Hey. I upgraded from 9.5 → 10.5 during the 30% sale in July/August. That cost me 94€.
Turns out that the upgrade price from 10.5 → 11 is now 99€.
94 + 99 = 193€
The current upgrade from 9.5 (or versions as early as Cubase 4) is only 157€ 
So I could have waited and paid less, despite the summer sale, which is quite annoying.
Did anyone else make the same mistake?
Maybe but what is your point? They have to have a cut off point. If you had waited until v11 release and activated your Cubase update then (even earlier by about a month), you would have had v11 for free!
You could now wait until the summer sales or earlier and pick up v11 then, if they do have the sales that is, a lot of things can change between now and then.
My point is that, unless you qualify for the free grace update, they should deduct the money you’ve already paid for your last upgrade towards the next upgrade if you upgraded to the previous version within a certain period of time. That way you would be sure not to pay MORE than if you had jumped two versions (in this case 10 and 10.5) and waited instead. Some other companies do this, for example VSL.
And yes, I guess I could’ve waited to activate my 10.5 - had I been clairvoyant and known about it.
Umm… It’s about “common” knowledge to all Cubase users that upgrades always are in the last few months of every year. You don’t have to be clairvoyant to have that knowledge. You just could have waited until the release of Cubase 11 to activate your upgrade.
And that’s exactly what I have done. I bought my 10 to 10.5 upgrade last summer for a reduced price, and activated it when Cubase 11 was released. Effectively I have upgraded from 10 to 11 for only €35 (or something like that). The only downside is that I was lagging behind for full year versionwise, and had to wait patiently with with activating my bought upgrade for several months. That’s the price I had to pay for getting something for a reduced price.
To be honest… I do not know of any company that will “compensate” you afterwards if you buy a product that is upgraded at a later time (in this case even several months later). That’s what happens to software and even to hardware. Everybody pays the same upgrade price, and making exceptions for people that bought the stuff and activated it more than a half year ago is a bit too far. You get a grace period as a generous treat, and if you are smart you take advantage of that. But if you don’t do that, you are just treated like any other costumer. In that case I’m afraid you have only yourself to blame.
I upgraded about two-three months ago. Not half a year ago. Hence my opinion. Had no idea about the activation/grace thing, but now I know. But yes, I guess I’ll have better luck next time.
Same here, upgraded in July, eager to update to 11, I have a rule with software updates, in that i wait for a few patches before updating in case of bugs etc, guess it cost me this time… all good though, super happy on 10.5, ill update to 11 when hfunds allow! happy Cubasing 
Did you update after or before the release of Cubase 11?
Because Steinberg states that the grace period is only for those who updated before…the release
“Customers who activated a product shortly before the release of a newer version are eligible for a free Grace Period update to the new version”.
As far as I know any purchase of Cubase, even if it’s an older version, gives you the latest version the moment you activate it. In the case of Cubase 11, you get a grace period if you activated the product a couple of weeks before the latest version is released. That grace period has only to do with the moment of activation, and not with the moment you bought the product. For example - If you bought Cubase 10 in a brand new box, but for some reason activated the product only a few weeks ago, you are “in” the grace period and get Cubase 11. However - If you had decided to activate the product last summer, you would get 10.5 in stead of 10, and have to pay to get 11.
The same goes (again as far as I know) for upgrades. If you buy an upgrade to the latest version for a product you own (in my case Cubase 10), you get the version of the product that’s “active” the moment you activate the upgrade. Would I have done that last summer I would have 10.5, because that’s the latest product at that time.