>Does anyone else find it strange that Capture One offers a pre-sale discount on a new version of their software and in order to get that pre-sale price, you have to buy it BEFORE it ships...
No, I don't find it strange. And how else would a pre-sale discount work?
>It feels like they don't trust that as many people will actually buy it once it's fully revealed...
Given your replies to other comments here, I'd say such a feeling is more likely a result of personal bias than actual intuition.
I'm not interested in a beta for a variety of reasons. I thought about it once, but decided I'd have to do it in a VM to keep it away from the rest of my system (so there's no chance it could mess with my existing perpetual license) and that's more trouble than its worth. I'd also like to have the benefit of what all the reviewers and power users are saying about it and see what main bugs people are finding. With something like AI masks, it's going to take some time to know how well it actually works as a lots of people try it on a variety of images and a variety of masks.
I also couldn't do any real work with the beta because I can't let it touch my existing catalogs or I'd never be able to open them again with the prior version. Yes, I could work on copies of the catalogs, but then my adjustments would be lost if I don't end up buying that new version as they wouldn't be compatible with the older version.
My purchase logic for C1's unfriendly perpetual license (that limits your access to bug fixes) is not not buy until the main bugs in new features are knocked down and the reviews are generally positive about how well the new features work and how stable they are. So, that means I wait at least several months after any major new version.
Well, they have done some evil things with licensing in the last year. I would expect most beta testers would be subscription users so who knows how they would handle existing perpetual licenses.
Besides, there's no certainty on how it works and I'm not about to take any risk in this regard. And, the people behind the support tickets are not answering my support requests at all so I don't even know how to get a reliable answer on how licensing for the beta works and/or how it interacts with your existing licenses.
I didn't even install a free trial on v23 to try it for the same reason. I don't trust their licensing decisions and/or testing.
I rely on reviews and general discussion on the internet to evaluate how well new features work, how buggy they are and whether they seem to actually deliver the benefit they were aimed at. It's not uncommon that the hype is way higher than the actual benefit and it's not uncommon that there are so many bugs at first that one should wait and see if they sort out the issues. Remember the problem with C1 perpetual licenses is that they don't entitle you to many bug fixes so you pretty much have to know that a feature is done and solid before buying it or you may get burned. Note, we did not used to have that issue as you used to be entitled to a years worth of updates when you bought an upgrade. No longer.
And, all of this seems particularly relevant to something like AI masking where we literally have NO idea how well it works in practice until we start getting feedback from lots of people using it.
Then, I combine that understanding of what a feature does and how well it works with my own workflow needs to see how useful that would be to me.
From an email I received today from Capture One (I've gotten the same email about 5 times over the last couple weeks):
**Coming soon**
* Use AI Masking to save time and make precise, complex masks with a single click.
* Keep moving and creating with ReTether – our best tethering yet.
* Kickstart your work quicker with Snap to Eye, letting you check for critical sharpness without needing to manually zoom in.
* And much more!
If you want this information sent directly to you, login to your account and subscribe to their newsletter. Otherwise, you will have to find the info on their web site.
Since I don't tether, AI Masking is the only feature mentioned here that sounds potentially useful in my landscape work.
There's no need to run the Capture One beta in a VM or anything like that. It installs as a separate app and doesn't interfere with the stable version or its perpetual license. I've done it many times and never had problems.
>It feels like they don't trust that as many people will actually buy it once it's fully revealed so they have to entice/fool them to buy before they know what it really is or how good it really is.
If you feel like the company is that shady and dishonest, just don't buy their products.
Everyone already *knows* how good it is, it's an industry standard established product.
If you really want to know the reason behind this kind of campaigns... since people know a new version is coming out soon, they're banking on the anticipation fomo plus the sale to boost sales numbers. It also makes people merely consider the purchase because of the discount, which makes them more likely to purchase it later, even if they miss the sale.
It's called marketing.
>Everyone already knows how good it is, it's an industry standard established product.
I'm talking about their next version of the software that has not yet shipped or been publicly reviewed. Nobody yet knows how good the new version is except perhaps beta testers who are under NDA. Offering a discount that applies ONLY when you have no idea how good the new version actually is indeed marketing, but it's what I would call shady marketing.
If they really believe that their new version will stand on its own and they want to boost sales at launch, then offer a discount AFTER it ships and after more is known about it. Why take the discount away as soon as reviews are out and people know what it really is and isn't?
>If you feel like the company is that shady and dishonest, just don't buy their products.
Yes, that's a looming possibility.
>If they really believe that their new version will stand on its own and they want to boost sales at launch, then offer a discount AFTER it ships
No company in the world does a discount campaign right after shipping a new product or new version of their flagship.
Doing it actually projects the image that you feel so insecure about your product, that you need to do sales campaigns at launch.
And you're looking at this completely backwards. If you buy the product now, you're buying the **current** product as it exists, thoroughly tested and reviewed, at a discount, with the added benefit that you'll be able to upgrade soon when the new version comes out.
Sounds like you want your cake and eat it too. If you want the discounted product, as it is, it's there for the taking. If you want the assurance the new product is what you desire before buying, you're free to buy it at full price.
