The long‑term value offered by a subscription versus a perpetual licence for Pro Tools Ultimate.
Perpetual licence or subscription plan? Find out which is best for you.
Back in March 2022 I looked at the value proposition represented by software subscriptions, and noted the apparent resistance to subscriptions among Pro Tools users online. Online conversations are rarely representative, of course, and a vocal minority can make things appear less nuanced than they are, but the fact remains that there have always been a significant number of people who are wary of signing up for software subscriptions.
In a surprising move, at the end of September 2023 Avid announced the reintroduction of perpetual licences for Pro Tools, meaning that for the first time since April 2022, it has become possible to buy a new permanent licence. What does this mean and what has changed?
Perpetual Motion
To clarify the situation, perpetual licences have never gone away. Despite some alarmist headlines at the time that Pro Tools had gone ‘subscription only’, this was never the case. In April 2022 Avid announced that they were ceasing sales of new perpetual licences — existing owners of perpetual licences weren’t affected by this announcement. If they maintained an update plan they continued to receive all the benefits that carried, and if they chose not to maintain that update plan, their software would continue to work at the version they were on when they chose to go off‑plan.
Then an announcement in September stated that new perpetual licences would be reintroduced through resellers (they are not available from the Avid webstore), allowing new customers and existing subscribers to purchase a perpetual licence. Not only that, the offer has been improved. Here’s how it works.
When they were last available, Pro Tools Ultimate perpetual licences cost $2599. A Pro Tools Ultimate perpetual licence now costs $1499£1299, a reduction of over 40 percent. An ‘off plan’ perpetual licence holder who hasn’t maintained an upgrade and support plan used to have to pay a Get Current fee. This was Avid’s way to encourage perpetual licence holders to maintain an uninterrupted upgrade and support plan. This Get Current charge has been discontinued and there is now a fixed cost to reinstate an upgrade plan. For Ultimate users this cost is $399£330.
This is very significant as it means there is now no financial penalty to be paid for going off‑plan, so perpetual licence holders can choose whether to upgrade or not based on the features and functionality being introduced in the updates, rather than to avoid incurring a reinstatement fee. More carrot and less stick, if you will!
For Pro Tools Studio users a similar arrangement exists. The price of a new perpetual licence is $599£519 and the price of an upgrade for existing perpetual licence holders is $199£170. It should be remembered that before the reorganisation of the tiers of Pro Tools, the equivalent version of Pro Tools Studio was (confusingly) called Pro Tools, known by many as Pro Tools Standard or even Pro Tools Vanilla to differentiate it from Pro Tools Ultimate, formerly Pro Tools HD.
A Pro Tools Studio subscription becomes more economical than a perpetual licence after about four years, assuming the perpetual‑licence holder pays the annual upgrade price.
Thankfully the naming has become simpler. Each tier of Pro Tools has a unique name: Ultimate, Studio, Artist and Intro. The names of the update plans have been rationalised so now for Pro Tools Studio the upgrade product is a ‘Pro Tools Studio Perpetual Upgrade’ rather than a ‘Pro Tools Studio Perpetual Updates and Support Plan Renewal’, which was rather a mouthful. Noticing the absence of the word ‘support’ in the new product I wondered whether this indicated a change to the provision of support, but checking my Avid account I read: “Use a Perpetual Upgrade to renew or get current and receive one year of product updates, support, Inner Circle rewards, Sonic Drop content, and more,” so the name and price seem to be the only changes.
Artistic Licence
Pro Tools Artist has always been subscription‑only, so unlike with Ultimate and Studio, there isn’t any pent‑up demand for upgrades from off‑plan Artist users. The costs are $199£170 for an Artist Perpetual licence and $69£59 for an upgrade. It’s worth knowing that any new perpetual licence comes with a year of upgrades, so there is no need to renew until at least a year after purchase.
With this new system of licences and upgrades alongside the subscription offer, it isn’t immediately obvious which represents the best value.
There has always been an element of confusion around the difference between a subscription and what was previously referred to as a Perpetual Updates and Support Plan, with many referring to the latter as a ‘subscription’ because of its recurring annual or monthly payments. However, the key difference is that if a subscription expires, you lose access to your software, just like your Netflix account. With a perpetual licence you always have access to your software. But with this new system of licences and upgrades alongside the subscription offer, it isn’t immediately obvious which represents the best value.
The question of which kind of licence offers the best value depends on which tier of Pro Tools you are using and how you use Pro Tools. There are business advantages for professional users to keep a subscription, while occasional users of Pro Tools stand to benefit from the ability to subscribe on a month‑by‑month basis. Subscriptions are also useful for new customers, as they incur less commitment (ie. up‑front cost) compared with buying a perpetual licence. But for long‑term Pro Tools users who employ it as their principal DAW, is it cheaper to subscribe or to go perpetual?
For Artist users, the break‑even point is between three and four years.
Like & Subscribe?
Subscriptions can be paid monthly but the best value is by paying annually. Currently, Ultimate is $599£519 per year. Comparing like with like, by which I mean both the subscription and the perpetual licence are kept up to date throughout, in the short term it will always be cheaper to hold a subscription because there is no initial purchase of a licence required. However, it’s reasonable to assume that at some point the lower cost of an update compared to a subscription will make perpetual licensing more economical in the longer term.
To calculate the break‑even period — the number of years it would be necessary to hold a perpetual licence for it to become cheaper than a subscription — it’s necessary to calculate the year‑on‑year costs. Each year a Pro Tools Ultimate subscription paid up‑front costs $599£519. In the first year of a perpetual licence the cost would be $1499£1299. Assuming no price rises, each year the cost of maintaining an up‑to‑date perpetual licence would add $399£330, whereas the subscription would continue to cost $599£519 per year.
A similar calculation for Pro Tools Studio would be $299£259 per year for a subscription and $599£519 in the first year for a perpetual licence, and a cost of $199£170 per year in upgrades to keep it up to date. For Pro Tools Artist, costs would be $99£89 per year for subscription versus $199£169 for a perpetual licence, followed by $69£59 per year for updates.
Going ‘off plan’ now no longer incurs a Get Current fee if you later decide to renew your subscription. However, you’ll still lose access to Avid support, and the new content offered by Avid’s Inner Circle and Sonic Drop schemes, until you take out a new subscription.The graphs show, then, that the break‑even point for Ultimate is five and a half years. For Studio it is four years, and for Artist users it occurs during the third year. However this is making the assumption that a perpetual licence update would be maintained throughout this period. Users who go off‑plan will lose access to some of the benefits that come with being on an active update plan. Perhaps the most significant of these is the support element, but also plug‑ins and the rolling monthly offers and content provided by the Inner Circle and Sonic Drop programmes.
With the removal of the Get Current reinstatement fee there is no longer a financial penalty for users who choose to spend time off‑plan. This is a very positive statement from Avid, and suggests a lot of confidence on their part that the new features which will be coming in future updates will be compelling enough to make holders of perpetual licences want to stay current. Less stick and more carrot indeed!