What's the deal with Softube upgrade prices?

[Agreed]

Black Rooster was Reimund and Andre at first and he did the DSP prior to a certain point, but Andre works with other devs these days (on that note, I like the Koen Heldens plugs and the Omnitec plugin they made last year without Ray's involvement at all was a good saturator and EQ). Fuse is awesome, I reckon Ray's non-Fuse DSP is mainly found in Plugin Alliance products these days under the Neold brand (and he's done others for them, think he was behind the bx Opto Red, Acme Opticom, Maag EQ2 but not EQ4, Phil's Cascade, Black Box saturator, and of course the Neold plugins - may be missing some, but I like his work a lot that I've got licenses for, from every brand he's coded for!).

Softube's upgrades are a bummer for me personally, got a bunch of Marshall kit from them but only a like $180 upgrade choice and it eats the most expensive license too if I do it. Just going to hang onto my piecemeal acquisitions for the time being, but I like their quality, and an unexpected hit for me has been the cabs - they're just so quick to work with, nice IRs used here.

Voxengo is awesome and I prefer GlissEQ among EQ plugins personally, to hit the last off topic point

[MogwaiBoy]

Softube make some absolutely great plugins but whenever I see an email from them about logging in to see my special upgrade price, I ignore... There is nothing special about only acknowledging just 1 plugin and ignoring all the others I own in the bundle. I don't see that as customer 'loyalty'.

Another one I don't bother to check on is iZotope. They still want me to upgrade from Ozone 9 to Tonal Balance and I already own both.

Companies like PSP, Voxengo and Acustica do it right, with each purchase adding to a tally, which increases your discount... on everything. It keeps adding up and keeps you coming back for more.

[fairlyclose]

Another one I don't bother to check on is iZotope. They still want me to upgrade from Ozone 9 to Tonal Balance and I already own both.

iZotope are the strangest of all - tech company that can't keep track of customer purchases and integrate that into an update notice or promotional offers !

[dermage]

For Voxengo it's better to buy the Premium Membership. You will get all their plugins + future ones (at the current policy).
I paid a bit over 200€ for it end of 2020. But even when not on sale it is a bargain!

Ah, that one I forgot to mention. Ploki is also a big fan of Voxengo afair

[fmr]

Native Instruments has no loyalty in place, means you won't get Komplete cheaper besides their sales throughout the year.

That's simply not true. I started with Komplete, was able to upgrade to Komplete Ultimate for a very good price (during one of the promotions period), and did the same again to Komplete Ultimate CE.

There's also a very good conditions for people who wants to upgrade from a Kontakt Player to full Kontakt.

There's no comparison with Softube in what concerns upgrade prices, prices in general and promotional prices. Softube regard themselves way higher than they should, IMO. They are not the only ones. There are a couple of companies with the same attitude.

[dermage]

Native Instruments has no loyalty in place, means you won't get Komplete cheaper besides their sales throughout the year.

That's simply not true. I started with Komplete, was able to upgrade to Komplete Ultimate for a very good price (during one of the promotions period), and did the same again to Komplete Ultimate CE.

There's also a very good conditions for people who wants to upgrade from a Kontakt Player to full Kontakt.

There's no comparison with Softube in what concerns upgrade prices, prices in general and promotional prices. Softube regard themselves way higher than they should, IMO. They are not the only ones. There are a couple of companies with the same attitude.

Ok, maybe because it's not called loyalty here but Up/Crossgrade.
They have good Crossgrade and Upgrade prices. Right. My wrong
Anyway, as the OP already mentioned, their Upgrade prices from Komplete to Komplete are good. Makes no sense to buy single products if you can wait for the next Komplete version here.
Although it is similar with NI as with Softube. If you have 1 product or 10, your crossgrade to Komplete will be the same. No stacking of "loyalty/crossgrade" prices.


Only bad thing, as aleady mentioned, that they discontinue products sometimes. I thought they wanted to implement a solution for these too (Like Battery 2/3 etc.)

[Ploki]

For Voxengo it's better to buy the Premium Membership. You will get all their plugins + future ones (at the current policy).
I paid a bit over 200€ for it end of 2020. But even when not on sale it is a bargain!

Ah, that one I forgot to mention. Ploki is also a big fan of Voxengo afair

oh yeah
i also got it for around over 200€. it just keeps on giving, and it keeps working.

it's a no-brainer really, you get so many so good plugins.

[fmr]

For Voxengo it's better to buy the Premium Membership. You will get all their plugins + future ones (at the current policy).
I paid a bit over 200€ for it end of 2020. But even when not on sale it is a bargain!