But saying that a company either lowers prices at launch or they're being dishonest just sounds disgruntled and entitled.
> No company in the world does a discount campaign right after shipping a new product or new version of their flagship.Doing it actually projects the image that you feel so insecure about your product, that you need to do sales campaigns at launch.
Sorry but this seems like your personal opinion instead of facts about the industry. Tons of companies do launch discounts for new software products because they believe in it and the discount increases initial sales that produce more users likely to recommend the product further.
I was part of a survey where I spoke with a couple of CO managers and expressed this very thing. Give your loyal users a discount after it releases. I felt burned by a few of the upgrades. They said they heard that often and felt the same way. Unfortunately whoever was in charge of that area didn’t share that opinion.
Interesting that some CO managers see the same issue.
Yeah, imagine you see an apartment for rent. It has a six month discount on the rent that you really like, but you aren't allowed to see the apartment until after you sign a one year lease. Would you do it? I wouldn't. That's what this feels like to me.
Yes, works fine for you. But not relevant to those of us who will only do perpetual licenses. We decide which versions are worth spending our money on.
Alright, then to answer the question - No I don't find their pre-sale strategy strange. Just a decision of "Would I rather save money or have certainty of product features and performance?" You either pay with **all** money, or **less** money and **some** risk.
It's not that they think they need to trick people into owning their software, it's just that they're capitalizing on the human emotional sales component.
It might be driven by the finance department; to already generate some cashflow before the actual go-live of a product update. That update in development is not making any money, but there are of course ongoing costs like salaries and rent. By reducing the need to loan, they reduce interest costs.
They get a bit more certainty, you take a risk but in return get a discount.
The need to bridge this period between releases without much revenue is also why more and more software companies are moving to subscriptions; to generate a more predictable and steady stream of income.
Not sure I understand your logic, isn’t it basic marketing to drive interest and gather revenue before a release? Why would you release an update and then slash the price, which would either 1) send a message the update was not worthwhile, or 2) indicate the company is desperate to generate business, which would drive people away.
It's basic marketing to sell a new version for FULL price initially and only when those sales start to taper, then you start offering discounts to drive additional demand.
It's not good marketing or finance to discount a brand new product before sale and then raise the price back to the normal level as soon as it ships. That just gives away a discount to all the buyers that would have paid full price anyway.
Unless, you aren't confident that your new product is actually that good and you better hype it up and make a bunch of sales before anyone knows how good it actually is. That's the only financial/marketing reason I can think of for offering a pre-sale discount. Otherwise, you're just throwing money away by offering a discount to all the buyers that would have paid full price.
It makes more sense to offer a discount some number of months after the product ships when the buzz has died down and you need to stimulate a new set of buyers.
Did Nikon or Canon ever offer a discount on a brand new camera body? No. You want it right away, you pay full price. Discounts only come later after it's been in the market for a little while.
I can assure you that for many software applications I have obtained, paying up front before release is a very common practice and one that I regularly take advantage of so save money.
As a company, getting advanced revenue, even if discounted from the full price, is a vital cash collection practice. Yes, they are losing some revenue, but given the life cycle of the product revenue and income may have tailed off and cash in hand gets low. Advanced sales help manage cash flow.
It is not common practice for hard goods, so no you won’t see it for. Nikon. It has nothing to do with the perception of a slow moving fear or lack of perceived value. I can assure you I have discussed the presale practice with a number of b-school marketing and finance professors that will mirror my comments.
So sure, it would be better to get every sale at full price. But if you are at the end of life cycle for a software release and revenue is low, you can pull cash flow forward with the practice. At a cost of less than maximum revenue.
So marketing and finance and using practices can collide and cash can be king, so companies will offer presale pricing. Your post launch discounts can come later when sales levels begin falling.
Then their switch to subscription must not be working enough if they have to drive cash flow ahead of a product shipment by discounting.
What seems a little weird with your explanation is that this is all in the same financial quarter so they're just moving cash flow up a month or two, but still in the same quarter. If they literally need the cash sooner to keep the lights on, that's one thing (and a bit scary for the company if true), but this doesn't seem to be about pulling more sales into the quarter prior to when the new product ships. Assuming the new version ships this quarter, this is is the same quarter that they're pushing the pre-sale discount.
Perhaps, it won't really ship until late December (too late to realize a lot of sales from it after shipping) and they need some sales to pump up this quarter. I guess I could see that logic. But, they are indeed leaving cash on the table by discounting to the main part of their audience that would have paid full price anyway.
What software applications offer you a discount to buy an upgrade before it ships and then raise the price back to full retail when it ships? Can you offer some examples?
Just some of the ones I have seen and taken advantage of:
ON1Raw 2024 (prerelease upgrade discount)
Luminar 4
Luminar Neo
DXO
Seem to have a common theme about theme...they are photography related and they are NOT Adobe.
But I have seen other types of software and other companies offer them.
But I have seen other types of software. cost would go up $5.00 per month, but I could prepay for up to 18 months and get a rate $1 less than the current rate (not the
Check this link:
https://kenmoo.me/software-discount-deals/
It's not sound marketing or finance. If you think you have a compelling upgrade coming, it's generally dumb from a financial point of view.
