Upgrade costs for Vray 5 / increase in the last 6 years

[Joelaff]

As a veteran and freelancer, and without the resources of a medium sized shop, i really need the indie license so I can pay my bills thankyou very much

Fair. Even so, the render nodes are still about 50% too expensive IMO. If they were more reasonably priced you would also have more nodes and work faster.

I suppose there is a balance.

[Karonte]

Two weeks ago I upgraded from 3.6 to next4 ( 4 licences+2 nodes...more or less 2000 euro). Now I have to pay other + 2000 to upgrade from next4 to next5 after 3 weeks. I don't know why a free upgrade or a grace period? Ok lightmixer( who here uses lightmix?) or material library...but now it's a more or less a 4.5.
More than 4000 euros for an upgrade is too much. I know that they want to force people to switch to a subscription but I think they also have to help old users that buy "always" perpetual since the beginning.

[francomanko]

that cant be right surely.

[olly]

+1 for some form of veteran/loyalty discount

[Joelaff]

that cant be right surely.

My reseller told me the same thing. I had to pay full price to get from 3 to Next and then full price again to get from Next to 5.

So I switched to subscription, against my principles.

[francomanko]

full or upgrade price?

[narsov]

Two weeks ago I upgraded from 3.6 to next4 ( 4 licences+2 nodes...more or less 2000 euro). Now I have to pay other + 2000 to upgrade from next4 to next5 after 3 weeks. I don't know why a free upgrade or a grace period? Ok lightmixer( who here uses lightmix?) or material library...but now it's a more or less a 4.5.
More than 4000 euros for an upgrade is too much. I know that they want to force people to switch to a subscription but I think they also have to help old users that buy "always" perpetual since the beginning.

You should ask support, I think if you upgrade or buy V-ray NEXT before the new release it is free upgrade to V-ray 5.
There was a notification for that.

[trick]

...I think if you upgrade or buy V-ray NEXT before the new release it is free upgrade to V-ray 5.
There was a notification for that.

Officially it is not possible anymore to upgrade perpetual v3 licenses: not to Next and not to v5. V3 rendernodes can be upgraded to Next until Sept. 30th. There is however the possibility to trade-in the perpetual v3 license to an annual subscription license, for now with a 20% discount; this is also available for rendernode perpetual licenses.
So the most important: upgrading your perpetual v3 license to a newer perpetual VRay version is not possible anymore!

Maybe you can still make a deal by mail, but in the end you definitely have to pay TWICE the normal upgrade cost to get to v5, which is exactly the same as a new perpetual license. Therefore you have to ask yourself if you suddenly absolutly have a need for Next, which would be the only reason to go the upgrade route; if not, you should just wait until your really need v5 (or later) and buy a new license.

[narsov]

https://www.chaosgroup.com/support/f...rade-to-vray-5

This is from FAQ. It looks like it is only if you have purchased NEXT license just before release of the Vray 5, you will receive an upgrade to v.5 free of charge right after the official release.

[Karonte]

https://www.chaosgroup.com/support/f...rade-to-vray-5

This is from FAQ. It looks like it is only if you have purchased NEXT license just before release of the Vray 5, you will receive an upgrade to v.5 free of charge right after the official release.

NO. only if you buy a new perpetual. No if you upgrade . very very disappointed. first time after more than 13 years with chaos.

[roboxx]

Well, good to see that i`m not the only one getting disappointed and frustrated the way this "minor" upgrade from v4 to v5 is getting charged. As Karonte already said, this is more like a 4.5 release.
Would really like to hear something more from the vray staff about the pricing policy and how it`s going to develop in the future, Ivan`s post #5 and #10 are in my opinion just the standard substantiations.

I really hate the way most of the companies in the graphics industie try to force their long term customers to annual subscriptions. Some companies like Adobe are doing it in a reasonable manner. You can get the full Creative Cloud for around 30€ + tax / month, which is a fair price for it in comparison to the former perpetual license cost of AE, PS, Premiere, Illustrator and the rest.......Vray-prices just drifted in the opposite direction.

I had a good time with Vray for a long time, really liked the way Chaos had an ear for their customers needs and wishes. Pricing was fair and affordable especially for freelancers and small studios. The development of Vray was constant and innovative, a pure pleasure for having a new version being announced every 3-4 years in the past, definitely worth the money. In my opinion V5 is in terms of new features and the stipulated price quite a big disappointment.
With the growth of the company in the last years, developing more and more products and brands and the increase of the brand awareness being an "industrial standard" when talking about external renderer, the pressure to increase sales seems to exaggerate and the focus being more on the big studios nowadays.

So as long pricing will stay the way it is right now, i`ll better stay with V4 as long as possible or take a look at Fstorm or Corona in the future.

[rikou]

I think it's the general feeling of independents / small studio ...
The 3d software market is inexorably becoming less and less accessible for small businesses

[olly]

I have been playing with the trial of vray 5 for the last couple of days and aside from Light Mix, I am underwhelmed that this is a paid update.
Sorry vlado/Chaos, I know you have worked really hard on this in challenging times.
The "released" version should also still be considered beta - there is too much missing and loads of work still to do.
Why have you decided to go for 1.5-2 year release cycle?

I have been using vray for nearly 20 years, starting with the "free" version and moving to the "advanced" version so we could save irradiance maps - ah, great times
I have been a real fanboy, banged the drum and enjoyed seeing vray evolve. Updates added real value to our studio and the pricing was fair.
Coupled with Vlado's attention to the forum being in a class of its own, made this a great community to be part of.

I agree with roboxx and Karonte - the pricing has drifted out of control over the years and needs a rethink.
We used to only need licenses for render nodes to use DR with vray, rendering frames using backburner was free.
You also got 10 DR licenses with each workstation license...
I know times change, but the current pricing all feels very Autodesky to me.

For me it started to go wrong with Vray Next - a name straight out of the boardroom...
The only feature we got mileage out of was being able to denoise multiple render elements.
We upgraded, trusting that there would be more to come Next, which there was, vray 5.

Times are hard at the moment, so please don't forget the long term users!
Whilst we are not there writing the code, we have contributed a great deal to vray's development along the way.

[glorybound]

We get to raise our prices, right? You know, pass the cost onto the client. Unfortunately, that isn't how it works for our industry. I have one machine and I loaded up on cores, so I don't feel the pain so much. The way I look at it is, how many images will pay for your software. We have to have overhead, everyone does. For me, all my annual software costs me a couple of images.

[Karonte]

olly You are a genius...the words " feels very Autodesky" are perfect. Long term users helped Vray to become....Vray.