Does u-he ever have sales on, when are they typically?

[Bansaw]

looking at getting Uhe Hive. Do they have sales periodically?

Also, do they do an educational discount?

Also, do they let people re-sell like Native Instruments (in case I can pick up a pre-owned one on ebay) or not?

[Cyoon]

1. no, only in early public betas there is a chance of an early access price
2. no
3. yes: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=278982

You can also check out this FAQ: http://www.u-he.com/cms/faqs

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

They did a (was it ten year? Could it have been 15?) anniversary sale this year, but it was only the second one ever from what I recall (first being at five years?). So if you can wait another five years, there may be another.

Every now and then they'll survey users and offer a $25 voucher. Outside of those examples, and the already discussed intro discounts, no.

[Frantz]

Have you heard about the u-he Leap Second Sale? There is a totally unsubstantiated rumor that all u-he products are 50% off during the Leap Second that is occasionally added to the calendar on New Year's Eve. Others theorize that Hans Zimmer's groundhog must leave the studio and be frightened of his shadow earlier that day in order to trigger the u-he Leap Second Sale.

However, let the buyer beware. u-he have neither confirmed nor denied the existence of this sale.

[Distorted Horizon]

I've seen few times that they co-operate with Bitwig. Buy BWS and get a U-He synth for free or something.. I got ACE for 14€ at some BWS birthday discount ^^

[mcnoone]

I got Repro1 with a $25 off coupon, and it's one of the best synths I've heard, even with it being a mono synth.

[Bansaw]

I got Repro1 with a $25 off coupon, and it's one of the best synths I've heard, even with it being a mono synth.

Where do you get coupons from?

[mcnoone]

I got Repro1 with a $25 off coupon, and it's one of the best synths I've heard, even with it being a mono synth.

Where do you get coupons from?

Anyone who received the newsletter emails at the time, got that discount.
It was a limited time of course.

U-he rewards participation.
They did things like giving away free software for those during many monthly patch contests, and have a dinosaur discount for Zebra2.
If you make some really great sounds for a synth in beta, they might even give you the synth in exchange for great sounds.
Things like that.
The philosophy is good though.
It becomes a bit unfair to loyal customers that purchased the software full price, to then give it to others sitting on the sidelines waiting to get it on sale, and then go and sell it for a profit or something.
Too many sale hacks out there already.
Having no sales prevents that kind of thing as well.
Think about it.
How would you feel if you bought a car for 20 thousand one day, and the next day another person gets it for 15 thousand?
Would you feel that was fair?
Especially when that person just bought it so they could sell it off for 17 thousand.

[phelios2063]

One thing (besides the fantastic quality of their synths) I love about U-he is that they have no sales. There are other companies on the audio market where you feel almost ripped off if you buy a full price product because you know that they will have a at least 30% sale within the next months. I am lucky that I only get newsletters from u-he about updates and new products and no weekly LAST CHANCE TO SAVE 100€ spam.

[pekbro]

I have over 60% of their products and have never payed full price for anything.
You have to pay attention so you don't miss the intros, coupons and whatnot.
They also use a number of resellers now where you can generally save a few bucks.

I don't have any problems with their no sales policy, but I would say very few
developers can get away with that. U-he is an exception, as their quality and
general policies make up for a lack of sales.

-Cheers

[Bansaw]

I have over 60% of their products and have never payed full price for anything.
You have to pay attention so you don't miss the intros, coupons and whatnot.
They also use a number of resellers now where you can generally save a few bucks.
-Cheers

@pek, I suppose you get coupons through their newsletter, right?

[pekbro]

@Bansaw,

I have in the past, both from u-he and their partners, "Bitwig" has given the most
to me in discount coupons I suppose.

There are a number of their products where I have missed the intro, while I don't
think it impossible that I'll acquire them on a discount, I expect it could take
some time (years probably) as I don't like to buy used where I wish to support the developers.

I'm cheap, but I like them to get all the money.

-Cheers

[Urs]

Yep, we kind of have a pretty strict no-sales policy. One has to see sales for what they are: They grab you as a customer and then hope to milk you later, with upgrade fees and so on. Our policy however is about making upgrades free and therefore having things pay off in the long run for our customers. So when we do sales (coupon codes), we're pretty careful about them.

That said, I'll be honest: The sale we did for Diva's birthday last fall was the biggest single thing we ever did. We made a quarter of our 2016 revenue in just 4 days. It is very tempting to do another. But then, it only worked because we managed to give a great discount to our existing user base. Many, many people upgraded their collection to all of our stuff. It was possible because it also coincided with the release of Repro-1. There are numerous good reasons to believe that another sale like it won't be as successful as this one was.

We also got into trouble with the resellers who hadn't had the same conditions. So if we did another sale, we'd have to include the resellers and compete with them.

Anyhow... we're not putting much thought into these things atm as we got plenty of other things on our plate. We hope to be more flexible with many things (bundles?) once our new website launches.

[Bansaw]

Yep, we kind of have a pretty strict no-sales policy. One has to see sales for what they are: They grab you as a customer and then hope to milk you later, with upgrade fees and so on. Our policy however is about making upgrades free and therefore having things pay off in the long run for our customers. So when we do sales (coupon codes), we're pretty careful about them.

Thanks Urs. Maybe if you did another "Sale", for example, on Hive, you could offer Hive at 20% off, and then at the same time, offer your existing customers 30% off any of your products, then the existing customers would not feel disappointed or resentful, but still feel like they were getting an exclusive deal and valued.
Just about every company does sales (for the reason you stated - the increase in revenue)... Albion, EastWest etc etc.

[EvilDragon]

Albion is not a company, you mean Spitfire Audio.

They also had a very very VERY long period when they didn't do any sales whatsoever. They only started doing them relatively recently.