New pricing - "thank you" Chaos...

[lollolo]

I got the same strange mail too. Do all users have to contact the support hotline now??

[maru]

I got the same strange mail too. Do all users have to contact the support hotline now??

The important thing is that you should know what kind of subscription you are using, what is its price, and why there were any price changes. If you do not know that (for any reason - did not receive an email with explanations, or maybe something just isn't clear to you), contacting our support is the best idea as you will be provided with all answers ASAP by the dedicated team.

[John_Do]

Got the mail too, fortunately I've chatted with support so the situation is clear for me but it's really great to have some typos in a subject as sensitive as price change / increase.

So, if you were on FairSaas for few years ( before v8 ) like me, with 1WS+3RN ( one workstation license + 3 render nodes ), you're migrated to the Corona Premium plan. I was already on the annual plan so I don't know if customers with monthly plans are migrated on the monthly or the yearly, since the price difference between both is quite massive now. Also, and if you keep the subscription active without interruption, you keep the 3 render nodes from FairSaaS "at no extra cost". And yes I'm using quotation marks because the new plan is more expensive than the new one - 44,42% exactly, twice the inflation since 2015 -, and if like me you don't need the features included in premium like Scans and Phoenix, it's not a great value.

Come on guys, Phoenix is not even available on Cinema 4D !!! Who came up with these new subscription plans, a random guy in marketing departement with no clues about the software ?

[steppes]

Sorry but it seems, you haven't read this mail maru.

It is not about the pricing, it is about the content of this mail. The annual pricie for premium is anounced "for the first month". What does this mean? That we have to pay only one month? This is some kinda logic but not as such a text should be written.

But what abour these 289€? Thats not the pricing for the single license, because this is 322€.

This is not professional. This is Chaos!

[mlon]

I just got an email from Chaos with 'Service Information'.
This clarifies a little bit and should be send before the 'subscription change' email an hour ago.

mlon

[steppes]

Ivana from the Serviceteam confirmed, that the Informationsin the Mails are wrong.

[babumbol]

We where thinking about going with corona and expanding the license park considerably. But fact is: Any new license got a price increase double the inflation + no render nodes anymore - within half a year. A new license with corona+3 render nodes (for the slowest renderer on earth a must have!), got a price increase from 289.99 € to 775.20 € (corona + 3 render nodes).

Now, in the day-to-day business it's not really about the price increase itself (not from my point of view, at least). It's somehow about professionalism and predictability. Shown practices in 2022 are lacking both key points. And chaos lacks both attributes anyway, as shown in the past (VRay for Modo, f.e.). I really liked corona and the founding companies spirit (FairSaaS in its original idea, f.e.). But now, with chaos showing their typical behaviour I'm really unsure about coronas future.

Long story short: Yes, you should have increased prices over time. By then, you would've known if a yearly price increase around 15% (considering feature theft, see above) would have been realistic. I dare to say no.

[mlon]

Yes, i agree babumbol.
I didnt expect it to go sour this quickly after Chaos takeover
and i do feel bad for the originators because i felt their great
attitude towards their community and love for the product.
It's now just business as usual and they can't go back.

mlon

[BigAl3D]

As far as I can see, my FairSaas price was $330 USD per seat. I have two with 3 nodes each. The new price is $478.80 each, an increase of 45.09%. That's quite a jump in one step. In business, being able to predict costs in advance is very important so you can prepare for the changes to come. In most cases, those changes are more gradual. If you are a freelancer, predicting those costs is CRITICAL for survival. I should be fine since I'm part of a larger group, but it's only 60 days notice of such an increase in cost. I assume I will need to explain this when the time comes and justify the extra cost. If this increase was introduced in 10% steps or so, I don't think this discussion would be happening.

We all love Corona and what it can do, but at some point, people will need to find more affordable alternatives that get similar results. And make no mistake, there are other choices if necessary. Many of these offer hybrid CPU/GPU. The discussion about the host application costs is an entirely different topic.

Blender     FREE Cycles X/Evee

Octane    $198 per year

Redshift    $264 per year

Arnold    $380 per year

Corona   $479 per year

Maxwell   $595 perpetual (not sure the details here)

[TomG]

I didnt expect it to go sour this quickly after Chaos takeover

Reminders, fwiw - it's been 7 years since we merged. It was a merger, not a takeover. Price changes would be happening whether or not the merger had taken place. Just to keep the record straight :)

[davetwo]

I didnt expect it to go sour this quickly after Chaos takeover

Reminders, fwiw - it's been 7 years since we merged. It was a merger, not a takeover. Price changes would be happening whether or not the merger had taken place. Just to keep the record straight :)

Nobody expects the price to stay the same Tom. I guess people are wary of some of the Chaos changes as they can be rather  chaotic. The communication wasn't done well and had errors.

[frv]

@ BIgAI3D
Redshift is for free for CPU rendering and is developing fast.

@ Coronarender
I saw that Maxtree has recently updated all its assets to Octane & Redshift as well and they have updated all my previously purchased libraries for free. It used to be Vray & Corona only (apart from fbx) and the main reason for me to get into Corona. Would it not be very smart for me to move over to a much, much faster renderengine and pay much less or even nothing at all ?

[fabrica]

No problems with a normal price increase, costs rise each year.

But the node-locked option is very poor, considering most people have a work and home computer. Why can't it be floating but only usable on 1 machine at a time (or limited to 2 computers?)
Seems to be the same on with vray, corona, enscape - so not expecting any change , but not impressed !

[Stefan-L]

"Redshift is for free for CPU rendering and is developing fast. "

have you tried that?;) (cpu version is extremely slow, at least for now)

that said also not a friend of the node locked version, i think it should run on 2 pcs.(office and home pc)

[frv]

Have done a few test with Redshift on a Mac. Seems to be ok. Bit not done any serious work with it.