What's the deal with Softube upgrade prices?

[newjunkcity]

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

• Summit
• Harmonic Saturator
• Tape
• TSAR-1
• British Class A
• etc.

After getting quite 'in to' their plugins - 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.

They basically take the most expensive plugin you already own off the price of the Collection, but any other plugins you purchased are ignored, leaving you out of pocket if you previously spent money with them (compared to someone whom just purchases the Collection outright as their first/second purchase).

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?

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.

The response I got from their support just looks like copypasta:

[...]I'm sorry for any disappointment regarding the Volume 5 upgrade prices.

The Volume 5 upgrade prices are based on the most expensive plug-in or bundle in Volume 5 that you already have a license for. The most favorable upgrade price should be selected automatically when clicking the upgrade button on the Volume 5 page.

I'll do what I can for now, which is to save your thoughts and make sure they get seen by the team at Sales & Marketing.

Please let me know if you have any other questions[...]

[lwj]

hmm, once you have the volume bundle, the upgrade prices are pretty reasonable. My guess is they think this'll push people to buy the bundle faster.

Another route would be to keep an eye out for second hand offers, which'll leave you with a bunch of duplicates to sell. That's what I did at the time and it worked out alright.

[Mr Arkadin]

Yeah, I bought a few Amp Room plug-ins and managed to get all but one of the Marshall Amp Room plug-ins at cheap prices in flash sales here and there, yet the upgrade price is $178 and the last amp in the series was $59 in the sale. As I managed to get the others for around $20 I didn't bother with that last amp - will wait for another sale, but even full-price that last amp is $99, so the upgrade still makes no sense to me.

[newjunkcity]

hmm, once you have the volume bundle, the upgrade prices are pretty reasonable. My guess is they think this'll push people to buy the bundle faster.

Perhaps, but I had no idea... if they'd made that clear from the outset, I wouldn't have wasted my money.

Another route would be to keep an eye out for second hand offers, which'll leave you with a bunch of duplicates to sell. That's what I did at the time and it worked out alright.

How do you mean? Look out for someone selling their Collection?
If the upgrade prices are reasonable after that, it might tempt me, but I've got to be honest, I feel burnt (getting into VSTs is a new thing for me), and that makes me not want to spend anymore money on their stuff. I've been checking out the SSL Native plugins, but it looks like I should wait for a sale based on previous prices.

[newjunkcity]

Yeah, I bought a few Amp Room plug-ins and managed to get all but one of the Marshall Amp Room plug-ins at cheap prices in flash sales here and there, yet the upgrade price was something like $174 and the last amp in the series was $59 in the sale. As I managed to get the others for around $20 I didn't bother with that last amp - will wait for another sale, but even full-price that last amp is $99, so the upgrade still makes no sense to me.

Thanks for your reply, I'm glad to hear it isn't just me who feels like it makes no sense! (In part, I think I was looking to see if it's me that feels like they got the short end of the stick, or if other people have thought the same.)

[DarkStar]

A bit of a pain but maybe you can sell / transfer the "not-most-expensive" plug-ins and still get the Collection at the same price?

[newjunkcity]

A bit of a pain but maybe you can sell / transfer the "not-most-expensive" plug-ins and still get the Collection at the same price?

That's actually a really good idea - I didn't know I could sell licences.
I'll check out the Buy/Sell forum here on KVR; do you look for second hand licences anywhere else generally? Maybe eBay?

[DarkStar]

You should check with SofTube. I did see this:
https://www.softube.com/support/faq-ilo ... e-transfer

Buy/Sell here is pretty good. I would avoid eBay.

[fmr]

A bit of a pain but maybe you can sell / transfer the "not-most-expensive" plug-ins and still get the Collection at the same price?

That's actually a really good idea - I didn't know I could sell licences.
I'll check out the Buy/Sell forum here on KVR; do you look for second hand licences anywhere else generally? Maybe eBay?

Their licenses use iLOK, which will make transfer much more difficult. You will have to pay a fee to both Softube AND iLOK, I think. That's why I pretty much forgot their plug-ins. Lots of great alternatives. They seem greedy to me.

[newjunkcity]

You should check with SofTube. I did see this:
https://www.softube.com/support/faq-ilo ... e-transfer

Buy/Sell here is pretty good. I would avoid eBay.

That's good advice thanks!
Gotta admit though, this bit stings:

iLok charges a $25 fee per license or bundle that is transferred (with the order maximum being $50).

