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

[roboxx]

Well, i`m somehow getting frustrated about the pricing for the upgrades to Vray 5. As a freelancer with 1 workstation and 10 render node license i will have to pay 2310 $ ( for upgrading from Vray Next 4 to 5 ). I could live with the 600 $ for the workstation upgrade, but the rendernodes ( 1710 $ ) are getting way too expensive for me.
Just upgraded my servers at the end of 2019 with affordable 1950X threadripper Cpu`s, but it seems to be more efficient to have bought instead 24,32 or 64 core CPUs to reduce the amount of rendernodes. I think for freelancers who have to find a balance for the best value for their used CPU ( price per core ) and numbers of servers, it`s somehow adverse.
I have lots of downtimes for my renderfarm, because i don`t use it when doing stills or setting up the scene, shading, lighting, animating for later rendering, etcetera..........i would estimate using it only 2 months per year, for the rest of the time it`s down.

What really stands out when watching on my upgrade costs from Vray 2 up to Vray 5 is a massive increase:

Vray 2 > 3 in 06/2014 : 958 $ with 4 years of updates and major upgrades like 3.5 till 2018 !!!
Vray 3 > 4 in 06/2018 = 1690 $ with 2 years of updates, no major upgrades ( in my opinion ) ....+75 % upgrade costs
Vray 4 > 5 in 06/2020 = 2310 $.....+ 37 % upgrade costs

When upgrading in 2018 i was already disappointed about the pricing and had a conversation with Antonia from Chaos Support who pointed out, that my costs from 2012 till 2018 were 1670 € or 280 € / year for 1 WS and 10 Render nodes.....which was pretty fair. I totally agreed with that.
From 2018 to 2020 i now had costs of 845 $ / year, so 300 % higher then in the years before. When supposing that in 2022 Vray 6 will propably being released, i will have costs of 1155 $ / year, so again 37 % higher then before. For the first time Vray will costs me more then my 3dsmax maintainance license ( which also had rapidly increased costs in the last 3 years btw. ).

This is a progress which really bothers me and i see parallels to Autodesk pricing policy, like raising the maintainance subscriptions costs every year and having less new features and upgrades worth the increasing costs.
Especially in times of unrest because of Covid-19 and global recession. i would have expected and welcomed at least stable prices as the former upgrade costs for Vray 4 in 2018.

I really like to work with Vray and appreciate what Chasogroup did for the community in the past, but please don`t forget small studios and freelancers. Maybe an indie license, especially for the render nodes, would be a fair solution to make Vray still affordable for people like me.

Best

Robin

[JD3D_CGI]

Yes interesting point.

I also noticed the perpetual licence is like €1080 and two years of an annual licence is €850.... So, when is the next upgrade coming is the question? If it's two years again, then why not buy the annual licenses and save myself a couple of hundred euros?

It's like they are pricing the perpetual licence option out of the market - only buying it if you know you are goign to jump off forever.

[super gnu]

i think some valid points are raised here. I appreciate that Chaos are a massively larger organisation than previously (i visited your original offices so have higher costs, and the software is more complex so costs more to maintian and update. but that should be balanced against the fact that you have tons more users...

[glorybound]

"but it seems to be more efficient to have bought instead 24,32 or 64 core CPUs to reduce the amount of rendernodes" I caught onto this 4 years ago when I purchased my current workstation. I purchased it knowing the direction things were going and it paid off for me.

[ivan.daskalov]

Hi all,

Robin, I truly understand your concerns regarding the increased pricing of our products. Thank you for being a long-time V-Ray user and for sharing how your costs have increased over the years, we do value such feedback and take it into consideration when forming future policies.

You are totally right that the costs of using V-Ray have increased over the years, and this is most valid regarding perpetual licenses. We have significantly shortened the major release cycles - to around 2 years currently between major releases. I'd still like to emphasize that we absolutely dedicated to making sure each major release brings massive improvements and great new features, that will bring genuine new value to our customer's projects and will be totally worth the investment. To be able to increase the innovation and development pace so significantly, we have also increased our investment in R&D, which is a reason for the price increase of V-Ray.

