This is a ■■■■ move 100%. I loved waves because of the fact I could work offline and without sub. You lied to us regarding the “perpetual” licence stuff. We should at least have the choice between owning and renting. Please take this in consideration and bring back perpetual licences.
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Stings don’t it? I thought Waves was pretty harsh with the WUP system but I could stomach it.
The lack of choice and forced sub is a kick in the nuts.
I get they need to make money, but not like this Waves. Don’t sh*t on your existing customers that have been with you since the start. That’s absurd. Give us options.
The new sub only business model is gatekeeping and anti consumer. If that’s the way you are going to go, say goodbye to someone whos been using your products for 20 years.
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My original post was DELETED. Fortunately, I saved a copy. Let’s try this again.
I’ve been a loyal Waves customer, user, and advocate for over 25 years. I own pretty much everything you’ve ever released (Mercury+, SSL/studio bundle, Abbey Road bundle, NX everything, etc…). I had planned on renewing my WUP in a couple of months to top off my licenses. I was really interested in the new Clarity plugin. And then… this! With absolutely no warning at all.
In fact, I think that’s the thing that frustrates me the most. I’m a hobbyist. I don’t make a dime from music and I never will. I’m on a limited budget. I can’t justify another subscription. The previous model worked for me. The most upsetting thing is that you didn’t give us a heads up. Most of your users need to plan upgrades and purchases carefully. I don’t have the budget for a steady stream of subscriptions. I can, however, make planned-for purchases when I know that I will own that and no longer have to continue paying for it.
To top it off, I feel like a real idiot that I spent so much with you guys over the years (and that my praise for your technology likely convinced others to do the same). It’s looking like this was one of the worst investments I ever made. Not only do I hate what you’ve done and how you’ve handled this, but other companies will as well, because I’m now going to be in a situation where I won’t be able to upgrade my DAW, and as a result other plugins and software, and even my hardware will now need to remain frozen in its current state.
If you had merely added the subscription plans to your existing model, you probably wouldn’t be getting any complaints. In fact, you’d be getting a lot of praise from people who hadn’t accumulated the majority of your products already. However, I’ve spent thousands upon thousands with you over the years. And, this just feels like a kick in the gut.
Even if you feel you MUST move to an exclusive subscription model, you could have alleviated much of the blowback you’re receiving by simply giving a heads-up to your customer base and giving them time to make arrangements or modify their purchasing plans. Heck, you probably would have even made serious bank with a mad dash of long-time customers buying one-off plugins they wanted to own before the change and even getting in final WUP renewals. The new customers who will be interested in the new subscription model would not have been affected. You’d still get them. You weren’t likely to get the old-timers like me on a subscription anyway, so giving enough notice of the upcoming change would have likely given you a large influx of cash right before making the switch. (I mean, if you offered Mercury owners a far better deal than just two free months. Seriously??? We at least deserve a half-price forever on your ultimate plan. Then and only then would I even consider a subscription.)
Look, people take these things personally. I make decisions on principle. I don’t care how good your products are. This has instantly turned me against Waves and I plan to have nothing more to do with this company until and unless you resolve this in a meaningful way.
The best way to smooth this over, as far as I see it, would be to bring back the perpetual license option and allow the customer to choose which model is best for them. At the very least, you should give legacy customers 30 days to purchase single licenses, upgrade WUP, etc. before going fully subscription-exclusive. That would help to bring back some good will from your most loyal customers. Also, offering a deep discount for the subscription plan for Mercury+ owners would be a good idea. Even better, a percentage-based discount proportionate to the number of products a person owns would be fair. Not sure how many would even take you up on it, due to the hard feelings at this point, but it would be worth a shot. Otherwise, you’ve lost the bulk of them as customers forever. (Honestly, I can’t think of a more destructive marketing move than the way you’ve handled this.)
Anyway, I’m fully prepared for this message to fall on completely deaf ears and to have absolutely nothing come from it. But, I practice what I preach; and, I’m giving you notice of my intention to completely walk away from your company for life. I’ll give you one last chance to win me back. You have 30 days.
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You are obviously not listening. Your answer only underscores the disdain you have for your customers. You know very well from the overwhelming consensus here and on every pro audio forum, Twitter, Facebook, etc, that the few points you want to “emphasize” are irrelevant and don’t address the backstabbing you just committed against loyal customers like me who’ve paid thousands for perpetual licences only to lose them all instantly… with zero recourse and zero heads up. I was literally set to migrate YESTERDAY to my new Apple silicon M1 and now all my plugins are USELESS AND NON FUNCTIONAL because you purposely made sure to NOT give anyone a heads up. Yesterday I had thousands of dollars worth of perpetual Waves plugins, today I have NOTHING! I’ve never been screwed over by any company as much as you’ve just screwed me over.
