New pricing - "thank you" Chaos...

[handz]

I jsut got an email, out of nowhere, 1 day before my billing date about the price of my subscription went from EUR 24 To EUR 59 - this is really crazy, I do not need premium I do not need extra licenses, I am occasional user who was already spending 24 EUR a month on something I am using just from time to time but more than doubling the price is really not cool, especially in current economy and situation. I knew that Corona being bought by Chaos is a bad thing, but I didn't await something so crazy. This will just make all the hobby / occasional users end their subscriptions.  What was the point really?

[TomG]

While there is more information to come soon, your next renewal is at the current/old pricing. You will have time before any new pricing is charged to review, once all information is out.

[Philw]

Yes, there definitely needs clarifcation on the solo vs premium - especially regards the license mechanism. - e.g still the Chaos licensing server? I have this set up so that I can easily switch between my Mac for lookdev and scene building and then release it to my threadripper for final rendering. Absolutely esssential right now whilst trying to keep costs down in the energy mess.

[Ondra]

Yes, the emails were sent in wrong order, we are putting the proper info on the website. You will be able to switch to to yearly pricing to more or less keep the current price

[babumbol]

Just cut the markting blahblah. It's either crippling existing license use (no floating license anymore) or a hefty price increase.

[DPS]

You will be able to switch to to yearly pricing to more or less keep the current price

"More or less" How did you arrive at that one Ondra?

You're forcing me to switch to yearly subscription to pay 40% extra per month to avoid a 280% price increase.

But I could downgrade to solo - good one!

[dok-rz]

I really don't need the 3dmax plugin, but I need  a floating licence for my 2 macs, so now i'm forced to premium?
This is really bad, the reasonable pricing was number1 argument for me using corona as a hobbyist.
Even Maxons Redshift would be much cheaper now.
Chaos really stands up for its name, thx for nothing.

[hifi]

Got to echo what other are saying here... I don't need a 3DS license and the other add-ons (Phoenix, Player, Scans) don't bring much value to C4D users. Most of the studios I work with are using Redshift and the floating licensing and grandfathered in render nodes were the only thing keeping me going with Corona for projects I can choose my renderer. I've been an advocate for Corona, but it may be time to say goodbye and move onto Redshift for all my projects.

Thanks Chaos!

[Stefan-L]

" move onto Redshift for all my projects."

best try it before switching. needs totally other hardware, and not good for all things.
some like it, some others have quite some issues with it, as in my testing sadly (specially if scenes or textures are bigger etc like archviz)

[Philw]

Yes there's a reason I own both RS and Corona.

[Gillen]

Well I haven't thought that my first post would be on a topic like this...
Getting an E-mail out of the blue with the information that the price is going to be more than twice as it was is not very customer orientated - this is definitely a huge problem for small businesses. 3DS Max finally changed their pricing policy to a more indie friendly version and it was a huge step for a one-man-show business. Now you are telling me, within some days, that you're going to be pricier than 3DS Max, even when I'm choosing the annual subscription? Since I have no revenue of over 100.000€ per year, I do not have any chance to plan my outgoings in advance that way, especially in times where nearly everything is going to be more expensive. I could understand when you make a price change due to the actual crises but this one is heavy... Imaging your tax consultant, your electricity provider or your lessor would do such a step, I bet you wouldn't be happy about it and your only way is to make a shift to another provider or whatever - but since Corona is under the hood of the Chaos Group, the shift isn't that easy.
I paid 24,99€ monthly with 3 nodes - seemed to me pretty fair since I'm going to need 3 nodes. Going up to 29,99€ or whatever would be a reasonable price correction for me as a customer.
Now I'm going to pay 26,90€ monthly (yearly subscription) or 48,90€ monthly with 0 nodes - correct me if I'm wrong - so you are raising the price and taking features away.
Or I'm going to pay 35,90€ monthly (yearly subscription) or 59,90€ monthly to have the same package as I have now.

The transformation to Chaos is now completed - well done.

[Philw]

The timing of this, Chaos, you have to agree is terrible. Or perhaps you are completely unaware of the cost of living crisis that we are in?

Or maybe you don't care about the single man company/freelancers that a lot us are? Or don't realise what our setups are?

[TomG]

Those seeing a price that is "doubling" (and it's not just a price change, it's more a change as to what a Corona is, due to the extra functionality included) are those who are paying the same price we set in 2015 at launch. We were able to maintain that for the release of 8, letting everyone stay on that 7 year old price, but we had to re-evaluate the price based on the challenges faced by businesses in the current economic climate. Had we increased prices a couple of times over that 7 years, it would not seem so large a change but we kept that original pricing for a long time without any incremental steps. Also, switching to annual means the price change is then nowhere near a "doubling" (and if you have been with us long enough to have the old pricing and render nodes, annual makes sense anyway as you know that Corona is something you are using longer term).

And on the next question, we are aware because the same thing affects all our employees and us as a business; as noted the pricing was based on the challenges faced in the current economy.

Hope this helps clarify the situation some!

[rojharris]

er.. Can I just confirm something here: I currently have Corona single license (lets call it solo) and 3 render nodes. Am I correct in thinking that when it renews in 100 days I can still have Solo and 3 render nodes?
This is critical for me as I don't want 'Premium' (way too expensive) but I can't do without render nodes (way too slow).

If I'm going to lose my nodes then I may as well jump bak to redshift and a super fast GPU. Much as I absolutely love Corona and have been banging on at people about how good it is for years, there's a limit to how much I can afford these days. I'm just a lowly freelancer.

Alternatively, perhaps now is the time to start learning Blender and how to render in Unreal 5 and/or cycles for free.??? Not quite as good as Cinema but when you add up all those costs and add in Adobe too, a few features is not much to save a small fortune.

[Frood]

Those seeing a price that is "doubling" (and it's not just a price change, it's more a change as to what a Corona is, due to the extra functionality included)

You do not need to use quotation marks around the word doubling. And exactly that extra functionality you mention is part of the problem. It is hard to follow this dogmatic reasoning (for me personally, absolutely impossible).

1. It feels you are going to force users to use that extra functionality to bind more people to chaos products/services generally. It has nothing to do with Corona as a renderer with the exception that Corona supports them.

2. Basically you clipped render nodes and replaced them by services and extra stuff most people may rarely or even never will need or use. Users have been deciding to use Corona not for what you enforce Corona has to be, but because of what Corona has been in the past. This is the most disappointing attitude of all.

3. To obtain the same coverage as FairSaaS with the new options: 26.90/m + 3x29.70/m=56.6/m. And this is not even accurate because it would be a fixed license (which is a no-go nowadays for many, and the change of the licensing system is already pain enough). It is in fact more than doubling. What I really miss is a plan equal to FairSaaS without ballyhoo: Corona vanilla as a floating license + 3 render nodes for the same fee as the "premium" option.


Good Luck