We also need to adapt to the recent developments in the industry, including the major switch to subscription models and increased competition. This is why we have structured our pricing policies in a way that annual V-Ray licensing is much more cost-effective for our customers. With annual licensing, customers are entitled to always use the latest technology we offer, so there are no additional costs for upgrades. This model really makes sense given the shorter release cycles than before. Still, we understand that many of our freelancer customers prefer to use perpetual licenses, this is why we have decided to avoid at all costs discontinuing them in the future.

I'd also like to note that with the introduction of V-Ray 5 Render Node packs, we have actually now decreased the price of having 10 render node licenses, compared to before the V-Ray 5 release. Previously it would cost $1,900 to upgrade 10 x V-Ray 3 render nodes to version Next, while currently upgrading 10 x V-Ray Next render nodes to 1 x (Pack of 10) V-Ray 5 Render Node perpetual licenses costs $1,680.

I know that the points are stated above do not make the situation for you easier, but I just wanted to make some notes on the reasons behind our pricing changes. Still, we are constantly considering various options that will better meet our customers needs, so hopefully in the future we'll be able to also provide new and more suitable offers for you.

Thank you,

Kind regards,

Ivan

[Lewis107]

This is my situation/calculation -

I have 1 workstation license and use 4 extra render nodes on Perpetual.

Perpetual Upgrade
Workstation £455
Nodes £640 (4x£160)

£1095

Annual
Workstation £360
Nodes £520 (4x£130)

£880 for 1 year
£1100 for 1.25 years
£1320 for 1.5 years
£1760 for 2 years


So the cost for Perpetual can be compared to having the annual for 1.25 years.
If the next paid upgrade (VRay 6?) comes out in 1.5 to 2 years then perpetual is cheaper...if I update right now.

It is obvious that we are all heading for annual subscriptions, but at the moment it seems more expensive with no real advantage...unless I am missing something?
Why not offer a fair discount to switch from perpetual to annual and make things a lot simpler?

I find the costs this time around expensive, especially for nodes as described by the original post.
Not having a fixed time cycle for future VRay paid releases does make the upgrade process confusing and risky.
Making the wrong choice and then losing out financially is stressful in an already stressful time due to Covid and the reduced amount of work.

[rikou]

[...] It is obvious that we are all heading for annual subscriptions [...]

It tends to that yes .. it is not really a choice ! the 3d market has become a rental market, period
And it is more and more a market which is no longer suitable for freelancers IMO

[racoonart]

I also noticed the perpetual licence is like €1080 and two years of an annual licence is €850.... So, when is the next upgrade coming is the question? If it's two years again, then why not buy the annual licenses and save myself a couple of hundred euros?

It's like they are pricing the perpetual licence option out of the market - only buying it if you know you are goign to jump off forever.

With the new 2-year cycle, if you already own a perpetual gui license then it'll always be cheaper to update that - 530€ every second year, effectively 265€ per year - in contrast to the annual rental prices of 425€ per year.
If you are a new customer, annual rentals are cheaper until you hit the 7th year where summed up rental costs will exceed the initial perpetual + 2-year-upgrade costs. So all in all, perpetual is still cheaper over the long term... for now at least.

[roboxx]

I'd also like to note that with the introduction of V-Ray 5 Render Node packs, we have actually now decreased the price of having 10 render node licenses, compared to before the V-Ray 5 release. Previously it would cost $1,900 to upgrade 10 x V-Ray 3 render nodes to version Next, while currently upgrading 10 x V-Ray Next render nodes to 1 x (Pack of 10) V-Ray 5 Render Node perpetual licenses costs $1,680.

Well, at least for me this calculation doesn`t work out. As mentioned above i paid in 2019 for the last upgrade 1690 $ for 1 WS + 10 RN. Now i will have to pay 2310 $, this is +37 % after raising +300 % in 2019. So what exactly justify such a price increase ?
In my opinion Chaosgroup did a double markup for perpetual license holders, shortening the major release cycles while raising the costs for the upgrade.

