On October 21, 2025, I contacted Steinberg to ask whether I could upgrade my Dorico Pro 5 license to Dorico Pro 6 using my student status, so that I could obtain the reduced price of ~66€ available in Greece. The response I received on October 22, 2025 was positive, but the upgrade link I was given referred to Dorico 6 Elements—something I unfortunately did not notice until after completing the purchase and downloading it to my MacBook.
On October 25, 2025, I contacted Steinberg Support to kindly request that the Elements license be cancelled and that I be allowed to pay the price difference to upgrade to Dorico Pro 6 instead, as I am a professional composer and the Elements version does not meet my needs. It also effectively downgrades my previous Pro version, and my original question concerned Dorico Pro, not Elements.
I repeated my request on October 31, 2025, and on November 6, 2025 I also reached out to licensing@steinberg.net. Unfortunately, I have not received any response.
During this time, the Dorico 6 Elements license appears to have been activated on my MacBook, but this happened only because an existing Dorico project opened automatically with Elements instead of Dorico 5. As soon as I realized this, I immediately closed the application and moved Dorico 6 Elements to the trash. I have not used the new license at all.
Could anyone please advise me on how to resolve this issue? I am concerned, as I have received no reply from Steinberg through any support channel so far.
Yes, the two first contacts were to Steinberg Support Team onlineshop-support@steinberg.de. I received Id #735184. The case is still open (since 25/10/2025).
I wonder if this is handled differently in Greece? In Germany, the education discount has always only been valid for the purchase of the full version. The cost for subsequent updates is the same for everyone here.
Thank you for your reply, @benwiggy. I’d just like to clarify that in my original question to Steinberg’s online support, I was asking specifically about upgrading from Dorico 5 Pro to Dorico 6 Pro with an educational discount. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that the answer I received referred to a different licence than the one I was asking about, which led me to purchase Elements by mistake.
I acknowledge that I should have checked the response more carefully, but I also believe the company bears some responsibility since their reply referred to a product I hadn’t mentioned at all. My intention was certainly not to “downgrade” from my existing Dorico 5 Pro licence, but simply to upgrade to Dorico 6 Pro.
You’ll need to wait for your ticket to be handled by the support team, @marilazar. It is indeed the case that there is no educational discount for updates: when you buy an update, your educational license is converted to a full retail license, at which point the restrictions that exist on the use of the software for commercial work are removed.
So you will need a refund for your Dorico Elements update purchase, and then to purchase the proper Dorico Pro update.
I’m sorry for the inconvenience caused in the meantime. If you want to use Dorico Pro 6 right now, there’s nothing to stop you from downloading the free 60-day trial version and using that.
Thank you very much for your support and guidance. The problem has been resolved successfully. I have received a refund for the incorrect Dorico Elements update purchase and will proceed with buying the proper Dorico Pro update.