Bought PhotoLab 9 a month later V10 was release – Denied upgrade by support. Is this standard practice?

DxO PhotoLab
1

Hello everyone,

I am a long-term, returning DxO customer and am posting here to hopefully catch the attention of a product or community manager, as standard support has given me a rigid, automated rejection.

On 28 July 2026, I paid to upgrade my license from PhotoLab 8 to PhotoLab 9. One month and a few days later, PhotoLab 10 was launched. I was unaware that this release was due. When I reached out to customer support to ask for a standard goodwill grace-period upgrade to V10, my request was flatly denied because I fell just slightly outside their automated 30-day window.

As a loyal user who has supported this company across multiple software versions, I feel entirely penalised. There was zero communication or warning at checkout that V10 was imminent. Had there been a simple roadmap warning, I would have obviously waited a few weeks and upgraded straight from V8 to V10. Forcing a repeat customer to pay two consecutive upgrade fees within a 5-week span is an incredibly poor customer experience.

The Appalling Handling by Customer Support:
Beyond the policy itself, I am raising a serious complaint regarding how my case has been handled by the support staff. Instead of conducting a human review, the agents have relied entirely on rigid, copy-pasted boilerplate responses. They completely ignored my status as a returning customer and closed the ticket as “resolved” without addressing the core issue of asymmetric information at checkout. The lack of empathy and the purely automated, dismissive treatment I received is not how a premium software company should manage its customer base.

Request for Internal Quality Assurance Review:
My #661851. I am aware that my purchase falls just a couple of days outside the strict 30-day grace period. However, treating a loyal customer like a rigid calendar metric rather than offering a common-sense goodwill exception is deeply disappointing.

Furthermore, I am requesting that a senior supervisor initiate a formal Quality Assurance and Performance Review** regarding the specific agent assigned to this ticket. The agent’s reliance on dismissive scripts without escalating a clear fringe case demonstrates a severe lack of customer stewardship. I expect this case to be reviewed internally to ensure this staff member is properly coached, as their conduct has directly damaged my trust in the DxO brand.

I am asking management to manually review this fringe case and grant a standard goodwill upgrade key for V10.

2

Hi and welcome here.

You are posting in a user forum here. While DxO does occasionally read the posts, they very rarely weigh in themselves—except for general announcements like this one: ✅ [UPDATED] NVIDIA driver 616.56 — DxO PhotoLab & PureRAW compatibility restored - #17

All you can do is to write directly to DxO …
:man_shrugging:

3

What @Wolfgang said, I’m afraid!

Although posting here is still a valid way to raise awareness. You’re not the only person to recently complain of upgrading in the past half year, only to find their version is outdated and they must pay a considerable sum to upgrade again.

DxO should absolutely provide a larger grace window on updates. Especially as they tend to release at a similar time every year and must know their own schedules, even if we customers are only going off established patterns.

4

Thanks Wolfgang
Is there a way of getting to senior management as this keeps getting blocked by support.

5

I am finding that out now I am not letting this rest. I will see if I can get to upper management.

6

It’s worth a try certainly - persistence and publicity can work wonders but I couldn’t promise anything myself.

DxO should absolutely make their upgrade schedules very public. This sort of thing breeds terrible customer good-will for the sake of pennies at their end.

7

Indeed.

Given the price of the software, buying a license and then, to your surprise, seeing an upgrade come out a month or two later and having to pay again is bound to put you in a very very bad mood.

8

I understand your frustration and annoyance but, at the risk of being insensitive and not being helpful at all…

If you are a long term DxO customer how come you weren’t aware of DxO’s upgrade schedules? A new version of PL has been released around this time of the year every year for many years.

By way of something more positive, you can always pass over the PL10 upgrade and stick with PL9. PL11 is likely to be released around this time next year and in the meantime PL9 will continue to receive updates, but not upgrades.

9

Try to find the email address for the owner and mail him directly.

“ DxO Labs is a privately held photography software company. It is owned by its founder and current CEO, Jérôme Ménière.”