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The loyalty aspect is hard to stomach, but it is what it is. The money we spent funded development of the software and systems Waves has today. I’m happy to say I contributed to it! (I mean, we wouldn’t be a little bit upset if we didn’t love the product, right?)
For most DAW users who use a fair amount of Waves, the subscription model probably makes sense financially. But it doesn’t work for live right now. The LV1 hybrid perpetual license with subscription plugins needs some thought.
- Figure out a way to keep up support/maintenance on an LV1 system (a system includes plugins) without having to pay WUP on top of the subscription. Perhaps a year of LV1 WUP can grant you a partial coupon toward the subscription.
- Grant second licenses, even if they only work in the context of certain apps or live environments. Many need it for console redundancy. For me, I keep my LV1 system authorized but it sits in a flight case. Between shows I mix those down on my laptop using second licenses.
It would also be a nice gesture if we could trade some fair proration of our active plugin WUP toward the subscription. The path for existing customers is still unclear, which makes it difficult for us to make a decision about purchasing any new plugins right now.
Finally, consider adding a Creative Access “Live” bundle which includes all the great low-latency plugins we use live, without having to pay for the CPU/latency-heavy studio ones in Ultimate.
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Dear Waves, have you lost your minds? Why this? Why don’t you keep perpertual and offer subscription as an alternative? Instead you manage to alienate what seems to be 90% of your customer base. I hope you will revert this decision. It’s not too late, and people will forgive you for making a mistake if you are sincere about it.
Do the right thing. Reinstate perpertual + WUP for existing customers.
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Stop saying “We are not taking your licenses away and will continue to support them”. Weasel words, and fundamentally dishonest. The issue - as you know perfectly well - is that without recourse to Waves Update Plan, licenses will be useless once an older Waves plugin is no longer compatible with a newer OS. So you might as well be taking them away, it’s the same net result.
I understand that plugin developers need a reliable revenue stream, and that subscriptions are a way of ensuring this. Fine. But the way you’ve done it is outrageous, especially for (e.g.) Mac users who hadn’t yet upgraded for M1 compatibility, and were given no chance to do so because you guys didn’t warn them this was coming.
“We value our customers very much” is another thing you need to stop saying.
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Why do I get the feeling that the way this has played out (re: perp users not able to upgrade to V14 anymore) will lead to this:
In a few days, WAVES will try to be noble and save some face by saying ‘ok - we will allow perpetual users to upgrade to V14 for a nominal fee but that’s it!..If you want V15 and more, you have to turn in your perp license and subscribe’. And in spite of all the vitriol, there will be enough legacy users who’ll bite, thus quelling a lot of the angry discussions. And sadly, most of this angry discourse will likely fade away.
Still doesn’t change the fact that this is a pretty cruddy way to treat loyal customers who’ve continuously pumped money into this company. The WUP fee was a pretty ■■■■■■■ thing to do, but it was mildly stomach-able… This move to an all out subscription service without any notice? This makes Avid look like Mother Theresa…which is an incredible feat.
It’s an epic fail that I really hope influential professionals and producers will call out, and that industry publications will publicize. Unfortunately as the old saying goes, ‘their house…their rules’, so lets hope another company is smart enough to capitalize on this massive blunder.
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This is exactly my situation. I literally found this out yesterday at the beginning of my migration to my Mac Mini M1. Almost all my plugins are V12… I had just been waiting to migrate to m1 before updating everything to v14 tu finally use on my computer. Now if I go through with my migration (which we all know we have to do at some point… and I’m sure Waves knows this), I’ve literally lost all my plugins. They did it on purpose… why else would they not let people PAY to update their plugins to v14 before cutting us off and purposely make sure to give us ZERO heads-up? I’ve never been screwed over this bad before by anyone… I feel like I was literally scammed… They need to backtrack ASAP.
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Cras is right a big slap in the face , To bad waves your just not using any logic with this ■■■■ . and what a heartbreak for all your loyal customers that use your products . thanks cras and every one else that has sent a message to waves ------- Really stupid
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Agreed! I’m far from a power user. I use the heck out of the CLA Signature Series – enough to warrant paying for the WUP to have a second license on my laptop. I’m usually mad about it when I have to pay for that every year. But that’s it, a plugin designed for novices who don’t want to have to wrap their brain about building the right stacks for the right projects. and you think I’m gonna pay HOW much for it every month? Every month?
