New Pricing for Reason 12 - Upgrades now 199 from 129

[stp2015]

"We are introducing "Reason+" as a subscription service."

"We want everyone to have an opportunity to make amazing music, so here is Reason+"

"But don't worry, we will still sell perpetual licenses, and we will still sell upgrades just as before. It is completely up to you!"

---- evil laughter ----

And in a few months we will raise the perpetual license price by one million dollars...

--- more evil laughter is heard ----

What will be next?

[Carpainter]

What will be next?

Yearly upgrades.

[Eprom]

Stolen from the "Reason Studios Users" group one Facebook:

242032847_4252850818161437_4869645482878232942_n.jpg (147.11 KiB) Viewed 2912 times

[cocoazenith]

https://www.reasonstudios.com/blog/reason-new-pricing
We wanted reach out and tell you that in two weeks time we will be increasing the price of Reason 12. If you own a previous version of Reason, the price to upgrade to Reason 12 will increase from $129 to $199 (£199, €199, CAD259), while the full version of Reason for new users will increase from $399 to $499 (£499, €499, CAD599). Oh, and if you have Intro/Lite, your price to upgrade will go from $299 to $399 (£399, €399, CAD489).

What the actual f**k?

[DaveyG]

What will be next?

Well, obviously the number of perpetual licence holders falls away because of the price hike and then, one day in the future, someone announces that "perps" represent less than 5% of the user base so they drop that licencing option. Other possible futures are available.

[friday]

Wow Reason Studios, really tough decision to rise the price at this point, with the many half baked features at the moment. (Which, by the way, you have confirmed with the roadmap published for the first time)

Why not wait until January when R12 seems to be a more finished product?

Look still microsoft has retreat some xbox related price policys after user feedback. It is not a shame to withdraw a hasty decision! (Reflection)

[bxbrkrz]

$200 is fine, if you skip 1 or 2 major updates. Or 3.
If R12 wasn't for you a week ago nothing has changed since.

"Vade retro fomo!"

[huggermugger]

$269 CAD for a fancy Combinator and a sampler I won't use? I'll wait to see what's coming, thanks.

I was just about to check the Canadian exchange rate... but you beat me to it. The pricing... wow.. just wow.

Actually, Props don't calculate the exchange, they just set a fixed price for each different region in the world. So $199 USD may or may not convert to $269, but $269 CAD will be the price if you're in Canada.

[stp2015]

What will be next?

Well, obviously the number of perpetual licence holders falls away because of the price hike and then, one day in the future, someone announces that "perps" represent less than 5% of the user base so they drop that licencing option. Other possible futures are available.

I can already hear it:

"Today we are announcing a great new step for Reason, our most beloved software."

"We are discontinuing perpetual licenses, and we are going all in with our subscription service Reason+.

"This way you can focus on the service you love, and we can make more money for our investors"

"We are very excited about this great new path for Reason, and we cannot wait to hear all the great music you will make with your Reason+ subscription and our pre-built song templates."

[miscend]

That means the price will be $129 whenever they have a sale on Reason upgrades. I'm frugal with DAW upgrades and patient so I will wait for a sale.

[CaptainBlack]

our pre-built song templates

I like the sound of those.

'Reason Studios presents PlagiaRE. Just feed the audio of the song you want to rip off and it will give you a combinator of exactly the same sounds with slightly adjusted chord changes

Reason - helping you rip off music your way'

[tc13]

Prices are always going up. Just in the latest year and a half, the price for filling my Transit up is 36 per cent higher. A beer that was 7 USD at the pub is now 10 USD and so on...

I dont like it, my pay check hasn't seen the same development...

But thats life, I can b*tch about till my face gets blue but that wont change a thing. It is what it is. The only thing I can consider is if it is worth it to me or not.

So no R12 upgrade for me, but that money goes to the subscription instead. I wanted to have R12, Friction and Algoritm thats 347 moneys worth or 17 months of subscription...

Of course they want us in the Reason+, specially even more so now since it is for the first time, since R5, succesfully out in the wild. That fact alone is even more likely to push for a subscription only service in the future...