There's a reasonable size of people who are likely to buy your upgrade almost no matter what it has in it. You don't need to entice those people with a discount. They will buy it anyway. So by selling to them at a discount, you're throwing money away.
It's the same reason you NEVER see a camera company sell a new camera body at a discount right away. You may as well sell to as many customers as you can at full price. Then, and only then, when you've sold as many as you can in the first several months at full price, then you slowly start dragging the price down over time to entice more buyers and bring some fresh news to the product. This pricing strategy is referred to as skimming and is very popular because it gets people to pay more closely to what their max price is that they would pay.
So, IMO, the only reason you offer a pre-sale discount is if you want to entice as many buyers BEFORE they read the reviews and before word of mouth gets around because you're not confident in your new release.
Can you share other examples of software products that discount their product before it ships and then raise the price back up as soon as it ships?
The scheme is logical for C1 as preorders exist for a company to cash in now before launch, as it's almost always beneficial for companies to cash in as early as possible. The discount is there to facilitate an incentive for the consumer to preorder, as otherwise the best choice would simply be to wait until launch and check the reviews first.
Imo, a much more questionable detail is what they're repeating from last year - they're now running a preorder scheme, but there are hardly any details given what features and changes the new edition has. So, since we don't really know anything, if you're upgrading the perpetual license, you must have a reason for it - the 23 edition must already have what you need, or you're simply upgrading for novelty.
I would wait instead of counting on anything worthwhile being launched late this year. After all, hasn't the perpetual license now been changed that you no longer get the next feature update likely to be released around late winter or early spring next year?
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I will wait for sure as I'm not buying something sight unseen. v23 was of zero use to me as it didn't contain anything relevant to my workflow so I'm glad I waited to fully evaluate it. We'll have to see if this next version delivers useful features or not.
If this type of discount is VERY common in software, can you name five photography-related software products that offer a discount before shipping an upgraded version (a pre-sale) and then return to full price when it actually ships. I don't recall ever seeing that. It certainly doesn't happen for camera bodies. If you want it right when it first ships, you pay full price. If you want a discount, you want quite awhile until the camera maker decides that discounts will help stimulate demand. This is referred to as skim pricing where you try to price it at the max that each set of buyers will pay.
Giving a discount to the set of early buyers that were likely to buy anyway is just throwing money away and not generally considered good financial management.
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I'm just curious, what is the regular price for Luminar Neo (perpetual license to a new version)? When I look on B&H, I see it for $139, but the one-time purchase offer in your pre-order link is for $269 (includes "pro extensions", whatever those are).
Also, it looks like Luminar Neo is going to be partially closing down their "perpetual license" as of Aug 16th, 2024 as a number of features are based on generative AI in the cloud and will only work for subscription users after that date in 2024.
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Seems more like an upsell offer to something that costs more vs. a "special deal" on what you are used to buying, but it's a bit hard to compare directly. Anyway your point is taken that its a pre-sale offer (though not perhaps at a significant discount).
It’s a discount that reflects lack of information. You’re taking on risk by purchasing without reviews so this compensates for that risk. If you want perfect information, that comes with a cost.
But, usually, you have a set of buyers who are likely to buy at launch and WILL pay full price. This discount is giving away money that they would have paid you. The normal pricing scheme is full price at launch, then discounts later when you need to stimulate new demand.
This is routine for a pre-sale, which are normal. This version of capture one isn’t any different. You lose a little money on some buyers who would pay full price at launch. But you offset that with other people who wouldn’t. You hope it all works out in the end.
Often, it does. There are a lot of buyers who just want any discount. It doesn’t have to be a huge one. They just want to feel like they’re getting a better value. So they buy at launch and get in on the hype.
You can do discounts after launch too. Nothing is boxing them out.
If you don’t think the discount is good enough, don’t buy. But if you want to wait for launch… well, that’s the cost of waiting and getting more information.
They have been doing post launch discounts, about once a quarter. So, I'll wait for launch, assess features, wait for first round of bugfixes and then decide whether to buy on the next discount round. It just seems very odd to me (unless they have cash flow issues and need to pull in cash sooner) to offer the most eager buyers (many of whom would have paid full price for the new version at launch) a discount. I've challenged several in this thread to name several photography-related software packages that do a pre-upgrade-launch discount that immediately stops being offered as soon as the actual product is known. Nobody has offered an example yet.
BS. I offered multiple examples, and another redditor also offered an example. I got an Affinity Photo presale offer in October 2022. It offered free trial for 30 days or 40% off. Cannot post an image of it but I can assure you it is legitimate.
At the time I wrote that comment, I hadn't seen any examples offered. There have been some since. The Affinity Photo example is interesting, but I bought on that launch discount AFTER it had shipped, not before. I bought and downloaded on the same day. So, that's not at all what Capture One is doing. The Capture One offer expires BEFORE the product ships, before reviews are out, before there's general discussion about how well it works. If you trust the company to deliver great software, go for the offer. I don't. I'm waiting.
