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Upgrade Pricing Craziness

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AkronRobert

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Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostFri Jan 28, 2022 7:36 am

The upgrade pricing I’m seeing for my situation violates my sense of fairness. I am currently licensed for Advanced v5 Perpetual.

Upgrade Advanced v5 to Advanced v6 Perpetual was $99 over the past year or so.
Upgrade Advanced v6 to Advanced v7 Perpetual is currently priced at $99.

But now, going from Advanced v5 to Advanced v7 Perpetual is priced at $269. Is there really a $70 penalty for having skipped the v6 update? Have I missed something here? Is this what was intended?

I understand the need to fund ongoing support and development of any software product but this doesn’t seem logical.
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sesquialtera

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostFri Jan 28, 2022 12:22 pm

This is why I'll keep using my old good HW4.2 as long as possible !

(edited because someone or a bot added a spaming signature at the bottom of this post)
Last edited by sesquialtera on Sat Jan 29, 2022 1:09 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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David Richardson

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostFri Jan 28, 2022 2:33 pm

I agree with Akron Robert. Why is the price to upgrade from v5 to v7 the same as to go from v4 to v7? We paid $99 to go from v4 to v5. Can't we have a little fairness in pricing here.
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aah

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostFri Jan 28, 2022 3:41 pm

I could be wrong, but my BEST GUESS is that the $99 price for the previous upgrade v5 to v6 was a "limited time" offer. I GUESS the $99 was a lower price which was at some point raised, probably by another +$70 to make it $169. I GUESS this because the announcement of the v6 to v7 upgrade for $99 states clearly it is a "limited time" offer, but exactly how long the offer stands is nowhere to be found. (I have asked by email for clarification of the duration and have been told the website should be updated with that information.)

That said, I find $269 for v5 to v7 totally unreasonable. But I also find $99 v6 to v7 unreasonable.

If it's NOT true, that the upgrade price went from $99 to something higher, then there is obviously no justification for charging more than $198 for the v5 to v7 upgrade.

It's great software, but ...
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dhm

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostFri Jan 28, 2022 6:12 pm

The upgrade price from HW5 to 6 was always $99 and never changed.
The $99 upgrade price from HW6 to 7 does *not* say "limited tome offer"
Only the discounted upgrade prices from HW 4 and 5 to 7 are time-limited.
Douglas Henn-Macrae
Authorized Hauptwerk Reseller
http://www.midi-organs.eu
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David Richardson

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostSat Jan 29, 2022 12:09 am

How is $269 a discounted price to go from v5 to v7 when it was $99 to go from v5 to v6 and is now $99 to go from v6 to v7. That is a total of $198 to go from v5 to v7. Those of us who chose not to go from v5 to v6 are now being penalized $71 to get to v7. Such a nice business model!
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ajongbloed

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostSat Jan 29, 2022 4:12 am

I considered upgrading to version 6 somewere at the end of last year. By then the rumours about version 7 popped up, so I thought I might as well wait for version 7 and save myself the hassle of having to update twice. And now it turns out I'm being punished for that decision by having to pay an extra 70 dollars. Worse, an extra 100 dollars if I don't update soon.

It would have been nice if this information had been available beforehand. I am highly disappointed in the apparent disregard of the Hauptwerk firm for it's own customers.
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David Richardson

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostSat Jan 29, 2022 10:20 am

I'm probably just "beating a dead horse" here, but I'm curious about the strategy behind the decision to charge the same for updating from v5 to v7 as updating from v4 to v7. If the idea was to "punish" users who don't update each time a new version is produced, then why is there no penalty for those who stayed on v4 all these years? v4 users who update to v7 during the discount period will save $28 as compared to those who updated to both v5 and v6 on the path to v7. Meanwhile, those of us who updated to v5 but skipped the update to v6 will pay a $71 penalty to get to v7 during the discount period and a $102 penalty after the discount period has expired. Does anyone see any logic behind this pricing strategy? Do any of the people who make these business decisions monitor this forum or is it just Martin? I realize the owners of Hauptwerk can charge whatever the market will bear for their product, but do they really think it is wise to antagonize a group of their customers in such a small niche market?
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larason2

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostSat Jan 29, 2022 10:52 am

I don't wish to support or criticize MDA here, but pricing decisions are usually based on expected revenue, not based on what potential buyers would think of the pricing compared to past pricing. If the price is too low, you will have a lot of buyers but little revenue, and if the price is too high, you will have a lot of revenue per buyer, but less buyers. The revenue curve usually has a middle spot of maximized revenue, where there are enough buyers and enough money per buyer to maximize the amount of money earned.

