal.

At the end of the day they will need to justify the the cost of upgrading with the improvements they make. So why not give them some encouragement to do that? A happy worker is a productive worker.

I don't care how they feel. I'm the customer. If they do a crap job then then it's not my job to pat them on the back and give them even more money. They exist to provide goods and services to their customers. If they fail at providing those adequately then they don't deserve money or praise. 12 is just giving you basic features that all the competition already have. There is nothing new to differentiate it or make you choose it over something else.

Hi Res? Should have been a thing years ago. Not a feature.
M1 Support? Yeah, sorry, yet again, not a feature. Its the cost of doing business.
New Sampler? Ok, yet again something every other DAW has built in (and most of them are more fully featured).

Oh, and none of this is even finished yet. So why should I be happy to pay them 50% more for an upgrade?

How is it possible that in a few years Bitwig has a fully functional modern DAW and in that same time Reason has just barely been able to add VST support and half baked Hi Res support ‍♂️

This right here, post of the day. Kudos to you! Too many folks losing sight of the forest from the trees due to heart felt emotional pleas from RS members and others trying to minimize a series of blatant, self deprecating operational decisions. The poll speaks for itself and that's only the ones that actually attend RT and participate!

[PropitiousME]

*EDIT* DUPE

[plaamook]

No, I expected to be able to keep using logic 9. They just told me that 9 was no longer supported and it would not open unless I gave them another 200.
Id only bought 9 about two years earlier but never really got along with it. I hate using logic actually. I just never expected them to pretty much take my money and delete my license two years later.

Lol so many things wrong here.

Not to turn this into a Logic discussion, but:

1) Logic 9 was released in 2010 and supported on OS X Leopard (2007) through Sierra (2016), and it was High Sierra (2017) that no longer supported Logic 9. So you upgraded to High Sierra (I knew L9 wasn't going to be supported, not sure why you didn't), and I believe the "new' Logic X was around 4 years old at that time.

2) Apple never told you to give them another $200 to re-"open" Logic 9. Because see above.

3) You still have your Logic 9 license (just like I have mine), and it was never deleted. I still run Logic 9 on an older Mac.

So you just hate Logic.

Yeah I was thinking about it just now trying to remember what happened back then and it was after an os upgrade and everything was pushed through the App Store on the reinstall where i couldn’t DL the version I had a license for. Only X which I had to pay for.

At any rate, it’s true. I never got along w logic. I wanted to, just couldn’t. So I walked off in a huff because I was cheesed off at the whole situation. Which just seemed at the time like classic Apple shuffling everyone forward and forcing an upgrade like they do. Though to be fair, it’s not as bad as it used to be with that sort of thing.

[earwig83]

anyone who thinks the price increase will lead to reason getting better is kidding themselves. The VC and CEO running the joint are awful people and do not care about you or music makers. People say "it's just business" but I think people who operate business that way are simply not people to trust.

As someone else in this thread said, Props/RS have jumped and basically failed on every marketing/biz bandwagon. Things started to go bad the day the brought in Alihoopa. It's been garbage after garbage since, with a few silver linings like VST.

I am sad and fearful of what is ahead with these ominous previews.

It remains to be seen how the resources will be spent, anyone who thinks they won't put money into development of features and new content hasn't really got a clue what their talking about. The influx in the userbase because of the subscriptions has already trickled down into R12 - albeit the plan to release was poorly executed but packed with features some of which are unfinished; I am one of the harshest critics of that execution and how much work remains to put it to a point were you could call it a release. However to say that 2 individuals are "awful people" is way over the top. Do you even know them personally to make that determination? It is personal attacks and comments like these that damages any hope RS will do the right thing by its users. Absolutely no need for it!

"Awful people" over the top? Fair enough. While I could defend my claim, I digress. That said, if RS, a corporation, is going to spitefully sabotage their own business or withhold features because of something I say, then they are too petty to run a business. I'm just a stupid consumer venting.

[Yonatan]

Price jump was not on the roadmap. I would like a better clarification behind it. It is quite a leap.
At current, my laotop is not suitable for R12 more heavy use of memory. So to make best use of it and getting a more stable DAW, I better buy a new M1 mac and that will take some time to implement. Will I still upgrade from R11 suite to R12? Not fully sure yet. I might rather go subscription if they release more devices. But wont do 1 year for €199 when it takes so long to implement and correct bugs and finish things.
So the high prices are set as if fully functional, and that could as well be the case in beginning of 2022, but not now. A bit confused what to make out of this yet. My plan was to wait and now they force us to decide to jump on because of price jump too early for what is offered.
I might just wait anyway, as I cannot decide if R+ or perpetual is the best for my usage pattern.