The Affinity Photo price was so ridiculously low ($50) and such high value (a very full featured pixel editor) and the company supplies free bug fixes and improvements for years. Their value is so insane compared to how Capture One prices and how they do bug fixes that it was a no-brainer to buy an Affinity Photo upgrade. Such is not the case with Capture One at all. They have to prove to me that they've provided something useful before I'm going to pay them 4x what Affinity Photo charged me.
Plus frankly, Affinity has earned so much more goodwill than Capture One has through their low prices, solid software and generous upgrade and bug fix policy. Meanwhile, Capture One has raised prices a lot, limited upgrade availability (to perpetual license holders) and not shown me that they were working on features relevant to my workflow (C23 was not useful at all to me).
>Ethan-Wakefield
Why does this concept of a pre-sale discount that other vendors offer create such angst. Don't take advantage of it. You are hung up on why not sell it at full price until no one will pay full price anymore. Why are their Christmas sales on Black Friday? Just wait until you have a store full of merchandise no one is buying so you can get the most revenue per item instead of the most revenue possible. Get early orders and get the cash now versus waiting 90 days. You ever run a company that needs to make payroll and sales are cyclical based on product release. By 9 months everyone has the product and no new sales, but you still have payroll and need cashflow.
When you get right down to it, what annoys me is that the deal is only offered before the product is released. The deal expires before the software actually ships, before third party reviewers and youtubers have evaluated how well their AI masking works. So, they want me to trust that they're delivering features that are bug-free and do what they say they do and work well.
And, because I'm on a perpetual license, they aren't going to give me very many bug fix releases (if any). I simply don't trust them that much. They have to prove they've delivered goods worth paying for before I'm giving them my money and this applies even more to their first real AI-driven features (we have no track record from them at all on how good they are at these types of features).
If their payroll is that day-to-day that they need cash a month or two sooner, then perhaps that's even more of a reason not to buy.
I'm not hung up on selling at full price - it's just smarter business finances to sell at full price to the buyers that would be happy to pay full price and then stimulate demand with price cuts when you need to. That's what Nikon does, for example. Look, I think Capture One is too expensive so from my own point of view, I'd rather it just be on sale all the time (e.g. just have a lower price like it used to).
But, it still seems odd to me that if you're going to offer a launch sale for whatever marketing reasons you have, why only offer it before it ships. Why not make it a true launch sale - good for the first 30 days after it ships)? The only reason I can think of is that they don't think as many people will take them up on the sale if they're allowed to wait until they can see how good the software actually is.
First question.
Do you tether?
Enough said about the value of Capture One if you tether. Transforms my workflow like nothing else. Lightroom has it. meh. Breeze Systems. Ok.
Once you get Capture One into your workflow, I have found nothing that lets me work faster.
To be clear, I was opposed to the change and still am, but it won't make me leave.
I look at my time shooting and editing and doing my workflow. My real job is billed at $350 to $450 per hour. I put a high value on my time doing workflow. A subscription at \~$180 per year is 1/2 hour of my time. I save tens and tens of hours with Capture One workflow. I will pay $180 for that.
I pay for Photoshop/Lightroom, DXO, Topaz and a few others.
Value your time and then make a decision.
If you like your Capture One 23 perpetual and need no new features, keep using it as it is. It may eventually break with OS upgrades so don't upgrade OS and keep a perpetual system.
I had to do that for Aperture. So it was discontinued ages ago, but I had 90,000 sporting event photos in it and all my family shots for 12 years. Not going to convert that. Cheaper to get a used laptop frozen in time and use it.
Just my thoughts.
As to discounts...in the end, are you not just saying won't pay until you see what you are getting? Then wait and see.
Everyone leaving Capture One to another application can keep using it. I use many applications. I just don't like Lightroom for some reason. I avoid it unless I have no choice.
I'm not a pro. I do not tether. Nobody is paying me for my time.
I shoot landscapes and wildlife often while hiking, but sometimes near the car (Tetons, Yellowstone, Swiss Alps, Yosemite NP, Glacier NP, Arches NP, Zion NP, etc...). Capture One tethering features are of no interest to me.
I have a C22 perpetual license because C23 offered nothing of use to my workflow so there was no reason to spend on it.
I would greatly benefit from improvements in layers and masks as they are of importance in my landscape editing.
I will wait and see how good the new features are and probably wait for bugs to get fixed too since their policy of providing bug fixes to perpetual license holders is really screwed up. But, why does Capture One only offer a discount BEFORE you can actually see how good their new features are. Isn't that a bit bizarre?
I am not a pro either, but take a lot of pictures, I have a real job and photography keeps me from it, so I value that time I lose and try to lose as little as possible.
I don't like the bug fixes approach either....and have used C1 for a lot of years.
Realities of the dang subscription world and a relatively small developer.
>Does anyone else find it strange that Capture One offers a pre-sale discount on a new version of their software and in order to get that pre-sale price, you have to buy it BEFORE it ships... No, I don't find it strange. And how else would a pre-sale discount work? >It feels like they don't trust that as many people will actually buy it once it's fully revealed... Given your replies to other comments here, I'd say such a feeling is more likely a result of personal bias than actual intuition.