For the upgrade from 6 perpetual to 7 perpetual, there are predicted a lot of buyers, which moves the maximum revenue curve to a lower price. The upgrade from V4 to 7 and V5 to 7 probably have predicted the same amount of buyers, and relatively a lot less, so the price has to be higher to move the curve to the right place.

So again, the decisions are likely to maximize revenue, which is an imperative for most businesses. I'm sure they don't want to anger any past users, but sometimes you don't have any choice, when the future of the business depends on making enough money to make ends meet and pay employees. This is the pricing strategy that is taught in marketing classes, and I would be surprised if any company didn't follow these procedures when setting pricing.

What's unusual (and good I suppose!) about Hauptwerk is there is a relatively very high level of user engagement in the software. That means that there are a lot of people who care about it, and use it daily, and use it for their leisure activities. It also has the challenges of any software instrument, where the basic functionality is present in the first version, and there will always be a subset of users who feel that any further updates should be free, or at low cost. The problem with doing that though, is that there is no or little further funding to support the company, which makes it hard to keep the doors open, and also to support further development to keep the software working on evolving operating systems. That has recently been a big challenge for small companies that produce software for Mac OS, since the OS has gone through a tremendous number of changes in the recent past, and supporting the new framework is very time and labour intensive. I have a couple of mac apps from small companies that stopped being updated and supported because of this, and I suspect that Hauptwerk would have gone the same way if they hadn't made changes to their funding model.

So, I understand the frustration at the pricing changes and decisions, but I suspect Hauptwerk's management is constrained by the financial considerations I mentioned.
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mnailor

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostSat Jan 29, 2022 11:28 am

It's possible that setting the same price for upgrades from 4 and 5 was meant to help incentivise people to get off of 4, not to penalize those who have stayed on 5. Upgrading from 4 requires more support effort from MDA than upgrading from 5 or 6, so the price from 4 could quite fairly have been set higher.

And the delay in announcing 7 until after it was released and discovered on the web site may have been to make sure the site updates were solid before attracting too much traffic.

I don't think any different decisions on MDA's part about pricing or deployment would have reduced the number of complaints. Updates just seem to bring some concerns no matter what the company does, and I'm not claiming that they are all unwarranted.

Download capacity is a legit problem, and it's pretty weird to have the forum's 25 database connection limit problem unresolved after years. Any idiot could RTFM and fix that, or hire a new hosting company if it's all been outsourced.

But I'm very lucky to have used 7 in beta for 2 months and am enjoying it thoroughly. The release is stable, the new audio quality options and usability features are excellent, and the legacy audio engine modes allow for continuing on the same computer if increasing capacity is an issue. I'm looking forward to/hoping for 8 next year!
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David Richardson

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostSat Jan 29, 2022 11:40 am

Thank you for your marketing insights. Using that marketing theory, the owners must think (or know) there are fewer v5 users than v4 users and thus have to charge v5 users the same in order to get more revenue from us. Unfortunately for them, they have lost $269 or $299 from me by making that decision. I only use Haupwerk as a home practice instrument and thus don't really need any of the v6 or v7 enhancements, so I'll just wait for the next version(s) to see if anything gets me excited enough to loosen up my wallet.
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David Richardson

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostSat Jan 29, 2022 12:03 pm

It looks like our complaining about the unfairness of v5 to v7 pricing finally got through to the owners. Now I'll have to look more closely at the enhancements to see if I should reevaluate my decision not to update at the present time.
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evertjan

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostSat Jan 29, 2022 12:15 pm

Michelle

Regarding your message in viewtopic.php?f=10&t=20230

What to do if a customer already have paid the old, higher price for a V to VII upgrade?
Money back? How to do that?
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M. Qualley

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostSat Jan 29, 2022 12:21 pm

Greetings Everyone!!

I just wanted to reach out to everyone on this thread and let you all know we have adjusted our pricing to upgrade to V7. I have posted this as announcement on the forum. These prices are live now in the shop.

Please try to understand choices made are never made to frustrate. Our main motivation in making decisions is to bring the very best product we can, at the very best price we can. It is always of the most importance to make our customers happy. When we can adjust, we will try our very best to do that.

I do hope you will support us on our quest for virtual organ perfection and upgrade to version 7.

I am sorry for any craziness or frustration. I do want to let you know you have been heard.

Thank you all so very much,
Michelle
Michelle Qualley
Director of Marketing & Business Operations
MILAN DIGITAL AUDIO
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M. Qualley

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Re: Upgrade Pricing Craziness

PostSat Jan 29, 2022 12:27 pm

Me again!

With regards to a refund.

If you have already upgraded to V7 before the reduced pricing you will be issued a refund for the difference. These refunds will be handled through support.

Please email your order number to support [AT] hauptwerk.com.

Thank you!!!
Michelle
Michelle Qualley
Director of Marketing & Business Operations
MILAN DIGITAL AUDIO
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