Quite annoyed and confused by WaveLab pro pricing

Hi there, can someone explain to me why, as someone who has paid for tonnes of WL Elements upgrades I get a worse deal somehow than pretty much anyone else?

Here’s my upgrade path:

"WaveLab Pro 11.1

Upgrade from WaveLab Elements 11.1

Download

Available
£343.00

*Price including 20% VAT"

Yet on the WL area of the Sale page…

From almost any DAW under the sun it says…

List price £325.00

Deal Price £195.00.

So it costs almost £20 just to upgrade than the list price on a different part of the site?

Can anyone tell me how I can actually upgrade without throwing loads of money down the drain!?

to buy the full version of wavelab pro is £429
to buy the elements is £85

to upgrade elements to pro £343

£429 - £85 = £344 … so it sounds about right…

you could however wait for a summer sale or special offer to get a discounted upgrade.

competitive upgrade is there to entice from other companies/daws… the list is there

  • Adobe Audition (Single App and Creative Cloud subscriptions)
  • Apple Logic 9 or higher
  • Avid Pro Tools 9 or higher incl. subscriptions (Pro Tools, Pro Tools HD, Pro Tool Studio, Pro Tools Flex, Pro Tools Ultimate / excl. Artist & First)
  • Cockos Reaper (Commercial license only / excl. discounted license)
  • iZotope Ozone 10 Advanced or Standard (excl. Elements)
  • iZotope RX 5 and later (Standard / Advanced)
  • Magix Samplitude Pro X 1 or higher (excl. Music Studio)
  • Magix Sequoia 9 or higher
  • Magix Sound Forge Pro 16 or Pro Suite
  • Presonus Studio One (Professional / excl. Prime and Artist)
  • Pyramix 14 or higher
  • SADiE 6 Software or higher

I understand all of this, but what I find a bit of a kick in the teeth is that Steinberg is able to sell WL pro to newcomers at £195 considering many of the things listed you can buy for very low sums and my upgrade path is, as you point out, the cost of Elements + the difference.

Please bare in mind you can start a subscription to half of those DAWs for the cost of a takeaway meal and then jump on the £195 deal.

I’m well aware I could just do that and cancel, but it’s a bit of a kick in the teeth to be promoted to pay the difference despite having to shell out each time WL elements is updated.

I know Steinberg aren’t known for their fantastic upgrade prices - but this is a bit silly!

if you can wait for the summer deals is the best time to do any upgrades, it kind of makes sense to me the pricing…
if elements was £85 and the upgrade to pro was £195… then no one would buy the full version @ £429…
people would just buy elements then the cheap upgrade

I’ll just upgrade from Ozone, Rx, etc which I have, still seems silly oh well.

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I thought I remembered them requiring perpetual licenses to actually qualify for the competitive crossgrade…similar to it requiring you to own the $200 license for reaper instead of the $60 one.

If the Elements + the upgrade cost less than Pro, literally no one would buy pro. That’s why there’s not a “discount” on that path.

The fact that RX and Ozone count is kinda cool. I don’t believe it was that way when I bought whatever my first version was. But, I definitely owned at least Live if not also Pro Tools. and probably used that competitive crossgrade when I first bought it. Honestly…the fact that there are so many possibilities for the competitive crossgrade is awesome to me. Outside of podcasting, I find it a little hard to believe that people come to WL without owning something on the list.

“Outside of podcasting, I find it a little hard to believe that people come to WL without owning something on the list.”

I think that’s the point for me really, bare in mind that I could jump on that deal by going onto Ebay and buying a very old boxed copy of RX, Reaper paid version (always cheap), or just signing up and cancelling a Pro Tools sub… seems wonky no!

Cool for those crossgrading - which is how I’ll end up paying for it.

At least its not as wonky as Plugin Alliance price madness!

Just checked £8 to start a pro tools subscription then throw it in the bin once you have Wavelab…

I may be wrong but when you use a upgrade path form any of these products to WL you may lose the license and the ability to upgrade it in the future. Also the surrender of any competitive upgrade license my mean you cannot use the newer version of the surrendered software in the future.

Interesting…I honestly thought it didn’t work for the subscription.

That seems like it could be an oversight…or just a neat trick.

why does it matter? if you need it / want it, and if the current cross grade upgrade sale is cheaper than your upgrade, use it :ok_hand: I wouldn’t hesitate to save the money (I use a few on the list anyway, but also have pro so its useless for me)

I mean…I own WL Pro anyway and have since 8 or maybe 9 IIRC, so it doesn’t apply to me…I use the upgrade pricing. It was Joe’s question, presumably because he’s moving to it (from PT+Hofa, according to his GS thread).

I’m just curious because I can’t leave well enough alone.

Do you actually have to “surrender” the license? If so, how does that work?

I did mean it to Joe, sorry about that, I would assume once your in your in though

How could that be enforced though? couldn’t you just restart your Pro Tools subscription again at 8 quid?