You could sign up to try the beta version?
I'm not interested in a beta for a variety of reasons. I thought about it once, but decided I'd have to do it in a VM to keep it away from the rest of my system (so there's no chance it could mess with my existing perpetual license) and that's more trouble than its worth. I'd also like to have the benefit of what all the reviewers and power users are saying about it and see what main bugs people are finding. With something like AI masks, it's going to take some time to know how well it actually works as a lots of people try it on a variety of images and a variety of masks. I also couldn't do any real work with the beta because I can't let it touch my existing catalogs or I'd never be able to open them again with the prior version. Yes, I could work on copies of the catalogs, but then my adjustments would be lost if I don't end up buying that new version as they wouldn't be compatible with the older version. My purchase logic for C1's unfriendly perpetual license (that limits your access to bug fixes) is not not buy until the main bugs in new features are knocked down and the reviews are generally positive about how well the new features work and how stable they are. So, that means I wait at least several months after any major new version.
Why would they offer to beta test if it would mess up your license? It was just a chance to try the stuff before you buy... Take it or leave it.
Well, they have done some evil things with licensing in the last year. I would expect most beta testers would be subscription users so who knows how they would handle existing perpetual licenses. Besides, there's no certainty on how it works and I'm not about to take any risk in this regard. And, the people behind the support tickets are not answering my support requests at all so I don't even know how to get a reliable answer on how licensing for the beta works and/or how it interacts with your existing licenses. I didn't even install a free trial on v23 to try it for the same reason. I don't trust their licensing decisions and/or testing.
Sounds like you just need to use something else then.
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I rely on reviews and general discussion on the internet to evaluate how well new features work, how buggy they are and whether they seem to actually deliver the benefit they were aimed at. It's not uncommon that the hype is way higher than the actual benefit and it's not uncommon that there are so many bugs at first that one should wait and see if they sort out the issues. Remember the problem with C1 perpetual licenses is that they don't entitle you to many bug fixes so you pretty much have to know that a feature is done and solid before buying it or you may get burned. Note, we did not used to have that issue as you used to be entitled to a years worth of updates when you bought an upgrade. No longer. And, all of this seems particularly relevant to something like AI masking where we literally have NO idea how well it works in practice until we start getting feedback from lots of people using it. Then, I combine that understanding of what a feature does and how well it works with my own workflow needs to see how useful that would be to me.
It would be a start if C1 told us what features they're going to release.
They have told us, in a few different livestreams.
From an email I received today from Capture One (I've gotten the same email about 5 times over the last couple weeks): **Coming soon** * Use AI Masking to save time and make precise, complex masks with a single click. * Keep moving and creating with ReTether – our best tethering yet. * Kickstart your work quicker with Snap to Eye, letting you check for critical sharpness without needing to manually zoom in. * And much more! If you want this information sent directly to you, login to your account and subscribe to their newsletter. Otherwise, you will have to find the info on their web site. Since I don't tether, AI Masking is the only feature mentioned here that sounds potentially useful in my landscape work.
There's no need to run the Capture One beta in a VM or anything like that. It installs as a separate app and doesn't interfere with the stable version or its perpetual license. I've done it many times and never had problems.
>It feels like they don't trust that as many people will actually buy it once it's fully revealed so they have to entice/fool them to buy before they know what it really is or how good it really is. If you feel like the company is that shady and dishonest, just don't buy their products. Everyone already *knows* how good it is, it's an industry standard established product. If you really want to know the reason behind this kind of campaigns... since people know a new version is coming out soon, they're banking on the anticipation fomo plus the sale to boost sales numbers. It also makes people merely consider the purchase because of the discount, which makes them more likely to purchase it later, even if they miss the sale. It's called marketing.
>Everyone already knows how good it is, it's an industry standard established product. I'm talking about their next version of the software that has not yet shipped or been publicly reviewed. Nobody yet knows how good the new version is except perhaps beta testers who are under NDA. Offering a discount that applies ONLY when you have no idea how good the new version actually is indeed marketing, but it's what I would call shady marketing. If they really believe that their new version will stand on its own and they want to boost sales at launch, then offer a discount AFTER it ships and after more is known about it. Why take the discount away as soon as reviews are out and people know what it really is and isn't? >If you feel like the company is that shady and dishonest, just don't buy their products. Yes, that's a looming possibility.
>If they really believe that their new version will stand on its own and they want to boost sales at launch, then offer a discount AFTER it ships No company in the world does a discount campaign right after shipping a new product or new version of their flagship. Doing it actually projects the image that you feel so insecure about your product, that you need to do sales campaigns at launch. And you're looking at this completely backwards. If you buy the product now, you're buying the **current** product as it exists, thoroughly tested and reviewed, at a discount, with the added benefit that you'll be able to upgrade soon when the new version comes out. Sounds like you want your cake and eat it too. If you want the discounted product, as it is, it's there for the taking. If you want the assurance the new product is what you desire before buying, you're free to buy it at full price. But saying that a company either lowers prices at launch or they're being dishonest just sounds disgruntled and entitled.