10

Sadly, most of us have been where you are. I know I have. You can try to explain to them this commercial practice is objectively unfair, but they just don’t care. DxO’s customer service experience is incredibly frustrating, only topped by their complete lack of respect for their customers. It’s better to yell at the clouds, at least they won’t get back to you with an asinine response.

11

Exactly my reaction to this discussion. September/October has been the normal release time for Optics Pro/Photolab a long time and the last years it has been earlier - in the first part of September.

But I agree with Fineus on offering a more generous grace period.

12

It’s emotionally upsetting, but I question how it can be called “objectively unfair” given what those two words mean. Consider buying a new car just before the next year’s model arrives. Or a home theater component just before the new model arrives and renders the old discontinued. (I’ve done that many times.) Where does the buyer’s expectations come from? DxO? Or the imagination? Let’s be honest. I do think DxO should make its policies a lot more clear so that buyers make informed decisions and understand what a perpetual license really is. It isn’t perpetual upgrades or a year of upgrades or (name arbitrary grace period) to undo the purchase.

Having to… Forcing… Is that objectively true? I’m willing to take a beating for calling out untruth here, because I’m quite tired of the same old thing every year. Emotional entitlement is not injustice.

That’s enough to make your case. I’ll back you up on that. But if you overlooked something or were already willing to wait to upgrade again without knowing when PL10 would arrive, that’s the risk you take by choice. Nothing about that decision has been altered by the sudden (and totally expected, for those who have been here a while) appearance of PL10.

I’m sorry to be contrarian and dare to defend DxO, but it’s helped me more than I can say to accept things I can’t change (including my own mistakes) and not take money too seriously when I can afford to lose it.

13

Not the same thing ! Your softwares have to evolve (you have to get the last functions - unless your software is crap :winking_face_with_tongue: ).

Your car does not ! once you’ve bought it you wont have regular upgrades ! So indeed you may have choosed the wrong car, but this is an other problem. Don’t do this with your house.

Here there is only one car.

So yes if you want, need a software up to date you have to. Objective need, subjective need, no matter.

Don’t read them. You’ll feel better so.

But yes, this is a one time trap. After that you know when released are published.

14

I don’t understand ? This is exactly what about everyone complaining complains about : not knowing that.

Do you really think that ?

15

May. I think, its raise a few question, like: when they communicate this? 30 days before? 60 days before? In the case of 60day, what about if someone buy just 61 (+1) day? Etc. But see the next.

DxO should absolutely provide a larger grace window on updates.

I agree with that - in a way. It’s also raise another question(s). I just wondering. What can be the ‘larger’? 1.5 months? 2 months? 3?
Lets say 45 day. And what about if someone 46 day? And that’s the REAL issue. The +1 day. Its always happen.

My personal opinion: 45 day can fair, may 2 months.

Anyhow, this can be one reason, why subscription can work - and can be ‘peace of mind’ for some. If you subscribe, not get this issue. You just always get the ‘latest’.

Fun: some friend of mine workaround that ‘free upgrade in 30 day periode’ with the following: Sales from August 1 is obligate for free update. We expect to release new version in the following few months

And they also put a tons of (legal) disclaimer (as they has some experience, what end users means under ‘free’ and ‘august’.), like:

  • ‘expect’ is not a commitment.
  • the ‘few months’ is not a commitment.
  • Payment must arrive to accounting before new version release
  • Trial version not valid for upgrade
  • August 1 from 00:00 in UTC time, year: 2026
16

Honestly DxO could have a decent customer support team and even if someone is upgrading e.g. PL8 to PL9, or buying PL9 outright three months from the release of a new version, it might be considered goodwill to provide them with an upgrade to the latest version if they ask for one.

The number of people encountering this are slow, but do seem to be steady. What does DXO really lose by providing a free upgrade to PL10 instead of the PL9 the customer paid for? Not much!

They lose a lot more (IMO) by refusing to help out. Their customers quickly learn how inflexible DxO are. How unhelpful. How little they value good customer relations vs. squeezing every last Euro/£/$ from us.