In worst case scenario we get a new "major release" in the future every year like Autodesk does with 3dsmax, which will do increase the maintainance costs for the perpetual license furthermore.
I absolutely agree with Lewis, ...."Not having a fixed time cycle for future VRay paid releases does make the upgrade process confusing and risky." For me it looks like gambling for the best price to use Vray for the future, Short major release cycles > better go with annual license | long major release cycles > better go with perpetual license

It all won`t bother me so much, when i just had to care about my WS-license, but why do we have to pay for the rendernodes in general ? I can use 3dsmax with unlimited render nodes, same with itoo`s railclone and forestpack, same with growfx for free.
So Chaosgroup...please consider to at least drastically reduce the pricing for the first 5 - 10 rendernodes, which is propably the amount of servers freelancers and small studios will own. Or give us some sort of Indie license for the render nodes, so smaller revenue will last in less render nodes costs and vice versa.
If a big studio has a huge renderfarm > 10 and generate sales above 100.000 $, they won`t care about 170 $ per rendernode as much as a small studio or a freelancer does.

Best

Robin

[ivan.daskalov]

Hi all,

Thank you for your feedback on our pricing and the suggestions made, I do forward that to the respective teams at the company. I truly hope that in the future we'll be able to provide you with offerings that better match your needs, expectations and budget.

Robin, the reason you could get an upgrade at a better price back in 2018 is that we also had bundle offers then, which are not available since February 2019.

I remain available if you need any additional information or assistance.

Kind regards,

Ivan

[Joelaff]

I too believe render node pricing is way too steep these days.

What happens is that the intro price to get people using VRay has gotten more affordable, but anyone using it professionally has to pay a fortune for render nodes.

The real big players likely get insane discounts (either due to volume or publicity). It is the medium sized shops that are getting shafted big time by most software vendors right now. All the "indie" or low cost interactive licenses flood the market with users who take away the easy jobs from the veterans. Those easy jobs pay the bills, especially the ever increasing software bills.

I would look at a higher cost of initial entry and lower render node costs. Heck, render nodes were free when I started using VRay. A lot of companies used to make the first 5 or 10 nodes kinda pricey, but then offer *very* steep discounts after that.

Also, honestly, please look at your upgrade pricing too. Having to upgrade perpetual licenses to Next before going to 5 is pretty ridiculous. Reward the customers you already have. Don't punish them. This is an Autodesk type policy, and frankly, anything Autodesk does should be avoided, not emulated.

The VRay Collection is a great product, as most mid seized companies need all these tools. This is reasonably priced... until you start getting render nodes.

[squintnic]

I also agree its getting very steep and punitive to long term users and small indies, studios of less than 5 people with 1m AUD/USD less in revenue could have an indie license or discounted nodes? With revenue above 3m AUD these upgrades become less of an issue as you have the volume of work to cover it. Even back when we had 30 staff the Vray uprade cycle was expensive - but still seen as good value given our farm was mainly high core server racks.

I would ditch PD Player, Vray for Unreal, Vray Scans, Corona and Lavina, Chaos Cloud (barely works, lacks basic features but has a premium price) and concentrate on making your core product better, these products are not needed and wont be around in 2 years. Unsure of your business model but diversification seems to be making your core offering more expensive and slower to develop. On the upside I do think Phoenix is a great product and I hope to see this grow further given its easy to use nature and fitting replacement for Fume and Real Flow in one package for a lot of things.

Please consider indie licensing or more consistent upgrade pricing or forward communication on roadmap to allow users to see whats coming up. Until then less machines, more cores is the only way to mitigate the upgrade stings.

[PIXELBOX_SRO]

How about making the pricing of the render node reflect the amount of cores. Some people have render nodes only with 12 cores, some with 64 cores. Price per core would make more sense.

[super gnu]

How about making the pricing of the render node reflect the amount of cores. Some people have render nodes only with 12 cores, some with 64 cores. Price per core would make more sense.

no, i dont like this idea! (i just got a new workstation with lots of cores

surely just either a cheaper price for the first 5 nodes, or a lower rendernode upgrade price... something like that.

[francomanko]

It is the medium sized shops that are getting shafted big time by most software vendors right now. All the "indie" or low cost interactive licenses flood the market with users who take away the easy jobs from the veterans. Those easy jobs pay the bills, especially the ever increasing software bills.

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