[Steedus]

I genuinely hate to say it but for me 12 is dead in the water thanks to this. We'll have to see if by the time 13 comes around they make it worth the extra, because if it's more of the same I think I'll be moving to a 3 or 4 year upgrade cycle to make it worth it. Even some recent offerings (including R12) have been hard to justify the current USD $129, forget about $199. (almost $300 aussie dollary-doos)

[shropshirelad]

The $199 will, as usual, be translated to £199 for UK users, the equivalent of $275. I doubt that a single person in this fair isle will be able to stomach that for an update. It's so ridiculous, that at first I thought it was a joke!

[danc]

Following on from Jamespember's down to earth (and what I believe to be honest) comment yesterday - I have bitten the bullet and upgraded to 12 before the price hike. JRR are still accepting the Forum code and so I picked it up for 87 GBP. For me it's a speculative investment, which I will take advantage of in 2022 when the R12 issues are fixed and VST3 is added.

Deep down I want Reason to continue and over time improve. I'm NOT in so much of a rush as others here to see the sequencer improvements as I primarily use RRP these days. But... RRP is at the heart of what I produce in S1, so it would be a sad day to see it fall away.

One thing I'd like to see is RRP allowing me to add VSTs to the rack.

[DaveyG]

One thing I'd like to see is RRP allowing me to add VSTs to the rack.

I'd second that, especially now that we are seeing a whole bunch of combi 2 stuff where people have effectively "wrapped" a VST in a combi so it sits nicer in the rack. It's a shame not to be able to use that in RRP, especially as RRP seems to be the future direction.

[whitewolfmusic]

Well. This is such an odd decision, communication and timing again.
The argument that Reason didn't raise the price since the year 2000 is fair and I understand that hiring and paying talented developers does cost money. I have no issue with either the decision to increase the price, nor the price point.

BUT:

First, the timing for this announcement is more than questionable. Reason 12 seems to be a rather unpopular upgrade with long-time users, since it didn't address features this part of the user base is waiting for.
It also seems to have a few bugs and issues, which is not on par with the quality Reason used to be in older versions. There is also some frustration going on with the seemingly more and more enforced subscription model.
To announce a pricing increase during unstable times like that is not very clever, but the icing on the cake? It is also quite a hefty increase of about 54% in a single jump. And with 199 (money) per upgrade, we're now talking upper premium pricing, compared to the competition! All while the last few upgrades didn't show that future versions will be worth paying one of the highest upgrade prices on the market.

Second, you're shoving this price increase down people's throats with only 14 days of warning time, being like "better upgrade now, because things will get way more expensive! *evil laughter*". You could have announced this with more time for people to make up their mind and adapt to the situation. Instead, the short notice puts unnecessary pressure on people who are still on the edge to upgrade. That might be what you actually intend, but that's a scummy and unprofessional way to do it.

And most importantly, the usual and sensible way to increase a price would be to deliver something of great value FIRST. I am not saying that Reason has not enough value, but you are raising the price along with merely promises that you'll deliver features people ask for - and more. You are cashing in on promises instead of a great and feature-rich release. And that is a bad idea. People already are being scammed enough in the gaming world with kickstarters and early access games that never get finished or deliver on their roadmaps.

And lastly, this move could also be seen as an attempt to make your subscription model look like a better deal. Instead of lowering the price for Reason+, you just alienate the loyal long-term users so much, that the subscription looks at least as good a deal as buying fixed upgrades. I already mentioned it, and I'll repeat myself gladly. As long as Reason+ does not let you OWN what you paid for after X months, it will never be a good deal.

[kurtg]

Sorry, I do not like pressure for buying an upgrade. So I skip this one. It’s good right for them to increase the price, but also good right for the customers not buying it.

[Popey]

anyone who thinks the price increase will lead to reason getting better is kidding themselves. The VC and CEO running the joint are awful people and do not care about you or music makers. People say "it's just business" but I think people who operate business that way are simply not people to trust.

As someone else in this thread said, Props/RS have jumped and basically failed on every marketing/biz bandwagon. Things started to go bad the day the brought in Alihoopa. It's been garbage after garbage since, with a few silver linings like VST.

I am sad and fearful of what is ahead with these ominous previews.

I think that's ultimately pretty fair feedback - this company has tried its hand at a bunch of different ventures (social, hardware, mobile) over the years, none of which have really stuck. Leaving aside the issue of whether companies should try continue to innovate and invest in burgeoning areas (that's truly another topic for another day), you can call me biased but I have a slightly more optimistic take on where we are at now. Let me explain.

When Niklas took over the CEO role in 2019, the company stopped focusing on anything that is not related to Reason itself. Allihoopa was shut down, development was stopped on the mobile apps, we stopped investing in other potential platforms like the web and all the internal resources and focus shifted back onto Reason and how to setup Reason for the future - and make it the best and most creative music making experience out there.