Particularly galling is that I literally logged in to see when my WUP expires, because I knew it was coming up soon, and the message says as of TODAY its subscription only.
Alternatives will be found. I regret the positive things I’ve said about Waves to friends whom I know then purchased Waves products.
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Adi neshama. You’re disrespecting everyone with this reply.
“You can continue to use the plugins and bundle license versions that you own, on systems, operating systems, and host application versions they are compatible with, for as long as needed”
Which in reality means we have a few months left before we get another macOS update.
Plugin updates are A MUST! but not like this.
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I bought every Waves plugin, UAD, Plugin Alliance, FabFilter, Soundtoys, you name it.
When I had a lot of money.
Now I’m broke but at least enjoying what I have when I need or just want to learn/try a plugin and more importantly still have them in my older projects.
To pull the rug under us like this is by far the most disgusting move any plugin company can do.
I would never do a subscription even if I was printing money! not for plugins.
Subscription for plugins means you better have a subscription for life or go re-mix all your ■■■ knows how many projects.
Subscription should be AN OPTION.
Updates should be FREE.
Thanks,
Your Mom
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Disrespectful to not give customers notice, or an option. Offer a subscription, but also allow purchases per plugin. If you maintain the exclusive subscription, I will not be participating.
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I hope you go out of business Waves. Your greed has been shown to the world. You spit in he face of all your loyal customers. I will never buy or use another Waves product again.
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I don’t care for subscription either. But if you actually paid $500/year “this whole time”, then what’s the difference in paying $250/year for your subscription? Looks like you would actually save. But for folks like me that only sporadically dropped on WUP every other year or less often, paying $250/year would actually be a bad thing for me.
I’m out. I’ve been using Waves for about 15 years. I’ve maintained my WUP to keep a second set of licenses on my portable rig. That’s not an option with this subscription service…
Bigger problem is that I can’t trust that a subscription service, or the company offering it, will still be around next year, or in five years, when I need to pull up an old session for a client/job. Do the plugins just stop working if Waves goes under?
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It’s very bad move, Waves. But I don’t think you would to change your minds. You are so arogant for years. Why so good plugins have to be selling by so greedy company? 
Do you really think this “brilliant” subscription idea will work for many, many users (me included) who bought your plugins because they were cheap? This idea was invented by a true “marketing genius”…
I agree with many users: subscription is good as an option for professionals, not as the only way.
Congratulations, you guys just lost your entire business to plug-in alliance 
Seriously, the shady behind-the-curtain subscription model of the WUP was bad enough, I think y’all got cocky bc so many people were willing to tolerate it for so long. I remember buying my first waves plugins; the nature of future expenses to keep up with the WUP is insanely convoluted to a new customer. But you know that, hell everyone who’s been around long enough knows it; it’s the key to your entire predatory business model 
I don’t see why anyone who isn’t interested in the subscription plan would ever reach for a Waves plugin again, it’s just not worth the risk of having the rug pulled out again down the line. Sorry, I’m not gonna pay $25/mo to access a handful of plugins I’ve already paid for several times, especially when you still can’t figure out how to integrate oversampling and AGC. And I’m clearly not alone there.
FWIW some of your plugins are actually pretty good, the only problem is that we already ■■■■■■■ paid for them
Edit: please don’t hide my reply like you guys have been doing to everyone on Twitter
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Big fan of Waves here. I own Abbey Road Collection, Mercury, and numerous others that weren’t included in either. Nearly everything! Oh, and one round of WUP.
I’m trying to be open minded about the subscription, but the loyalty email I got offering me a 2 month trial instead of just 7 days felt a little bit like a slap in the face.
The subscriptions costs way more than WUP (especially since WUP let us skip years and catch up, and was only $180 with the 25% discount commonly offered.)
Will the subscription get us more frequent updates? More frequent new plugins added? Or will it be exactly like what we had before (slow, minimal updates & yearly version releases) – but just costing more?
If I didn’t already own everything 25$/month for everything wouldn’t be too bad… But it’s still high compared to competitors… It just doesn’t have value for your biggest fans who already own everything.
What about a subscription discount for people based on how many plugins they owned? That would have been a nice gesture.
I don’t want to jump on the Waves hate train because I really do love Waves plugins but I’m one of your biggest fans and I’m honestly feeling let down.
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