I feel like the CO Rug has been pulled out from under me . . .

Mud Dog

• October 25, 2023 22:44

I've been using CO since about 2018 by buying the annual perpetual license. As it turns out, I bought the latest perpetual license every year and expected to continue doing that.  I didn't buy a subscription so as not to lose functionality of re-editing (or retaining past edits), exporting, etc if I decided to not re-subscribe. 

In the last year I finished moving 30K+ vintage photos (from another platform) into CO and merging them with my last 5 years of photos already in CO.

I was willing to support underdog CO in 2018 (instead of Light Room) for about the same yearly cost.  Now I'm stuck paying twice as much per year with CO and with unknown additional future cost multiples.  It is also unknown whether or not I will be able to do anything useful with my collection if I were buy a CO subscription and allow it to lapse.

Thank you CO for five good years.  But our future is in doubt.

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  Eric

  • October 26, 2023 02:37

  I'm not sure I follow your timeline of events. The day CaptureOne introduced a subscription option, it was clear where this was headed and I believe this was well before 2018. Initially, the subscription was more expensive than the perpetual license if you upgraded yearly but that has shifted over time. Obviously, they want most users to use the subscription.

  So you have to decide for yourself whether you always want the latest features (subscription) or whether you want to wait & see if the new features are useful to you (perpetual). Also, there are always several sales events throughout the year, every year, that offer substantial discounts on the price of the perpetual license, so paying full price for it does not make sense.

  As for subscription lapsing; contrary to Adobe, you get a 20% discount towards a perpetual license for every year of subscription. If you decide you don't want the subscription anymore, you can purchase the perpetual license at a discount (or free after 5 years) and keep using your collection as long as the OS supports the app. A major advantage over the Adobe subscription.

  Note, however, that the perpetual license model also has a major flaw in that potential bug fixes may now require a paid upgrade. So make sure to use the trial version and test it thoroughly before buying a new perpetual license.

  There's some more info here but it could also make it more confusing:

  https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/8825531814045-Subscriptions-Licenses-and-Cost-of-Ownership

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  Michael Richter

  • October 26, 2023 07:03

  " If you decide you don't want the subscription anymore, you can purchase the perpetual license at a discount (or free after 5 years) and keep using your collection as long as the OS supports the app"

  Iif C1 still exists at all in 5 years with this pricing policy!

   

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  Eric

  • October 26, 2023 08:21

  I hope it still does, and the subscription model may be the thing that saves Capture One. If it enables them to hire more development resources to keep the app up-to-date and competitive, then we can only hope for a brighter future.

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