I’m sure I read somewhere or saw in a YT interview that lifetime licences were only offered because it had to be an option for some markets.
If that’s the case they are going nowhere, the pricing may change though
That wasn’t the reason for Roon Labs offering lifetime. And there’s no guarantee that lifetime subscriptions will continue to be offered; in fact, with the acquisition by Harman, there’s even less reason for them from a business point of view (IMO).
Some of the thinking of Roon Labs about the reasons for lifetime were set out in this post by Danny in November 2019:
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Thanks for the clarification.
I will stay on annual sub, it’s a good deal / price without the gamble of taking out a lifetime licence and gives Roon Labs an income as long as the product is worth it to me.
I have just renewed my annual sub. Even if the acquisition means change its going to take time to implement so hopefully safe for a year.
Things will hopefully be clearer in a years time one way or the other
I would advise go monthly until you are happy then go annual. I would be surprised if lifetime remains an offering for long it doesn’t make business sense IMHO
The same can be said about music.
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I’d go monthly and then in 6 months reconsider lifetime.
In the meantime, the Bitcoin ETFs are likely to be approved in the US in early January leading to a big price run up, so take the funds from lifetime and buy BTC. Kidding, not kidding. Not financial advice.
Not sure how you can claim there is no real advantage to lifetime. Anything after 6-1/2 years from now is an advantage. Yes, that’s far in the future I guess, but there are all kinds of things I can reflect back on 5 or 6 years ago that I would say “I wish I had done…”.
I paid for many months, then switched to lifetime once I heard they were acquired. It’s speculation, but I’d guess the lifetime option will go away… it’s a bad business model honestly. I pay over $50/month for my Adobe subscription because it’s my profession. I can tell you now that Adobe would never in a million years offer a lifetime option. I’ve given that company a ton of my money already… and would still jump on a lifetime purchase if they ever offered it, even at something crazy like $3k. But for them, it’s bad business, and I suspect the same conclusion will happen here with Roon. So I wanted to make sure to get “grandfathered-in” basically. The new company will surely honor those that are.
Here’s the thing… Roon is software and really nothing more. Software will always have ebbs and flows of having new features added. But as ‘software’ it will always be something that is getting worked on. To have this at a one-time fee is pretty great. But again, this is coming from someone like me who pays $50 each month for Adobe.
I feel confident that Roon will only get better, not regardless of its acquisition, but BECAUSE of its acquisition. And in 4 or 5 or 6 years when it’s significantly better than it is now (in theory), that one-time fee will be looking pretty good to reflect back on and know that it’s done and you’re set.
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I’m delighted that you are having so much fun with Roon and trust that the following thoughts will be helpful to you and others trying to decide on annual versus lifetime.
It might helpful to make a declaration of interest. I have a lifetime subscription that I bought 1/2/3 years ago – I honestly can’t remember. That is a significant point. The money has been spent and therefore the exact time of investment no longer matters.
- The first issue is to determine that you will enjoy Roon in the long term. You seem to be there already.
- Next, can you afford $829 without starving, freezing or neglecting important commitments?
- If the answer to both of these is positive, then that leaves little more than a simple investment decision.
- Having come down to a choice between annual and lifetime, the extra cost is actually the difference between the two, currently $679.
- If you choose annual now and lifetime next year, the total cost will be $979. Therefore, if you are eventually going to purchase lifetime, you might as well save $150, while simultaneously eliminating the risk that lifetime could disappear.
- It seems unlikely that Roon will disappear overnight and in the worst case you are likely to 2 to 3 years from your investment. Many would be confident that Roon will continue for at least five.
- If Roon is eventually cut, the powers that be probably won’t turn everything off, just cease updates.
- Finally, if you go with lifetime, you can stop agonising over the decision and avoid being reminded each time you pay an annual subscription (or if the lifetime window is closed) of how much you missed out on.
Taking all of this into account, unless you have a better use for $679, follow my lead and choose lifetime. You almost certainly won’t regret it.
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I agree 100% with you PFBTG Philip!
After already having paid for many months, I found the lifetime to be a very worthy investment considering you’re buying software, which is something that is constantly being updated with the goal of being better. If we reflect back on the history of most any software… it is always being updated to be better (in theory). Sure, there are ebbs and flows and many updates kinda suck, but as a whole, the trajectory has always been upwards.
Sure, it’s a risk as to whether or not Roon will even still be around. But it seems to me that it is only gaining in popularity, and the recent acquisition leads me to believe that big things are in the works for this company. It is almost guaranteed that in a few years the lifetime option will either go away entirely, or be much higher in price. And the monthly and annual fees… you can rest assured those will be higher as well.