Does that mean I can potentially sell > than two plugins at once and only get charged $50 for the whole sale? Or does it mean I can only sell two per transaction (and get charged a small fortune by PACE)?

Regardless, it's quite complicated... The former would mean someone would need to want exactly the same stuff as me, and then that would put the at the same disadvantage as me if they wished to later upgrade... and the latter, well, that's just another waste of money: back to square one, feel screwed.

[newjunkcity]

A bit of a pain but maybe you can sell / transfer the "not-most-expensive" plug-ins and still get the Collection at the same price?

That's actually a really good idea - I didn't know I could sell licences.
I'll check out the Buy/Sell forum here on KVR; do you look for second hand licences anywhere else generally? Maybe eBay?

Their licenses use iLOK, which will make transfer much more difficult. You will have to pay a fee to both Softube AND iLOK, I think. That's why I pretty much forgot their plug-ins. Lots of great alternatives. They seem greedy to me.

I couldn't agree with you more...

While all companies are out there to make money, I honestly don't want to invest my money in a company that deliberately charges previous customers more than someone who's never purchased anything from them. It feels like negotiating my mobile phone contract back in the 2000s (which I always hated doing... thankfully I have enough money to just buy a phone and get a monthly SIM these days).

What plugins companies are you using these days?

[dermage]

The only company I know where loyalty coupons stack is Liquidsonics. (though they only do reverbs)

All the others I'm using have a similar policy in place like Softube or even worse.
I list only the companies who have high quality stuff and a bigger selection of plugins:

Plugin Alliance has 2 levels of loyalty (+ monthly coupons). But the loyalty options aren't as good as years ago, so best with PA is to wait a year after release and get the plugin for $29 in a mega sale (4+ sales a year).
Native Instruments has no loyalty in place, means you won't get Komplete cheaper besides their sales throughout the year.
Black Rooster has a loyalty policy (if owning 1 or more plugins you get a customer price), but you also can ask the support for even bigger discounts when going to the bundle. Also they do huge bundle sales where you can get their complete bundle for $99 (1x-2x a year)
Fuse Audio Labs - no loyalty policy, but very good sale prices 3-4 times a year (up to 70% off)

[Ploki]

Yeah, I bought a few Amp Room plug-ins and managed to get all but one of the Marshall Amp Room plug-ins at cheap prices in flash sales here and there, yet the upgrade price is $178 and the last amp in the series was $59 in the sale. As I managed to get the others for around $20 I didn't bother with that last amp - will wait for another sale, but even full-price that last amp is $99, so the upgrade still makes no sense to me.

Let me double check - if you buy the last amp without upgrading, you can get it for 99$ full price, but if you want to "update" to it as owner of amp room and other amps, the price is 178$?

[newjunkcity]

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

I already have Komplete Ultimate - I don't mind that it won't get any cheaper than that: it's not the initial price that puts me off, it's getting stung in the behind later on. The upgrade prices seem pretty reasonable to me (during their sales), and they also let you upgrade from several versions back, without paying a higher price (e.g. Komplete 8 => 13), means I can hang on for a couple of years before taking the plunge.

That said, I read earlier today that they're no longer activating older versions that have been bought and paid for. That's pretty sucky... Even Adobe gave out universal licence keys for CS2 when they turned off the activation servers.

Black Rooster has a loyalty policy (if owning 1 or more plugins you get a customer price), but you also can ask the support for even bigger discounts when going to the bundle. Also they do huge bundle sales where you can get their complete bundle for $99 (1x-2x a year)
Fuse Audio Labs - no loyalty policy, but very good sale prices 3-4 times a year (up to 70% off)

I really like Black Rooster, got their pack during the Black Friday sale. I use their plugins constantly.

Again, it's not loyalty for future purchases that is cheesing me off with Softube; it's punishing me for having already bought a load of stuff, versus a new customer who gets a better deal...

[newjunkcity]

Yeah, I bought a few Amp Room plug-ins and managed to get all but one of the Marshall Amp Room plug-ins at cheap prices in flash sales here and there, yet the upgrade price is $178 and the last amp in the series was $59 in the sale. As I managed to get the others for around $20 I didn't bother with that last amp - will wait for another sale, but even full-price that last amp is $99, so the upgrade still makes no sense to me.

Let me double check - if you buy the last amp without upgrading, you can get it for 99$ full price, but if you want to "update" to it as owner of amp room and other amps, the price is 178$?

I don't doubt it at all. It's [edit:] almost the same thing that's got my back up with the upgrade to the Collection.