A post was split to a new topic: New pricing structure?
I was an early adopter as well and purchased a lifetime subscription which I have now paid back compared to yearly. Roon has been a huge boon to my music enjoyment, couple that with HQPlayer integration, the best music upsampling program out there and integration with Tidal or Qobuz it is simply a no brainer. Annual at $119 is very reasonable and lifetime at $699 is as well if you are a music loving fool who spends many hours per month listening to music.
Danny’s right, lifetime is not a model for long term success, it has to go away or raise it’s price continually to make it worthwhile for them to offer it. If you are in music for life and under 60 years old lifetime is a no brainer, so is annual renewal. Sure I don’t like when my renewal bill comes for Amazon Prime or Costco but I pay and then forget and enjoy the benefits through the year. Roon’s not perfect but it is the best most useful music player out there. Good job!!
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I have been a Roon lifetime subscriber for a few years now. I absolutely love the software and believe it is the finest music software product available on the planet!
Honestly I have been very surprised that Roon had not eliminated the lifetime subscription before. I expected it to happen a couple years ago.
I hear (and read) people complaining about Roon pricing in forums, etc., and have always expressed my view that it is the best and believe it is a value. Yes my lifetime subscription was a good chunk of change at the time, but I consider it one of the best audio investments that I have made.
I see how much people pay for subscriptions for other services and am surprised that they complain at the price. I also understand that some people may complain that $119 is a lot to pay at one time for a yearly subscription. I might suggest Roon considering a month sub for these people. Maybe $12.99 or $14.99 a month. Some people might find this easier and it will help Roon’s bottom line, in my view.
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Just started < 30 days ago, and will take advantage of old lifetime price. Emailed a few moments ago, hopefully makes it’s way through.
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Roon’s launch, for me, was very much like an MMO launch in terms of pricing. And that has worked out for me, in every case except one. So jumping onto Roon Lifetime was a no-brainer from the get-go.
Roon could have gone with micro-transactions or base software + add-ons; but those systems cost more in build time, testing time, billing and collection, and support. All-in yearly sub is the easiest to get off the ground.
Monthly billing is probably a larger support staff investment or more investment if you have to out-source the function.
Thank you for honoring for trial members! I had just started testing it. Just sent an email, anything we should include in the email?
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Thanks for the great explanation. Coming to the end of my first year on annual and loving the product. Problem for me is it’s now 1,000 Canadian pesos for lifetime. Ouch.
There are very few decisions I’ve regretted less than getting an annual subscription to this wonderful product. I’m glad you have a business model almost guarantees Roon will see me out.
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Yes. This thread should be the death of that thread. They’re very clearly stating/showing that they don’t WANT (and certainly don’t need) a great big pile of “candy” in order to stay alive… if they were desperate/dying they’d still be willing to rot their teeth to stay afloat. There was/is an opportunity here to have a Halloween Night’s haul worth of candy… and they don’t want it. Don’t need it.
There wants and needs are long-term now, not short-term. That’s not the way a company that’s “dying” thinks…
This is good news. I love Roon.
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Ugh… I’ve been an annual member for 4 years.
For two of those years I was waiting for Bluesound to get Roon Ready.
My "I’ll convert to lifetime, when… " decision was entirely linked to the availability of more than one streaming service. I wanted to be sure that my “virtual” library in Roon would be portable from service to service (since my physical music purchases are vinyl). That happened with the addition of Qobuz, just this year.
In the meantime, my main rig was streamed by a Node 2i, which is still not working with Roon even though it is “RoonReady” and I purchased it on that basis only a month ago… only to find that claim false in this instance.
I understand the rationale from Roon’s perspective… but it is completely from Roon’s perspective and its tough not to feel a bit offended given I’ve been giving Roon 4 years of “healthy food” while they worked out the kinks in the ecosystem.
I’m sure from where Roon sits, they aren’t responsible for the ecosystem. That’s fair from Roon’s perspective.
From my perspective, the value of Roon was tying together that ecosystem so that it can be my “final” music library browser that actually integrates with my streaming services and gear.
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Whilst I understand the business model and the development time, I’d much sooner ‘own’ the software I use but I’m struggling to justify even a $500 outlay all at once (my wife would KILL me if I did). I’m also struggling with renting software (I do it as a professional photographer with Adobe). I own all my hardware, I own all the tracks I want to play, but need to rent the means to play them. However having tried all the alternatives I’ve not found anything as intuitive as Roon. So rock and hard place and my trial ends soon. Decisions…
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The explanation provided by Roon makes perfect sense for Roon. And it makes sense for the prices to apply to new customers. To me, not giving existing annual customers a brief window of opportunity to complete the original annual agreement of $119 with the opportunity of a prorated Lifetime upgrade of $499 is simply not fair to loyal existing customers.
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I agree $699 is certainly in the “ouch” arena, but you can fill the house with $30 raspberry pi’s, a NUC, and a Roon lifetime, and still have change compared to a decent cd transport or turntable.
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I wonder what happens to lifetime subscribers in lets say 5 years from the moment Roon has stopped lifetime subscriptions? Are they still able to use the service for “free” or will there be a moment when they will be charged extra for additional service upgrades?
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Badass move 
So glad I went for lifetime back in 2015 
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I purchased my year subsription only a month ago after a long break, and I’m fine paying 120$ for the next years, I only hope that the price don’t raise too fast after the lifetime price dissapears.
That really was an insightful and reasonable explanation, of something that would normally be experienced in a negative way :).
Well done !
However. I now really start to feel like a nasty bastard… What the h%ll was I thinking, and who the f$ck am I to keep Roon from their annual revenue ?
(Sorry for cursing). Calculating in the ‘good’ usd->eur exchange rates on my date of purchase : I would be paying >> 150% right now, than I did back then…
If ever you need a little extra, please provide us a way to donate. I would surely do, without ‘demanding’ anything in return. You, the team of Roon, have simply proven me to deserve it.
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Read the las part: “ We will eventually eliminate the lifetime entirely .”
Not yet it hasn’t, but no guarantee that it won’t. Just like Microsoft offers both a subscription model for current and future releases of Office, and a one-time license fee for a given release of Office. However, both Microsoft and Roon Labs could easily follow the example of Adobe and switch entirely to the subscription model, for all the completely understandable reasons that Danny gave earlier