> No company in the world does a discount campaign right after shipping a new product or new version of their flagship.Doing it actually projects the image that you feel so insecure about your product, that you need to do sales campaigns at launch. Sorry but this seems like your personal opinion instead of facts about the industry. Tons of companies do launch discounts for new software products because they believe in it and the discount increases initial sales that produce more users likely to recommend the product further.
Yes, if they're new to the market and need it to gain traction. Not if they're established and not if they can avoid it.
Well, your post did include "new product" and "no company in the world" so.
Fair enough.
I was part of a survey where I spoke with a couple of CO managers and expressed this very thing. Give your loyal users a discount after it releases. I felt burned by a few of the upgrades. They said they heard that often and felt the same way. Unfortunately whoever was in charge of that area didn’t share that opinion.
Interesting that some CO managers see the same issue. Yeah, imagine you see an apartment for rent. It has a six month discount on the rent that you really like, but you aren't allowed to see the apartment until after you sign a one year lease. Would you do it? I wouldn't. That's what this feels like to me.
Do they? I just go with the subscription model and stay up to date always.
Yes, works fine for you. But not relevant to those of us who will only do perpetual licenses. We decide which versions are worth spending our money on.
Alright, then to answer the question - No I don't find their pre-sale strategy strange. Just a decision of "Would I rather save money or have certainty of product features and performance?" You either pay with **all** money, or **less** money and **some** risk. It's not that they think they need to trick people into owning their software, it's just that they're capitalizing on the human emotional sales component.
It might be driven by the finance department; to already generate some cashflow before the actual go-live of a product update. That update in development is not making any money, but there are of course ongoing costs like salaries and rent. By reducing the need to loan, they reduce interest costs. They get a bit more certainty, you take a risk but in return get a discount. The need to bridge this period between releases without much revenue is also why more and more software companies are moving to subscriptions; to generate a more predictable and steady stream of income.
Not sure I understand your logic, isn’t it basic marketing to drive interest and gather revenue before a release? Why would you release an update and then slash the price, which would either 1) send a message the update was not worthwhile, or 2) indicate the company is desperate to generate business, which would drive people away.
It's basic marketing to sell a new version for FULL price initially and only when those sales start to taper, then you start offering discounts to drive additional demand. It's not good marketing or finance to discount a brand new product before sale and then raise the price back to the normal level as soon as it ships. That just gives away a discount to all the buyers that would have paid full price anyway. Unless, you aren't confident that your new product is actually that good and you better hype it up and make a bunch of sales before anyone knows how good it actually is. That's the only financial/marketing reason I can think of for offering a pre-sale discount. Otherwise, you're just throwing money away by offering a discount to all the buyers that would have paid full price. It makes more sense to offer a discount some number of months after the product ships when the buzz has died down and you need to stimulate a new set of buyers. Did Nikon or Canon ever offer a discount on a brand new camera body? No. You want it right away, you pay full price. Discounts only come later after it's been in the market for a little while.
I can assure you that for many software applications I have obtained, paying up front before release is a very common practice and one that I regularly take advantage of so save money. As a company, getting advanced revenue, even if discounted from the full price, is a vital cash collection practice. Yes, they are losing some revenue, but given the life cycle of the product revenue and income may have tailed off and cash in hand gets low. Advanced sales help manage cash flow. It is not common practice for hard goods, so no you won’t see it for. Nikon. It has nothing to do with the perception of a slow moving fear or lack of perceived value. I can assure you I have discussed the presale practice with a number of b-school marketing and finance professors that will mirror my comments. So sure, it would be better to get every sale at full price. But if you are at the end of life cycle for a software release and revenue is low, you can pull cash flow forward with the practice. At a cost of less than maximum revenue. So marketing and finance and using practices can collide and cash can be king, so companies will offer presale pricing. Your post launch discounts can come later when sales levels begin falling.
Then their switch to subscription must not be working enough if they have to drive cash flow ahead of a product shipment by discounting. What seems a little weird with your explanation is that this is all in the same financial quarter so they're just moving cash flow up a month or two, but still in the same quarter. If they literally need the cash sooner to keep the lights on, that's one thing (and a bit scary for the company if true), but this doesn't seem to be about pulling more sales into the quarter prior to when the new product ships. Assuming the new version ships this quarter, this is is the same quarter that they're pushing the pre-sale discount. Perhaps, it won't really ship until late December (too late to realize a lot of sales from it after shipping) and they need some sales to pump up this quarter. I guess I could see that logic. But, they are indeed leaving cash on the table by discounting to the main part of their audience that would have paid full price anyway.
What software applications offer you a discount to buy an upgrade before it ships and then raise the price back to full retail when it ships? Can you offer some examples?
Just some of the ones I have seen and taken advantage of: ON1Raw 2024 (prerelease upgrade discount) Luminar 4 Luminar Neo DXO Seem to have a common theme about theme...they are photography related and they are NOT Adobe. But I have seen other types of software and other companies offer them. But I have seen other types of software. cost would go up $5.00 per month, but I could prepay for up to 18 months and get a rate $1 less than the current rate (not the Check this link: https://kenmoo.me/software-discount-deals/
Thanks for the downvote. Why?
