Skip to main content

⚠️ Please note that this topic or post has been archived. The information contained here may no longer be accurate or up-to-date. ⚠️

Perpetual and subscription

Comments

50 comments

  • Ian Wilson
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    Why do you need to switch to subscription to get all the features? As long as you are willing to pay when new versions with new features come out you can do that on a perpetual licence too. 

    Also, my understanding is that you don't need the Internet all the time with a subscription - you just need it often enough for Capture One to be able to verify your subscription status at least once every 30 days. (But I am not on a subscription, so you had better check the details of that.)

    Ian

    0
  • Maarten Heijkoop

    Annual subscription apparently is cheaper then perpetual, plus with you don’t get all the features during the year with a perpetual license

    0
  • Ian Wilson
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    Whether the cost is less is hard to work out. But I think you are misunderstanding what happens when new features come out. 

    Ian

    0
  • Maarten Heijkoop

    As far as I understand after 30 sept you buy a new perpetual update with all the features and only maintenance updates during the year, so no feature updates

    0
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    Ian Wilson:

    Why do you need to switch to subscription to get all the features? As long as you are willing to pay when new versions with new features come out you can do that on a perpetual licence too. 

    Whether the cost is less is hard to work out.

    With every version (.x release) you will need to purchase a new perpetual license ($179), which entitles you to bug fixes and improvements (.x.x releases) until the next version is released. And so, the annual cost of staying up to date on a perpetual license will depend on the number of versions released.

    As one of the reasons for changing the license system was that it would enable the introduction of new features continuously rather than once a year, presumably there will be more versions with a smaller number of new features than previously. And even if there were to be just two such versions during a year, this would already make the up-to-date perpetual license option twice as expensive as a subscription.

    0
  • Maarten Heijkoop

    Where do you read €176 ????

    0
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    Here it says $179 / €209 per version if you buy a new license within 12 months.

    0
  • Maarten Heijkoop

    👍

    0
  • Ian Wilson
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    Maarten Heijkoop

    As far as I understand after 30 sept you buy a new perpetual update with all the features and only maintenance updates during the year, so no feature updates

    But

    1. during the year... as I understood what they were saying when they first announced these changes, they are getting away from a yearly cycle of updates;
    2. no feature updates... will there be feature updates between versions (if there are "versions")? So will subscribers get feature updates anyway, at intervals during the year?
    3. I think (but it's not 100% clear to me as yet) that the idea is that rather than once a year, new features will come out when they are ready with them; subscribers (of course) get them as long as their subscription continues; perpetual license holders can get them too - but they may have to pay for them. Whether that is once a year, several times a year, once every few years, etc, who knows? And the crucial thing is how much you would have to pay. 

    Ian

    0
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    David Grover explained the distinction between updates and versions/upgrades in Paul Reiffer's Facebook group:

    .x releases are versions/paid upgrades with new features. 

    .x.x releases are free and include only bug fixes and improvements, no new features.

    A perpetual license entitles you to .x.x updates until the next .x release.

    Every perpetual license upgrade is $179 (assuming you bought the last perpetual license within the last 12 months).

    0
  • Ian Wilson
    Moderator
    Top Commenter

    Thomas Kyhn

    With every version (.x release) you will need to purchase a new perpetual license ($179)

    I am not sure that that is correct. If you have version 23 now, then after 30 September 2023, you only get new features (point releases) if you pay for them, I realise that. The explanation here

    https://support.captureone.com/hc/en-us/articles/8825486412189 

    is not 100% clear to me.

    I assume that if they were to bring out new features three times during the 12 months after 30 September, we would not be expected to pay £179 three times a year. But we don't know how often they will bring them out. We do know that they have said there will not be a Capture One 24 (so not an annual cycle any more) but we don't know the details of how often there will be feature updates.

    Ian

    0
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    David Grover confirmed on Facebook that you would have to pay the full $179 for every single .x release:

    Q: "if a version has, say, four .x updates during a year, you would have to pay $179 for each of them in order to stay up to date with new features?"

    A: "yes"

    It's true that we don't know how many versions there will be per year, but as mentioned above, one of the reasons they gave for changing the license system was that it would enable the introduction of new features continuously rather than once a year, so presumably new features will be introduced more often than what was previously the case. And so, even if there were to be just two versions per year, this would make the up-to-date perpetual license option twice as expensive as a subscription.