I did, sometime ago, took advantage of the roon free trial but i could not find any advantage using roon over using the UI of my streamers which are bluesound node, wiim and squuzebox, in fact i felt that i had more user control using the streamers software.perhaps someone can explain to me the advantages of roon software over other software as it seems to allude me especially at the rather expensive software price and extra hardware that i would need.
The other streamer software doesn’t have Focus, crosslinks between artist credits, ability to edit streaming metadata, version grouping, a concept of compositions and the ability to show different recordings of this composition, DSP, to name a few
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Thank you for the reply and i now have a better understanding of the use of roon and can definitely see why it is a very useful tool for enthusiasts who have a need for that sort of information. I now have a better understanding of why i had no use for it. Its because my needs are rather simple, i just need to be able to access my streaming services and access my many flac files on hdd and if i need to alter metadata can quite happily do it using mp3 tag. I use deezer, qobuz, have 1000 records that i digitised and added metadata, over 1000 cds that i converted to flac all stored on a hdd and some 30000 tracks on another hdd. The two hdd are connected to two bluesound nodes and using the latest bluos update i can now access the hdd on one node from the other node. Works well for me and i always have my ipad in hand if i want to search an artist im listening too.
I’ve been using Roon for 4 years and think it’s brilliant. I stream from Tidal and Qobuz with essentially no local files (47 tracks). I also have Apple Music (free from Verizon) and Audirvana 3.5 lifetime, and used Audirvana Studio for 2 years.
I use Roon 8 to 10 hours per day and would be lost without it. At age 76, Roon is my one and only hobby now. In 4 years, I never had any issues except sluggish Roon ARC at times. ARC is getting better. I’m into Roon for one Nucleus and three lifetime subscriptions with no regrets.
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funny you should mention Photoshop. I think before introduction of all that Creative Cloud nonsense it used to cost around 1k per version. And it makes total sense because there is virtually no ongoing cost associated with existing users (except for support). I wish they continued to offer bare-bones version without any network-related features that can be bought per version as before.
On the other hand it makes very little sense for Roon in its current state. As everything tied to their servers each existing user costs company some money every month and there are no “versions” to charge for upgrades. If Roon had stayed local-first it might have been an interesting option to charge per version for local-only usage and small subscription fee for networking features.
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Dear all, I am reading all of your responses and I am more than pleased! I think I am getting a decent ‘mental model’ based on all of your arguments pointing in various directions!
It is quite obvious that Roon has a strong community and that some of you are devoted (even lost without it)! This, in itself, is a very strong argument in favour of Roon!
I am still digging around in Roon to make up my mind, but I am almost ‘sold’. And if so, I don’t see why I would not go for life… The most difficult thing for me is to pay such money for a (private) software. On the other hand I have never been particularly impressed by other software. Roon has already given me delightful surprises in its features as well as in the finer details and it is clear that some serious thinking was done already from the start… Sure, some things could be better but the pros are much more significant than the cons (for me).
Basically I have already started to look into the next step: setting up a ROCK on a NUC, but I will save my questions for another post (if any questions remain after researching the forum…).
No intention in ending this discussion in any way. Just want to have a peek into the stream of posts and say: thanks to all of you for making the effort in answering my rather wide and maybe slightly unclear question 
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It’s a good thread with arguments both for and against every option
Even those people who get annoyed at Roon (both the company and the software) love Roon and mostly just want it all to work better.
I rarely recommend anyone go lifetime, but I did that myself about 5 days after setting Roon up on my then all Sonos setup. Much money has been spent since those days and having recently retired fairly young I am spending 7 hours plus a day with Roon and I still love how it melds my local Library along with both Tidal and Qobuz.
There are frustrations but then when you look at the competition Roon is easily the best whole house music service out there.
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If you’re speaking about Adobe, they still have Photoshop Elements. $99 one time licence fee and cheap upgrades. (On sale for $75 at the moment.) It’s suitable for most people. They also have Premier Elements for video, and a bundle with both that’s an even better deal if you need it.
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Photoshop when sold by itself was several hundred dollars. The Adobe Master collection (of all the software was over 1k).
you made me google it 
According to The Verge in 2012 Photoshop CS6 Standard was selling for $699, Extended for $999 and Master Collection was $2500.
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There is a learning curve for Roon, and it takes a little while to get used to it, but I think it is terrific. I do not think the there is any reason to add Tidal or Qobuz. I used Jriver for a long time, but in my opinion, it is not remotely close to Roon. To make a long story short, I would purchase a lifetime subscription if that did not impose too much of a financial burden.