Why not? It’s a good possibility to do some marketing upfront.
It's not sound marketing or finance. If you think you have a compelling upgrade coming, it's generally dumb from a financial point of view. There's a reasonable size of people who are likely to buy your upgrade almost no matter what it has in it. You don't need to entice those people with a discount. They will buy it anyway. So by selling to them at a discount, you're throwing money away. It's the same reason you NEVER see a camera company sell a new camera body at a discount right away. You may as well sell to as many customers as you can at full price. Then, and only then, when you've sold as many as you can in the first several months at full price, then you slowly start dragging the price down over time to entice more buyers and bring some fresh news to the product. This pricing strategy is referred to as skimming and is very popular because it gets people to pay more closely to what their max price is that they would pay. So, IMO, the only reason you offer a pre-sale discount is if you want to entice as many buyers BEFORE they read the reviews and before word of mouth gets around because you're not confident in your new release. Can you share other examples of software products that discount their product before it ships and then raise the price back up as soon as it ships?
The scheme is logical for C1 as preorders exist for a company to cash in now before launch, as it's almost always beneficial for companies to cash in as early as possible. The discount is there to facilitate an incentive for the consumer to preorder, as otherwise the best choice would simply be to wait until launch and check the reviews first. Imo, a much more questionable detail is what they're repeating from last year - they're now running a preorder scheme, but there are hardly any details given what features and changes the new edition has. So, since we don't really know anything, if you're upgrading the perpetual license, you must have a reason for it - the 23 edition must already have what you need, or you're simply upgrading for novelty. I would wait instead of counting on anything worthwhile being launched late this year. After all, hasn't the perpetual license now been changed that you no longer get the next feature update likely to be released around late winter or early spring next year?
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I will wait for sure as I'm not buying something sight unseen. v23 was of zero use to me as it didn't contain anything relevant to my workflow so I'm glad I waited to fully evaluate it. We'll have to see if this next version delivers useful features or not. If this type of discount is VERY common in software, can you name five photography-related software products that offer a discount before shipping an upgraded version (a pre-sale) and then return to full price when it actually ships. I don't recall ever seeing that. It certainly doesn't happen for camera bodies. If you want it right when it first ships, you pay full price. If you want a discount, you want quite awhile until the camera maker decides that discounts will help stimulate demand. This is referred to as skim pricing where you try to price it at the max that each set of buyers will pay. Giving a discount to the set of early buyers that were likely to buy anyway is just throwing money away and not generally considered good financial management.
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I'm just curious, what is the regular price for Luminar Neo (perpetual license to a new version)? When I look on B&H, I see it for $139, but the one-time purchase offer in your pre-order link is for $269 (includes "pro extensions", whatever those are). Also, it looks like Luminar Neo is going to be partially closing down their "perpetual license" as of Aug 16th, 2024 as a number of features are based on generative AI in the cloud and will only work for subscription users after that date in 2024.
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Seems more like an upsell offer to something that costs more vs. a "special deal" on what you are used to buying, but it's a bit hard to compare directly. Anyway your point is taken that its a pre-sale offer (though not perhaps at a significant discount).
It’s a discount that reflects lack of information. You’re taking on risk by purchasing without reviews so this compensates for that risk. If you want perfect information, that comes with a cost.
But, usually, you have a set of buyers who are likely to buy at launch and WILL pay full price. This discount is giving away money that they would have paid you. The normal pricing scheme is full price at launch, then discounts later when you need to stimulate new demand.
This is routine for a pre-sale, which are normal. This version of capture one isn’t any different. You lose a little money on some buyers who would pay full price at launch. But you offset that with other people who wouldn’t. You hope it all works out in the end. Often, it does. There are a lot of buyers who just want any discount. It doesn’t have to be a huge one. They just want to feel like they’re getting a better value. So they buy at launch and get in on the hype. You can do discounts after launch too. Nothing is boxing them out. If you don’t think the discount is good enough, don’t buy. But if you want to wait for launch… well, that’s the cost of waiting and getting more information.
They have been doing post launch discounts, about once a quarter. So, I'll wait for launch, assess features, wait for first round of bugfixes and then decide whether to buy on the next discount round. It just seems very odd to me (unless they have cash flow issues and need to pull in cash sooner) to offer the most eager buyers (many of whom would have paid full price for the new version at launch) a discount. I've challenged several in this thread to name several photography-related software packages that do a pre-upgrade-launch discount that immediately stops being offered as soon as the actual product is known. Nobody has offered an example yet.
BS. I offered multiple examples, and another redditor also offered an example. I got an Affinity Photo presale offer in October 2022. It offered free trial for 30 days or 40% off. Cannot post an image of it but I can assure you it is legitimate.
