I’m a die-hard Dorico user myself who runs the music program at an Arizona community college (Chandler-Gilbert Community College). I train my students on Finale due to their generous EDU pricing ($99), but I was hoping the Dorico sale would hit the EDU price too so my students could get in. We have 7 composition majors and another 40-50 music majors, all going through training. But it looks like the EDU price is still $359, so unaffected by the sale.
Oddly, right now, it’s actually cheaper to go buy Finale at their EDU price, then come back and buy the competitive cross grade Black Friday deal—which is silly. Why make them to go to Finale first? But if they do, that knocks it to $249 (Finale EDU @ $99, then cross grade at $150).
CURRENT PRICING…
$359 EDU
$290 new user
$249 buy Finale EDU, then cross grade…I mean, this is silly, right?
$150 cross grade if you already have Finale or Sibelius
Even the $290 (current new user price) is too much for most of them.
Anyone know if there’s any chance this will get extended to EDU pricing?
Just trying to look after my students, and help them get into the best stuff where possible. I hope Steinberg will consider.
I’m afraid educational products are almost never included in our sales promotions, since students and teachers already benefit from a standard discount of 40% off our retail pricing. We don’t have any plans to add educational products to this promotion.
I would love to see our products available at a more competitive price specifically for students and this is something I am working on for the future.
Me too. With Finale at $99 EDU and MuseScore doing a pretty good job for free, it’s hard to push student towards Dorico, which I genuinely believe to be the best on the market.
But with the incredible price of education these days, and how cheap Dorico’s competition is, I can’t in good conscience recommend it. I mean, Finale and Sibelius are fine, and still way more influential (“industry standard”) in the world at the moment.
EDU pricing is how Sibelius broke through in my neck of the woods. All the students in my college program bought it because it was WAY cheaper than Finale, and at the time, WAY easier to learn. And the generation after me had it required by the college. Finale got smart and realized hooking a student in during their training was a great strategy, so they do it too now. And low and behold, Sibelius is what almost every teacher I know uses, and Finale is a pretty close second.
I was willing to fight through the learning curve to transition from Finale, but I’m seeing time and time again, my Finale using friends don’t want to go through it again with something else, even if it’s better. I want to push my students towards Dorico, but Finale remains their best onboarding option right now due to it’s generous pricing model—which means that’s likely what they’ll come to use in their professional careers.
Ok…enough ranting. I’m hoping those in charge of pricing will consider.
I don’t disagree—I’m one of the converts! And it may just be natural down the road. But with economic pressures at a peak in the US right now, college expenses through the roof, and the low cost of the competition when compared, it’s hard for me to advocate for Dorico. We, as a college, are trying really hard to control costs for our students including Open Education Resources so they don’t get soaked on textbooks, and other cost-cutting measures. $359 for software is way too much at our school, when Finale is $99 and MuseScore is acceptable for free.
Of my friend group I’ve discussed this with (in person and on forums like Facebook), 3 made the switch, maybe 4—one not sure where he settled. His last chart was in Finale which is pretty telling. Around a dozen or so looked at it and decided they just didn’t “want to go through learning new tools when the old ones are fine.”
I was a Finale user from almost their start, I think, when it was still called Coda Music. My oldest Finale scores go back to 1999. Twenty years later, I tried Dorico (I think version 2.x), and after 6 months experimenting the decision was made: Finale was dumped. Yes, the learning curve was long, but the functional differences are so important that you cannot ignore them, if you want to work professionally.
But indeed, I think it could be wise for Steinberg to position the EDU versions at lower prices. All the big software corporations do it (Microsoft, Apple, Autodesk, you name them…).
Of course, we have no idea about the potential financial impact of such a measure. So, we are missing a potentially quite important element in the puzzle…
I just want to add that I likewise have a group of students at my institution who are interested in Dorico but just cannot afford the price tag. I am a Finale convert, and I’m sure they’re tired of my constant “… and it’s so easy to do it in Dorico”. They’re all using Musescore, with one Elements user. But they need the Pro features and so are likely to make the jump to Finale at $99. I wish it weren’t so.
It is worth noting that until November 30 Finale is in sale for both EDU and upgrade from previous version for US$ 79 (so 20 dollars less for both options). So it is a good option to buy Dorico at a even low price - US$ 229 (79 from Finale + 150 from crossgrade Dorico).