17

Fair enough. Agree.
I wonder, what others opinion on that?

It’s may has a side effect: most of the 1st time buyers buy only in ‘releases date’ - 3 months timeframe. Also for upgrade buyers - but for them, the new release date is just fine.
However, it’s (side effect) already exist, if someone read the details → than buy/upgrade only in release-1 month (as exact release date not know, may September 1 is ‘safe’)

squeezing every last Euro/£/$ from us

Be honest, i not fully blame them on that. Some way, that’s how world spinning. Development not come cheap, measure lens/bodys also takes resources, etc. I’m not really familiar on AI developments, afaik its also not come cheap (training, test)
The classic triangle: good, fast, cheap - you can choose two… :frowning:
But yeah, 30 day is not fair.

As i read, C1 raise prices in the summer like 5%. May its general industry wide issue (development costs, etc.)

18

My own opinion is that DxO should at least provide a big discount for customers who bought within three months of a new release, provided that they upgrade to the new release quickly. After all, if we wait for Black Friday (as I will), there will be a discount anyway. But I recognize there are many different attractive opinions about what DxO should do. And none of us knows if they’re making money or slowly bleeding to death.

If our complaints would be that focused and not full of extra baloney rhetoric that reeks of dishonesty, then I think there’d be more agreement.

Yes, at this point in my life I think what I said is more honest than just wholly blaming someone else for your own buyer’s remorse.

19

Hi Guys (and Gals)

An update

I dropped a scathing review into Trustpilot. This one is outside the DxoLabs control and will get to their service managers not their support.

I will be getting in touch with the card company as well to raise a complaint with them. They should block and force Dxo Management to reply.

I am also going to try and reach out to the CEO of Dxo via Linkedin

20

This is the Post and reply from DxO It looks as though they don’t like negative postings on Trust Pilot

Hostile support & predatory upgrade cycles for loyal customers.

I am a long-term DxO customer who recently paid to upgrade from PhotoLab 8 to PhotoLab 9. Exactly one month and a few days later, they launched PhotoLab 10 without any prior notice or transparency at checkout.When I asked for a goodwill exception because I was just a couple of days outside their rigid 30-day grace period, customer support completely stonewalled me. They used automated, copy-pasted scripts, ignored my customer history, and closed my ticket as “resolved” without a human review.Forcing a repeat customer to pay two back-to-back upgrade fees within 5 weeks is an anti-consumer practice. Furthermore, the support agent handling my ticket 661851 demonstrated a total lack of customer stewardship. I have requested a formal internal Quality Assurance and Performance Review regarding this agent’s conduct.I strongly advise new buyers to beware of DxO’s lack of transparency regarding product lifecycles and their dismissive, automated customer service.

As can be seen from the response below they have little or no regard for their customers past present or future. While the software is good i cannot disagree the way their whole attitude and support system deals condescendingly and dismissively is a major concern for anyone intending to buy their software. This is a major buyer beware concern as there is little or no recourse. They take your money and then tell you to get lost.

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Reply from DxO

Updated a day ago

Hello Neil,

We’re sorry that you remain disappointed with the outcome of your request.

Following your review, our Customer Support Manager personally reviewed your complete case and contacted you directly.

To clarify one important point, your DxO PhotoLab 9 purchase was made on July 28, while the complimentary upgrade eligibility period for DxO PhotoLab 10 began on August 25. Your purchase therefore fell outside the applicable eligibility period for a free upgrade.

Nevertheless, taking into account your history as a long-standing DxO customer, our Customer Support Manager has proposed an exceptional goodwill solution in an effort to resolve the matter amicably. We are currently awaiting your response to that proposal.

We also note that some of the earlier exchanges became inappropriate in tone towards members of our Support team. While we fully respect a customer’s right to strongly disagree with our decisions, we expect communication to remain respectful on both sides.

We respect your right to share your experience and your disagreement with our upgrade policy. We equally believe it is important that the complete circumstances, including the steps taken to address your concerns, are represented accurately.

We remain available to continue the constructive dialogue already initiated with our Customer Support Manager.

The DxO team