[Quarmat]

Timing might not be the best in the world for raising the pricetag, but I suppose there are valid reasons (pun intended). I was in the board of a startup years ago, and in order to make a big leap forward (i.e. to ensure not to be eaten alive by competitors) we had to make hazardous, risky moves, such as switching business model from, say, freemium to premium, or set paywalls for new features, because we needed to cashflow to pay a new dev team to develop a massive engine that was necessary to keep the boat afloat in the market. Sometimes it paid, some other times it did not. More, there's a board who plans the strategy, and more than often the compromise you reach in the board is a watered down version of the "big insane idea that will put us above the competition" and therefore an uneffective one. Humans can fail, enterprises can fail.

But even though I may not agree on 100% of the recent RS moves and decisions (in marketing, in design, in dev priorities) I am pretty sure they have thoroughly considered all options and I firmly believe that they have every intention of making Reason a better, more attractive product and one that ensures them more substantial income.

If I could give RS one piece of advice, from my humble pulpit, it would be not just to pamper the market of new wannabe producers, which is by nature fickle and unstable, but to proceed on the path that made Reason a respected software with a almost mythical aura.

Attracting young audiences is important and ensures Reason's life for years to come, but to make a DAW your forever DAW you need that solidity and authoritative reliability that doesn't make you say: I'm fond of Reason, but I realize that in [insert another DAW here] it would be much more convenient / easier / effective.

Finally, relying exclusively on a subscription model may seem appetizing for the revenue it generates, but it is subject to important risks: if the fashion passes, the userbase can leave en masse, while a perpetual license user has invested in a product therefore, also in in the face of moments in which the competition or the novelty of the moment may be attractive, it remains on the platform because it is HIS platform: he/she/they bought it.

Sorry for the long post. Long live Reason, though.

[bangaio]

It is their business so they can do what they want but once again these decisions seem to be timed very badly and no matter how good their financial position it again seems a desperate cash grab or steer to subscribing.

As others have mentions it is also not correct when saying they have never raised their prices. Looking at my account I can see:

2.0 upgrade £59
2.5 upgrade (needed replacement disk as the internet was sloooooow!) £20
3.0 upgrade £69
4 upgrade £99
7 upgrade Eur129

Those are all price rises so I have no idea where this "we have never changed more in 20 years" crap has come from.

[pquenin]

I just can't believe this news.

RS nearly force us to buy another DAW, and now we have this :
- + 100$ for an product that can be seen now as only a plugin among many brillant others
- 200$ for just an upgrade of this plugin, and the content of the update is often disappointing because it rarely meets our expectations

As someone said, this price-increase is insane !

About the shift to a two-year cycle : you can think that you will have more things in an upgrade if they have more time to develop it.
But just look at R12 : the usual 3 or 4 "big" features, and nothing else this time on the DAW side, and an unfinished product so far.

I just upgraded to R12 for nothing because I can't use it on my computer due to performance degradation.
I really regret the time when Reason was stable and efficient.

So I will to continue to use R11 as a plugin and will shift to Cakewalk.
We have the chance on Windows to have this incredible free DAW.

I am definitely giving up Reason this time.

[MuttReason]

I have a lot of sympathy for RS. They're a small business, and at a human level I bet they're pushing themselves incredibly hard right now. It's pretty exhausting crunching like this, and they've been at it for many weeks now.

I have a lot less sympathy for their owners. This announcement is classic VC-stupid... short term, rushed, and focused on plugging an immediate business plan hole, not playing the long game. It's just not thought through. As marketing strategies go, it's pretty dumb. I've worked on commercial product launches and market announcements of all kinds for 25+ years and, really, this one is a bit of a stinker.

That is NOT to say I don't agree with the logic behind the price increase. While their claim not to have increased prices for 21 years is pretty weird (like others here I'm pretty sure I remember upgrading for less than £129 in previous years), there's nothing wrong with putting up prices if the end buyer will accept the increase. That's how competitive markets work. All good, in principle.