This wasn't going to happen overnight though, it had to happen in stages to ensure we'd be setup to succeed over time, not just in the short-term.

First, we invested in the Reason Rack Plugin (R11) to ensure Reason can be used by as many music makers as possible regardless of where they make music, we then focused on building out Reason+ to ensure we have a way to keep the Reason content as fresh as possible and that we have a business model and way to get Reason that is equipped for the future (because subscriptions are only going to become more ubiquitous, but yes, we'll continue to support both models) and then finally, we rebuilt huge parts of Reason under the hood to make sure we have a solid base to move forward from.

Now that this groundwork is in place (RRP, R+, tech overhaul), we now enter the stage where we will really get to work on some of the more core parts of Reason itself, which we've stated in the latest roadmap blog post (vst3, m1, workflow, sequencer etc). We have also stated that we plan to move to a continuous delivery model where we try and update Reason more often and we've already shown that we plan to be more transparent and open with our roadmap and product priorities.

So yes, it's been a few years since Niklas took over in 2019 and I know that has been frustrating for many of you, but the truth is, all these initiatives over the last few years have led to that this company is entirely focused on Reason (whether that be DAW, RRP, R+ or Perpetual) and making it the most creative and best music making software and experience we can. As many of you have already pointed out, with our historical forays into other ventures, that hasn't always been true, but it is true now, and I think that's really exciting.

Now, everyone is free to disagree of course and we'll definitely make mistakes along the way (we're only human), and we surely won't be able to please everyone with what we choose to build or how we choose to market the products, but we're out here, listening to you all, and trying to do our best.

I have pretty thick skin (working in startups and software for over a decade will do that to you!), but reading that some of our users genuinely believe we are driven by money or bankers or selling the company to the highest bidder is the one thing that really can get to me! We are a tight, committed team of 43 creative humans who come to work everyday because we just love music and love trying to make our company a better place to work and a successful company in general. Whilst the commercial realities of running a business exist, and it's of course great to see the business growing and doing well, those sorts of things are a mile away from being what really drive the people at this company to get up every morning.

OK, wow, that turned out longer than I had originally planned and I hope that didn't come off as too defensive, but I just wanted to share these thoughts and reflections with this community.

Have a nice evening everyone and happy music making! <3

HI James,

First of all thank you for providing some more insight into what is going on at RS it is appreciated to understand more. Just for clarity and only my opinion of course but i dont think reason staff are driven by money but you are now in partnership with VC and it is fair to assume they want to make a return on their investment. Do not take these as personal comments directed at the staff it is more that the direction can look a bit worrying.
For example when you started reason+ some people worried about the future of perpetual but you confirmed these would not be fazed out, people then said you would make the perpetual cost more so reason+ is more attractive. I did not believe that but lo and behold a price increase of £70 which is fairly substantial. Bearing in mind that reason 12 reviews touched on the lack of value for some users to then increase this at this point is baffling as some were trying to justify spending £129 let alone £199. Do you view reviews on your product?

Now i appreciate that reason has not increased it prices for a while and as a company it is your decision but the timing of this increase and the way it has been delivered is poor in my opinion. You could have quite easily stated on the 1st September (or prior) that you are putting prices up and that sept- oct is a grace period for people to buy reason at the price it has been for a while (£129). That way you would give people a month to consider this (and factor it into budgets if they get paid on the 1st of each month). It seems at the moment that you are pressurizing people to make a decision on a product that even you admit has issues and the roadmap hints at what is to come but contains no guarantees.

Not saying you are going to leave it in its current state but as a customer if i buy it now i have no legal recourse for a refund after a period of time if these things do not get implemented. Considering the roadmap must be quite a way down the line and i assume technically possible surely you can guarantee that reason 12 owners will get the things planned up to January at least (even if there are delays you can guarantee these will be in 12 at some point).

Far more important than the timing however is the product, service and value to individuals. As others have stated this price rise really should come into effect once you have fixed and implemented the roadmap at the very least. If you are increasing the price it should come as no surprise for us users to expect that the product and new offerings reflect value and that the whole customer experience is good. Currently more and more users feel that the quality of the product and service needs improvement. You have informed us where you are working on the daw and this is appreciated and i would ask that you also work on customer service better (for example the last 2 times i have emailed support i have received no response). It might sound harsh but i would have got the same level of customer service if i had asked the same question to a tree in my garden and you now want us to pay more.

To be fair this thread and online (facebook etc) may be a tough read for RS staff but it is only that we actually care and are invested in the company. It would be more worrying if people just did not care what RS do and didnt post. You have a loyal following but it sometimes feels recently to me that customer care and service have taken a back seat. We want you to succeed and prosper so we can load up reason (regardless of what version we are on) so please take this feedback in good faith.