    0
  • Maarten Heijkoop

    As far as I understand you pay the license fee once a year for the softwareversion at that moment and you’ll be @ the same price for perpetual and subscription if you upgrade your perpetual license every 12 months or pay for yearly subscription 

    0
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    Maarten Heijkoop:

    As far as I understand you pay the license fee once a year for the softwareversion at that moment and you’ll be @ the same price for perpetual and subscription if you upgrade your perpetual license every 12 months or pay for yearly subscription 

    That's how I understand it too. One of the disadvantages, apart from having to wait for new features, is that when upgrading once a year you'll be without bug fixes presumably at least half of the time and probably more.

    0
  • Abbott Schindler

    For me, the subscription decision is much more complex than simply "which is cheaper". Staying current with a subscription requires paying attention to which OS versions a given C1 version supports, AND whether one's other important apps work with that OS version. And then there's the question of when an OS version upgrade is going to force a Mac upgrade (because eventually macOS versions stop supporting older machines that may otherwise work perfectly for you.

    Because I look at my computer as a tool and view its ecosystem more as a system, I'm going to stick with a perpetual license, which in turn lets me decide when to upgrade OSes and machines (and all the other software programs that may be affected).

    0
  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    Abbott Schindler

    As much as I dislike subscription software I think your concern is not a valid one. From my understanding you do not have to upgrade, it's not a mandatory obligation imposed by C1. You can run an older version as long as you like. No?

    0
  • Abbott Schindler

    Yes BeO, with subscription software you can continue to run any version you want. In that case, though, you're going to continue paying the monthly or annual subscription price for no addition capabilities. As far as I can tell, that results in software functionality that's no different from having a perpetual license, except that you keep paying for the subscription. I assume that if one's paying for subscription, then one's tacitly decided to keep relatively current with the rest of the "ecosystem". For many that makes sense; for others, staying back makes sense.

    0
  • Maarten Heijkoop

    Thomas Kyhn
    That's how I understand it too. One of the disadvantages, apart from having to wait for new features, is that when upgrading once a year you'll be without bug fixes presumably at least half of the time and probably more.

    You will get bugfixes during the year

    0
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    Maarten Heijkoop:

    You will get bugfixes during the year

    How long you're entitled to updates with bug fixes (.x.x releases) depends of when the next version (.x) is released. I.e. if you buy version x.1, you'll get the bug fix updates x.1.1, x.1.2 (etc.), but once version x.2 is released, you're no longer entitled to free updates of any kind.

    0
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    John Friend:

    Where do you get this information from about specific point releases?  All I've seen in official information from the company is that if you buy a new license in December, you will get bug fixes until the following Sept 30th.

    I believe the part about bug fixes until September 30th is specifically for those who buy version 23 before February. After that the new "loyalty program" applies.

    The information about point releases is from David Grover who answered questions in Paul Reiffer's Facebook group; he confirmed that you only get free updates with bug fixes (.x.x releases) until the next .x version is released.

    Addition. The FB group is Paul Reiffer Live - The Photographic Community. And the exchange took place in the comments to an update from January 18 ("The license change and loyalty programme detail is now available").

    0
  • Jerry C

    Thomas Kuhn: With every version (.x release) you will need to purchase a new perpetual license ($179), which entitles you to bug fixes and improvements (.x.x releases) until the next version is released. And so, the annual cost of staying up to date on a perpetual license will depend on the number of versions released.

    The idea expressed is that each .x release will cost $179. So, why would anyone update more than once a year unless the new upgrade does something so spectacularly wonderful that waiting would be intolerable? So either Capture One has lined up some amazing just can't wait features, any one of which is going to blow its competitors out of the water, or they know we are going to save our money until enough new features make it worth buying a version with all of the upgrades since our last purchase. Then, they are not going to charge you multiples of $179 for every upgrade between the time you bought Capture One 23 and whenever you buy the newest version because you could just wait until it is worth the full price a new user would pay with out the discount. 

    In short, charging for each upgrade multiple times a year is a business plan dead on arrival.They may not be counting on users upgrading strategically only when warranted, just like we do now, skipping versions not worth the upgrade price. 

    P.S. I like using Capture One more than any other RAW file capable software I have tried and I want to keep using it, but I am quite willing to go to an every other year purchasing strategy as long as my cameras, lenses and computers can run it. 