Ah, that one I forgot to mention. Ploki is also a big fan of Voxengo afair

oh yeah
i also got it for around over 200€. it just keeps on giving, and it keeps working.

it's a no-brainer really, you get so many so good plugins.

Indeed. Voxengo is one of those labels that offers great plug-ins at a very good price.

[fmr]

Native Instruments has no loyalty in place, means you won't get Komplete cheaper besides their sales throughout the year.

That's simply not true. I started with Komplete, was able to upgrade to Komplete Ultimate for a very good price (during one of the promotions period), and did the same again to Komplete Ultimate CE.

There's also a very good conditions for people who wants to upgrade from a Kontakt Player to full Kontakt.

There's no comparison with Softube in what concerns upgrade prices, prices in general and promotional prices. Softube regard themselves way higher than they should, IMO. They are not the only ones. There are a couple of companies with the same attitude.

Ok, maybe because it's not called loyalty here but Up/Crossgrade.
They have good Crossgrade and Upgrade prices. Right. My wrong

Loyalty, Upgrade/Crossgrade, you name it... It's the same thing. Only the names change.

BTW - Another label that offers VERY GOOD upgrade prices (and whose products are among the best ones available, IMO) is FabFilter. Compare that with Softube.

[newjunkcity]

For Voxengo it's better to buy the Premium Membership. You will get all their plugins + future ones (at the current policy).
I paid a bit over 200€ for it end of 2020. But even when not on sale it is a bargain!

Ah, that one I forgot to mention. Ploki is also a big fan of Voxengo afair

That's good advice.

I'd also add that it's very obvious, and often suggested by the website, to upgrade to the 'Voxengo Collection' ( - Premium membership) - even past sale prices are made clear in the news feed.

I really appreciate this clarity (read: 'no BS') from Voxengo, and on top of that the plugins are excellent. TEOTE for example quickly replaced Gulfoss on strips for me (but I still use Gulfoss on the master bus).

[MogwaiBoy]

Native Instruments has no loyalty in place, means you won't get Komplete cheaper besides their sales throughout the year.

That's simply not true. I started with Komplete, was able to upgrade to Komplete Ultimate for a very good price (during one of the promotions period), and did the same again to Komplete Ultimate CE.

There's also a very good conditions for people who wants to upgrade from a Kontakt Player to full Kontakt.

There's no comparison with Softube in what concerns upgrade prices, prices in general and promotional prices. Softube regard themselves way higher than they should, IMO. They are not the only ones. There are a couple of companies with the same attitude.

Ok, maybe because it's not called loyalty here but Up/Crossgrade.
They have good Crossgrade and Upgrade prices. Right. My wrong

Loyalty, Upgrade/Crossgrade, you name it... It's the same thing. Only the names change.

BTW - Another label that offers VERY GOOD upgrade prices (and whose products are among the best ones available, IMO) is FabFilter. Compare that with Softube.

For sure, Fabfilter also has a very good customer loyalty system - it knows exactly what you own and offers accordingly. This makes the discount individual to you, not some generic "upgrade from one plugin to the whole bundle, even though you own 75% of the bundle, not just the one plugin - but we'll ignore that because investing in an automated discount system that serves customers better is not a priority for us".

[escalona]

First post, so 'Hi!' first of all.

Hi newjunkcity, welcome to this!

I thought I'd solicit the thoughts of the community on Softube:
I recently bought several of their plugins that form part of the Softube Collection
[...] my ears hear good quality, and I like their GUIs, although I realise this is opinion - I wanted to get some more, but at this point it seemed to make more financial sense to just upgrade to the Collection. That is, until I saw the upgrade price they wanted.
[...]
I found this old post from 2016, where someone encountered the same issue as me:
Softube goes subscription

How can it be possible that they haven't changed anything in seven years? Has anyone else been bitten by this?

Absolutely. Softube is my love/hate developer. Absolutely everything I have from them is deeply loved. I have not a single criticism about their products. Now... their sales prices? upgrades? ...they need to review their processes... or maybe not, (if it works for them... it definitely doesn't work for me). My only suggestions would be, pick those plugins you really need and want to use (I was sooo tempted about volume 5... but then I thought "I'm paying $$$ and, truly, I don't want/need a couple of them") when they are on sale. And be patient. Patience pays off.

What would be your recommendations for similar quality plugin companies? I've tried out some Plugin Alliance stuff (Brainworx), but I don't know what it is, I can't put my finger on it (ITB pun unintended), I just don't like them.