Except here's the problem. RS released v12 on 1 September and said "this is the upgrade price". They didn't early bird that price and time limit to stimulate take up.... they simply said "this is the price". End of. Next, it becomes obvious that for a lot of users (not all, but a lot), v12 is a bit of a train wreck. Serious issues, which RS themselves (to their credit) acknowledge and are now frantically trying to fix. They then announce the product roadmap - good comms, well-received by most people, and helpful - making it clear that the product will evolve (hopefully bug-fixed of course). But no mention of a time-limited upgrade pricing window, at all, even though the roadmap announcement came from the CEO himself.

Then, out of the blue, this. No context other than a claim that, in effect, the company has been commercially inept for 21 years and kinda forgot to price its products against a highly competitive market. Doh, silly old us! And I'm not sure that claim is even true anyway.

No problem paying more for the upgrade. If the product is good and works, it's worth it. But do not treat your customers for fools like this. Bloody VC.... everything they touch turns to shite eventually, I've seen so many businesses ground into the dust by crazy short-term knee-jerk VC idiocy. I am not predicting the end of RS (ultimately their product rocks, when it's working properly, and the people who make it seem to care passionately about it) but this kind of approach is just amateurish and unimpressive.

[arnigretar]

I've been expecting this move from them for years. Doesn't bother me at all, I always bought only every second upgrade, and now I am on R+ subscription.

Same here. It's just surprising that the upgrade price hasn't gone up before!

[raymondh]

They're absolutely entitled to raise their price.

Very heavy handed though choosing to do this at a time where there are quality issues. They better be working night and day to turn around fixes for everyone who upgrades.

[stp2015]

Bloody VC.... everything they touch turns to shite eventually, I've seen so many businesses ground into the dust by crazy short-term knee-jerk VC idiocy. I am not predicting the end of RS (ultimately their product rocks, when it's working properly, and the people who make it seem to care passionately about it) but this kind of approach is just amateurish and unimpressive.

Yes, I also think that this is just short-term VC thinking. If the strategy does not work out, Reason Studios gets sold.

There must be some people at RS headquarters that fundamentally care about Reason, and that have shed some tears since the arrival of Verdane...

[tronam]

I’m glad I upgraded when I did. Considering the way many online companies have been operating these days, I actually think RS is raising prices to give themselves increased headroom to run promotions, discounts and sales more frequently. On Black Friday they’ll sell the upgrade at the “discounted” price of $129.

[Steedus]

This has actually kinda scared me off using my R+ Subscription as knowing anything I make in that cannot be opened by R11, my plan was to check out R+ for a while but most likely eventually by the R12 upgrade. Now though .. that’s almost $300 AUD. And I honestly, even as a huge fan, think R12 is kinda half baked and lacklustre. Hmmm. What a roller coaster it’s been lately.

[Arrant]

On Black Friday they’ll sell the upgrade at the “discounted” price of $129.

Not for 2021 black friday surely? I wouldn’t want to rely on that at least.

I agree that they’re entitled to raise the price, but surely €149 would be fair. And maybe make R12 work first.

[BananaSkins]

RS Are playing all the right notes - but not necessarily in the right order...

R.I.P Eric Morecambe

[DJMaytag]

I''m not reading all 6 pages (thus far), but I'm 100% on board with them going up to as much as $169, but $199 is WAY too much. That said, when I was on Cubase Pro, the updates were $100 each time, and they were charging for updates nearly every year (even for the X.5 updates), so $200 for about 2 years of work & updates isn't really that outrageous. They have a LOT of work ahead with the change to macOS and its Apple Silicon processors, so that might alone be worth the amount of code rewriting & optimizing. As a Mac user, that means a LOT of power down the road whenever I make that switch to a new Mac.

That said, I'll upgrade to 12 soon, and we'll see about what happens with 13. I might skip that like I did with 11.

[arqui]

I hate when they want to rush me to buy something telling me that if I don't buy it today tomorrow it will be more expensive ... let them do what they want, I'm not going to buy a program that fails everywhere at whatever price ... fix it first the ship's holes ...
Example Reason 11 never finished fixing it ...