    0
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    I didn't say that the price of upgrading would be cumulative if you skip a few versions before you upgrade. The point is that in order to stay up to date with bug fixes, improvements, etc., you would need to buy every single .x version as your access to .x.x releases stops when a new .x version is released. Whether or not anyone would want to do this is another matter.

    0
  • BeO
    Top Commenter

    well, bug fixes, improvements... I just downgraded to 15.2  again (from 15.4) because they introduced two annoying bugs in either 15.3 or 15.4 (or at least one bug, the other I'm not clear if they intentionally "disimproved" it), which is a pity as I found the pano stitching was better in 15.4. 

    Having the choice between all minor versions in a year for bug fixes is essentially imo.

    Or even better, having only bug fix releases for a full year (without new features) could even improve the C1 quality. So, one feature branch and one bug fix branch would be ideal so every user could choose what he prefers, but is seems they will be missing this opportunity...

    0
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    John Friend:

    Since we have no idea what a .x or .x.x release means in their new model, I'm wondering how much calendar time do we get bug fixes for?  If this is only like 3 months and we already know C1 is pretty bad about timely fixes, then this a major drawback of perpetual to the point of perhaps making it untenable in practice.

    According to David Grover .x releases are new versions with new features (paid upgrades), while .x.x releases are free updates with no new features, only bug fixes and improvements.

    Presumably, we will – as mentioned before – see new versions more often than previously, but even if there were to be only two new versions per year, half a year without access to bug fixes could indeed be a problem for some users.

    0
  • Maarten Heijkoop

    One thing I appreciate of C1 is that you can get a lifetime perpetual license when you decide to stop with the subscription model. Adobe doesn’t do that.

    0
  • Jerry C

    Thomas,

    I didn't say that the price of upgrading would be cumulative if you skip a few versions before you upgrade. Sorry to imply you said this. You did not.

    I was attempting to say there is no viable model that recovers fees for all of the intervening upgrades you skip. Therefore, perpetual license users are most likely to skip updates until they really have a good reason to upgrade at the new user rate, which could be years.

    Jerry

    0
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    @Jerry 

    No worries. Considering the issues I've had with Capture One, I'd rather not be without bug fixes for long. I'm not sure what would be an ideal way of handling perpetual licenses, but making it this expensive to have access to bug fixes and improvements, etc. – at a minimum twice as expensive as an already expensive subscription, assuming that there will be at least two versions a year – is in no way a reasonable solution.

    One foreseeable problem will be that once you have issues with Capture One, the first thing support will say is to make sure you have the latest version installed, regardless of whether the issue you're having has been addressed or not. And if you don't have the latest issue, you'll be more or less on your own.

    0
  • Jerry C

    Not fixing known bugs in previous recent versions for a reasonable period after an upgrade would be unethical. A reasonable effort to issue bug updates should be made for a reasonable amount of time or number of upgrades after an upgrade is purchased and the bug can be confirmed.  

    Opinion will vary on how to define "reasonable."

    0
  • Thomas Kyhn
    Top Commenter

    @John Friend

    I haven't seen any information about access to technical support if you don't have an up-to-date license. Perhaps people who are still using previous versions know about this, or at least about the way it's currently handled?

    0
  • Robert Aeberhard

    It seems obvious that Capture One pushes its users to their subscription model by making perpetual licenses less attractive and more expensive in comparison to subscription. Eventually, they will probably stop selling a perpetual licenses at all, just as Adobe did a couple of years ago. 

    But in contrast Adobe had (and still has) a convincing price for their model, whereas I'm not sure if Capture One's prices will work. In Switzerland, Capture One's subscription costs roughly 15CHF per month. Capture One for iPad is an additional 5CHF = 20CHF per month.

    Adobe charges roughly 12CHF per month and you get Lightroom, Lightroom Classic, Lightroom for iPad, Photoshop plus 20GB of storage.

    How can you charge more and give less than the competition? I'm not sure if Capture One has enough unique selling points compared to Adobe's offering to justify that price difference.

    Thus the price sensitive might move (back) to Lightroom whereas people how want a perpetual license might move to Photolab. Only die-hard Capture One lovers will stay. Maybe it's their plan to focus on fashion & studio photographers but even so, I think it's a risky decision. Time will tell.

    0

Please sign in to leave a comment.