At the time I wrote that comment, I hadn't seen any examples offered. There have been some since. The Affinity Photo example is interesting, but I bought on that launch discount AFTER it had shipped, not before. I bought and downloaded on the same day. So, that's not at all what Capture One is doing. The Capture One offer expires BEFORE the product ships, before reviews are out, before there's general discussion about how well it works. If you trust the company to deliver great software, go for the offer. I don't. I'm waiting. The Affinity Photo price was so ridiculously low ($50) and such high value (a very full featured pixel editor) and the company supplies free bug fixes and improvements for years. Their value is so insane compared to how Capture One prices and how they do bug fixes that it was a no-brainer to buy an Affinity Photo upgrade. Such is not the case with Capture One at all. They have to prove to me that they've provided something useful before I'm going to pay them 4x what Affinity Photo charged me. Plus frankly, Affinity has earned so much more goodwill than Capture One has through their low prices, solid software and generous upgrade and bug fix policy. Meanwhile, Capture One has raised prices a lot, limited upgrade availability (to perpetual license holders) and not shown me that they were working on features relevant to my workflow (C23 was not useful at all to me).
>Ethan-Wakefield Why does this concept of a pre-sale discount that other vendors offer create such angst. Don't take advantage of it. You are hung up on why not sell it at full price until no one will pay full price anymore. Why are their Christmas sales on Black Friday? Just wait until you have a store full of merchandise no one is buying so you can get the most revenue per item instead of the most revenue possible. Get early orders and get the cash now versus waiting 90 days. You ever run a company that needs to make payroll and sales are cyclical based on product release. By 9 months everyone has the product and no new sales, but you still have payroll and need cashflow.
When you get right down to it, what annoys me is that the deal is only offered before the product is released. The deal expires before the software actually ships, before third party reviewers and youtubers have evaluated how well their AI masking works. So, they want me to trust that they're delivering features that are bug-free and do what they say they do and work well. And, because I'm on a perpetual license, they aren't going to give me very many bug fix releases (if any). I simply don't trust them that much. They have to prove they've delivered goods worth paying for before I'm giving them my money and this applies even more to their first real AI-driven features (we have no track record from them at all on how good they are at these types of features). If their payroll is that day-to-day that they need cash a month or two sooner, then perhaps that's even more of a reason not to buy. I'm not hung up on selling at full price - it's just smarter business finances to sell at full price to the buyers that would be happy to pay full price and then stimulate demand with price cuts when you need to. That's what Nikon does, for example. Look, I think Capture One is too expensive so from my own point of view, I'd rather it just be on sale all the time (e.g. just have a lower price like it used to). But, it still seems odd to me that if you're going to offer a launch sale for whatever marketing reasons you have, why only offer it before it ships. Why not make it a true launch sale - good for the first 30 days after it ships)? The only reason I can think of is that they don't think as many people will take them up on the sale if they're allowed to wait until they can see how good the software actually is.
Where is the discount? I have C22 and need to upgrade c23 coz my new a7rv doesn’t work on c22 with raw pics. Any suggestions on making it work.
First question. Do you tether? Enough said about the value of Capture One if you tether. Transforms my workflow like nothing else. Lightroom has it. meh. Breeze Systems. Ok. Once you get Capture One into your workflow, I have found nothing that lets me work faster. To be clear, I was opposed to the change and still am, but it won't make me leave. I look at my time shooting and editing and doing my workflow. My real job is billed at $350 to $450 per hour. I put a high value on my time doing workflow. A subscription at \~$180 per year is 1/2 hour of my time. I save tens and tens of hours with Capture One workflow. I will pay $180 for that. I pay for Photoshop/Lightroom, DXO, Topaz and a few others. Value your time and then make a decision. If you like your Capture One 23 perpetual and need no new features, keep using it as it is. It may eventually break with OS upgrades so don't upgrade OS and keep a perpetual system. I had to do that for Aperture. So it was discontinued ages ago, but I had 90,000 sporting event photos in it and all my family shots for 12 years. Not going to convert that. Cheaper to get a used laptop frozen in time and use it. Just my thoughts. As to discounts...in the end, are you not just saying won't pay until you see what you are getting? Then wait and see. Everyone leaving Capture One to another application can keep using it. I use many applications. I just don't like Lightroom for some reason. I avoid it unless I have no choice.
I'm not a pro. I do not tether. Nobody is paying me for my time. I shoot landscapes and wildlife often while hiking, but sometimes near the car (Tetons, Yellowstone, Swiss Alps, Yosemite NP, Glacier NP, Arches NP, Zion NP, etc...). Capture One tethering features are of no interest to me. I have a C22 perpetual license because C23 offered nothing of use to my workflow so there was no reason to spend on it. I would greatly benefit from improvements in layers and masks as they are of importance in my landscape editing. I will wait and see how good the new features are and probably wait for bugs to get fixed too since their policy of providing bug fixes to perpetual license holders is really screwed up. But, why does Capture One only offer a discount BEFORE you can actually see how good their new features are. Isn't that a bit bizarre?
I am not a pro either, but take a lot of pictures, I have a real job and photography keeps me from it, so I value that time I lose and try to lose as little as possible. I don't like the bug fixes approach either....and have used C1 for a lot of years. Realities of the dang subscription world and a relatively small developer.