If we’re talking about doing the math, then your 5 year analysis would be a reason to buy lifetime, not against buying it. You have it backwards.
It becomes worth it as soon as you break even around 4.5 years. After that you’re fooling yourself with an emotional argument if you think monthly/yearly is somehow better just because it’s a long period of time. It’s factually spending more money if you pay for the product more than 4.5 years.
I’ve had roon for three years now and I know I’ll have it for many more. In that situation, I should have bought lifetime as soon as I was confident I was going to use it for the long term, regardless of the price. In fact, I should buy lifetime now because of that, I’m just lazy.
I’m looking at solar right now, which is a much larger investment with a 5-6 year payback period. I’m still doing it, because I know we’ll be in this home for 10+ years, and therefore it makes sense. It’s not an emotional decision—I did the math.
A much better argument against is that you’re not confident Roon is the platform to use for 5+ years. If you think something better will emerge, or you’ll stop using it for one reason or another, then it wouldn’t be worth an upfront commitment. But as soon as you’re confident you’re going to pay for it for 4.5 years or more in the future, you should purchase a lifetime subscription. Period.
Where do you reside? I’ve had Solar PV for twelve years. I’m in the black at this point. California PUC and the utility Net Metering Programs change with respect to regulation, time of use plans, and terms. I was bounced off my grandfathered TOU plan last year. My annual power now costs me around $900 per year versus roughly breaking even in past years. Battery storage is probably a consideration in a newly installed system.
@Dean_Johnson , the problem with all these calculations are the fixed interval used to calculate: “using 5 years”. Why 5 years? Why not 2 years? Or 7 years?
The calculation has to be dynamic, and will change with changing prices. Let’s say Roon upped the Annual Subscription cost from $120.00 to $199.00.
$699 / $120 = 5.82 years to break even
$699 / $199 = 3.51 years to break even
OR Roon raises the Lifetime Subscription cost from $699.00 to $999.00
$999 / $120 = 8.32 years to break even
$999 / $199 = 5.02 years to break even
This is how I prefer to calculate the value, or “break even” point. Once the Annual Subscription cost has met the Lifetime Subscription cost, you “break even”. My best to you.
Agreed. Then, of course, there’s the time value of money where you discount the future value of the monthly or annual subscription at an interest rate that is meaningful to you… But let’s not go there.
Why 5 years? I, for one, intend to be around for longer, and I relax with music every evening. I purchased my life subscription a couple of years ago, and it made totally sense then, and does so even at the current price point. 699 divided by 10 is 69 a year, which is 18 cents a day! Divide by 20 years and it is 9 cents a day! For that, one gets seamless integration with two hi-res sources, amazing EQ capabilities and much else!
I thank Roon literally every night, and am happy to do anything to ensure that they survive and thrive.
Roon cannot reach its potential without a high quality core, subscription to a decent service, and/or a decent music collection, which means more $$. Some of us added high end servers & streamers to the mix. All items noted above are subject to updgade, update, or obsolescence. Time spent listening to one’s favourite music is the actual investment because time is non-refundable!
I’m glad to support Roon annually even bearing in mind something better might come along. However recently I had a support issue and it took weeks before I got a simple acknowledgement. At that point I was glad I still had the option to terminate my subscription.
The last post of yours that I can see in #support is from Jan 8 and was a Chromecast issue that you fixed on Jan 9.
In any case, terminating the subscription means having no Roon at all, certainly that’s worse than a bug. Of course, if the bug means not being able to use Roon for weeks, then this is bad. However, personally I would never give up on Roon, so terminating would not help me if I could (as a lifer)
I purchased the lifetime subscription for $500.00 and I’m happy I did. I don’t recall how many years ago that was, but I was confident that Roon would be around for it to be worth the cost. So far so good.
Yesterday, after checking the Euro / Dollar exchange rate forecasts for the next few months, I signed up for the lifetime subscription. I have been using Roon / Qobuz for a year with great satisfaction, I mainly listen to jazz, classical, progressive music: the sound quality and the service offered are really excellent (my audio chain includes: Server Nucleus - Switch / Streamer / DAC SoTM - Tube amplifier Jadis - Pontos AQ Speakers / Stax SR-L700 MK2 Headphones. I subscribed to it because I believe (I hope) to be able to use it for several years and I hope that the Qobuz service will always remain active on Roon.
I had an issue called Backups which I opened in April this year. Weeks went by before #Support responded. During this time my own library was inaccessible and I seriously considered cancelling my subscription. Finally I got help and the issue was closed in June. I’m a happy but wary user.
Interesting, for some reason this post doesn’t appear in search. Anyway, it sucks if support takes too long to answer, but as a lifer we wish to use Roon forever, so quitting wouldn’t help and we are not really paying for the time we can’t use Roon, so getting the issue resolved is the only good option
Yes, done the math - broke even back in 2020
I was paying annually once charging was applied with Roon 1.0 after the initial Beta program finished, but Roon was not part of my playback path then, so was only on my Laptop for Music Library Management.
With the release of ROCK in 2017, and a UPnP Bridge to my Naim NDS Network player controlled by an iPad Mini, it was better than a UPnP Server and Naim’s own iOS App went onto a Lifetime subscription.
Given the level of investment in hardware, the cost of the software that you touch to facilitate playback, manage your library on an iPad or Laptop/PC, and the ability have a complete heterogeneous mixed hardware playback environment that works, Roon is good value for money.
The difference between a 5 year lifetime subscription and the monthly payments is not significant.
However the main reason is to consider how long you will keep it.
Mine is now over 6 years, and I pay nothing anymore. Another 6 years and I’ve saved $600…
Their business model would surely prefer ongoing subscriptions. I would imagine that the lifetime payment will rise significantly in the future.
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AceRimmer
(Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!)
159
Perhaps it’s just because I’m retired and getting older by the day, but, to me, the biggest advantage of having a lifetime license is so that i can just enjoy the music and not feel the need to periodically evaluate alternatives to see if Roon is still the best bang for the buck.
I also remember Microsoft. A company that has grown and changed with the times (from selling its wares on a CD to owning the Cloud + SaaS space.)
It is unlikely that someone comes along and knocks Roon off the pedestal.
Why?
Developers. A lot of us now know (and love) the codebase to implement RAAT in our devices. Most other tools have been garbage. (Try to send commands to MPD)
Manufacturers. There are a boat-ton of companies making Roon Ready devices. Who is going to get that kind of momentum?
Cash flow. The “audiophile” is a dying breed. To develop something as good (fast, low bug, usable, etc.) and feature complete as Roon would take a large investment. And then what, hope tens of thousands of people sign up for $12.00 / month?
Both Plex and LMS, for example, support RPi-based endpoints. Not only are those cheap, you can use any USB DAC supported by ALSA with them - i.e. basically all USB DACs. I personally don’t see the benefit of Roon Ready devices. (If I’m missing something that Roon Ready does that I don’t know about, I guess I’m not missing anything )
Also, isn’t the “dying” audiophile breed the main audience of Roon? Many people who got a lifetime subscription seem to have done that because paying a few hundred USD is a small price compared to what they paid for their audio gear. That smells audiophile to me.
Finally, the fact that Roon only supports Qobuz and Tidal, both of which offer hi-res, doesn’t help attract non-audiophile listeners who don’t care about hi-res and are most probably on Spotify or YouTube music.
and we are not really paying for the time we can’t use Roon, so getting the issue resolved is the only good option