I'm with you there. Definitely not PA. To my ears all I hear is cardboard (and you will find tons of people here claiming the opposite... "a game changer!").
In my case, after going through PA, Slate, Waves... and throwing everything directly in the trash bin shortly after, I have found really useful stuff in smaller developers. Some examples: PSP (it hasn't failed me yet), Toneboosters (inexpensive and amazing tools), Voxengo (great stuff as well), Valhalla (for reverbs, delays...), Sonimus (small dev, not overhyped but with amazingly sounding plugins... keep an eye on sales as well), Tokyo Dawn Labs (I love everything they do... whenever I am tempted to buy a new shiny plugin, my personal test is to find something similar in the TDR catalog and compare... they always win and I save my money), Boz (I forget frequently that I have their entire catalog... and everything is so freaking useful) and a few U-he plugins (amazing), Acustica (you will hear a lot of bad press regarding CPU usage... I just think they sound unreal)... and the only subscription I have is House of Kush (another amazing developer).

Secondary ones to me (still really good stuff): Arturia, Overloud, XLN, Newfangled Audio, Fuse Audio Labs, Black Rooster Audio, Kazrog, DMG, Audified, Audiority... I also have the entire iZotope catalog and for some reason barely ever end up using anything (except RX), it just doesn't click with me for some obscure reason.

One last note, my first choice when looking for a plugin, is usually in the Softube folder. So I keep my eyes on their sales and try to forget how crappy their loyalty/upgrading paths are.

Good luck on your hunt!

[escalona]

...oops, I forgot my go-to for everything: FabFilter... it is so obvious I forgot.

[newjunkcity]

One last note, my first choice when looking for a plugin, is usually in the Softube folder. So I keep my eyes on their sales and try to forget how crappy their loyalty/upgrading paths are.

Maybe if they change their practices, I'll come back to them, but after reading others' replies in this thread, for example:

[...]Softube regard themselves way higher than they should, IMO. They are not the only ones. There are a couple of companies with the same attitude.

Just chatted with Softube and they confirm that the bundle prices don't update to reflect cases like mine where you own almost everything. Apparently they're looking into it, so maybe hang tight before getting any bundles.

Didn't see your original post on it, but is it that you want to purchase Volume 5 and have most of it, but the discount is minimal?
If so, they told me from Volume 1, they 'were looking into it'. .
That probably was 3 or 4 years ago?

...I don't have much confidence. For the moment they're certainly not getting any more of my money. It doesn't matter how good their products are (and admittedly, they are good in my opinion) I don't like supporting companies that either I feel don't value my business, or otherwise don't provide an exceptional service. There are plenty of alternatives to Softube it would seem.

Perhaps they're uniquely oriented towards the larger scale professional market, whom maybe don't care so much and will just buy the collection at full price. That's fine, but it doesn't interest me. For the same reason I started using Blackmagic Design Davinci Resolve Studio (what a mouthful!) for video production instead of Adobe Premiere.

---

[...]

• PSP (it hasn't failed me yet)
• Toneboosters (inexpensive and amazing tools)
• Voxengo (great stuff as well)
• Valhalla (for reverbs, delays...)
• Sonimus (small dev, not overhyped but with amazingly sounding plugins...
• Tokyo Dawn Labs (I love everything they do... whenever I am tempted to buy a new shiny plugin, my personal test is to find something similar in the TDR catalog and compare... they always win and I save my money)
• Boz (I forget frequently that I have their entire catalog... and everything is so freaking useful)
• U-he plugins (amazing)
• Acustica (you will hear a lot of bad press regarding CPU usage... I just think they sound unreal)
• House of Kush (another amazing developer).

Secondary ones to me (still really good stuff):

• Arturia
• Overloud
• XLN
• Newfangled Audio
• Fuse Audio Labs
• Black Rooster Audio
• Kazrog
• DMG
• Audified
• Audiority

... I also have the entire iZotope catalog and for some reason barely ever end up using anything (except RX), it just doesn't click with me for some obscure reason.

Thanks ever so much for all the amazing recommendations!

I've been meaning to pull the trigger on Valhalla (I just need to get into a project that needs a certain type of reverb first), I heard about them from Andrew Huang's videos on YouTube.

I've already began investigating Fuse. I see TDR Labs mentioned very frequently (e.g. there's another post with the Top 5 Most Used Plugins?), as are Kush - the fact that you pay for a subscription to Kush, while having all the others, is high praise indeed.

[fmr]

...oops, I forgot my go-to for everything: FabFilter... it is so obvious I forgot.

I was wondering, when I first read your list