I purchased a new license for PureRAW at the Nov 28 Black Friday sale. What really annoys me is the discounted “Upgrade” price to version 5 is $10 US less than I paid for a whole new license? That’s just greedy and out of step with the vast majority of software I use. Something around $45 for a recent purchase would be more than fair and create goodwill and customer loyalty.
While I am generally pleased with the results (On1’s NoNoise frequently gives superior results) there was a bug until version 4.81 where the zoom in feature was creating a blank grey screen on the After side with Windows 10.
It took until last week to get this bug fixed. Basically no response from support for 3 months except “they are working on it”. I had to try the 4.81 upgrade to realize it was apparently fixed. Would have been nice to let me know.
I might be being thick here but you purchased at a discounted price (the $89 was the Black Friday price you paid) and are upset because the subsequent upgrade discount was not as much as you hoped when based on the aforementioned price?
The upgrade price of $79 is $40 off the regular price of $119, but I understand his frustration after having spent $89 only 3 months ago. This type of problem occurs often when someone purchases software only to find and new upgrade is available only a few months later.
Some software companies are more generous than others with regard to this issue, But even if DxO changed it free upgrade policy from one month to three months, depending on the date when @bboz purchased it with Black Friday pricing, he might still be a few days outside the window for a free upgrade. In any case, I am also not aware of any sliding pricing scales for software purchases with different prices depending how far back you made your purchase. Software companies selling perpetual licenses have to draw the line somewhere, although I believe that one month is unfair.
FWIW, timeanddate.com says today is the 91st day since I made my new license purchase at $89.
As a software reseller for 20 years I am very familiar with how software is licensed. My frustration with DXO in this case as a new customer, is the upgrade is so highly priced. PureRAW is a one-trick pony and I would not have paid $120 before the Black Friday sale. $89 is all I believe the program is worth.
Companies operate in a competitive environment and if we look at Topaz Labs who is probably the closest competitor, the Photo AI suite is $199 ($139 BF 2024) and includes a full year of upgrades. Their upgrade for another year is $99 ($79 BF 2024) for auto renewal for the entire Photo AI suite.
On1 NoNoise (an excellent product I use) is $50 for a whole new perpetual license with free upgrades until the next major release, usually about a year.
My take is that DXO is charging a premium price for the license and upgrade compared to competitive products which IMO is not fully justified. I probably won’t upgrade to PureRAW 5.
And half of a new full license price would be fair. The frustration is also the bug and the fact I was not informed it was addressed.
Ignoring DxO timeframes, which are always the subject of hot debate, I would not expect the upgrade price to be based on anything other than the full retail price.
that’s part of the new US tariffs =]
even if he spent 89$ in 2024 for the software, seem the price went up for 2025 so dxO pricing still make sense if you compare it to PL.
what else does the same, Topaz denoise which is a bit more expensive, or like @bboz said there’s On1 which has denoise Ai (haven’t tried this) and resize Ai (does an amazing job).
It is annoying that after spending $89 just 91 days ago, I’ll need to spend another $79 to get the new version.
Many software licenses provide a time frame where I would get upgrades. In this case, the free upgrade period is based on the version and not time which I don’t think is reasonable.
Also, why is my 91 day old purchase not getting a break compared to someone who bought version 3 several years ago?
I am not too impressed with the argumentative nature of the DXO support team. I can’t recommend the software at our 300 member camera club with this type of support.
Unfortunately - even with a hard cut off date there will be some users of either side the date feeling lucky or dissatisfies.
A floating scale upgrade cost would remediate that, but then some users might feel annoyed when they discover that their lack of upgrading in time did resulted in additional costs. It only they had been more active…
Or one can go with subscription - recurring fee - always updated - but for life.
Halt and no more updates, no more use or some mix of limitations.
What ever path is chosen there will be a cost for the customer which they have to put in relation to the features they get.
I’m on a pretty old setup of Nikon bodies and lenses and have not benefited at all from all the new profiles from DxO and could without any major difficulties have stayed on PL5 or 6.
But I really do like and support DxO’s work and mindset and sooner or later I will move into or supplement my setup with the Nikon Z range or Hasselblad / Fuji medium format. So I accept the way the “yearly recurring” payments for DxOs suite is designed. I can choose to stop upgrading or I can choose to continue.
Putting a cost for a service or software involves so many factors and what ever DxO do to balance their ROI - every customer will have their own personal thought on their cost-benefit analysis.
I always laugh when companies claim their policy is fixed and the customer must adapt to it. Look at how well Capture One’s policy change on perpetual licenses was received. Hint: It wasn’t.
DXO can adopt any policy they want since it is their company. If I don’t think their policy is particularly fair, then I have the right to call them out on it.
The only reason they are not offering a reduced upgrade price for a 90 day old purchase compared to someone who bought it 2 years ago, is because it makes them more money.
with some reading you’d find that dxo software are only 30 days trial, once you buy and register the product, you’ll get a perpetual license until you pay for another upgrade. you’ll get update for a year, like every other software.
nothing really different than buying something in store, you get 30 days warranty/refund then you’ll have to send to company is something is wrong with it.
sorry, but not sorry, there’s plenty of complaints on the forum about upgrade policy and are easily found.
Umm no, I am not getting an update for a year like you claim…“you’ll get update for a year”.
I got updates for 3 months and that fixed a bug with the grey screen covering the After view when zooming in. The bug was only fixed about 2 weeks ago AFAIK.
Why the need for sarcasm with the trite “sorry, not sorry”?
Actually, PureRaw only has a 14 day trial. The trial for PhotoLab is still 30 days as far as I know, but PhotoLab has a lot more functionality to review during a trial than does PureRaw. However 14 days puts a lot of pressure on a potential user to test it right away in a world where so many things are constantly popping up to distract us.
I’ve used Capture One for 6 years. I wouldn’t call their upgrade policy an ideal way to treat customers. Getting upgrades for 3 months and 2 of them with a buggy product is not how DXO should be treating customers.
