Personally, I’m surprised the Lifetime option hasn’t been dropped yet.
There are ways to look at pricing that aren’t percentage.
You can also look at it as absolute numerical dollar value, or you can look at it aesthetically, or you can do it relative to competition or the market, or you can do it based on cost-of-goods, etc.
In this case, % was not a major consideration.
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I agree. If this wasn’t the case, we would have gone to $999.
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Does that mean that a more favourable EU/UK exchange rate will be a driver for another increase, maybe sooner than you would do otherwise?
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It’s only US$30 more if you pay annually, US$24 if you pay monthly. Of course, if you’re tapped out, it doesn’t really matter how much it is.
I do wish Roon would offer a second subscription for 1/2 price of US$74.99 per year. Then I would not need Audirvana (except for internet outage).
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Got it, thank you. Do not want to belabor the point but I feel the differences in increases incentivize different behaviors. It may on my end.
My other question, if you find it worthy of discussing here:
Last time around when the price increased happened (there was TONS of drama, as you know) I recall (hopefully correctly) there was discussion around the idea that as a company you/Roon preferred monthly/yearly memberships to lifetime memberships. With the larger increase in yearly memberships, I feel incentivized to move to a lifetime, although I have some time to make that decision… I probably should have done it one of the past 2-3 years, but I was being a lazy consumer that was fine on auto pilot. Do you/Roon have a stance on what is better for the future/long-term viability of the platform that you are comfortable sharing, in regards to lifetime memberships vs paying monthly/yearly?
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Monthly billing gives us the most revenue but yearly billing tends to be the best/happiest/most-successful customers.
Lifetimes were and still are junk food, but the numbers for the lifetimes are low enough nowadays that it’s ok no matter what you do. If you want to go life, go life. Do what’s best for you. We will continue to keep improving Roon. Really cool stuff in the works for 2023.
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Funny and I’m not offended.
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That’s about an explanation I gave years ago, when we first raised prices on just the lifetime. I’ll PM you as to not derail this thread.
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Even with the larger percent increase of the monthly option, I bet for many the few extra dollars a month is a much easier pill to swallow than $830 all at once.
Precisely true, and better for Roon financially in the long run. Both at the same time. See junk food reference above, just that junk food is now getting really expensive.
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I upgraded to lifetime from a yearly subscription that I started in April this past year. While the price is a bit hard to stomach, I’ve spent far more on audio gear this year. Roon has arguably provided more worth than all those given how many artists that I wouldn’t have otherwise found with the metadata and suggestions. Scrolling music forums is a timesink I can’t really commit to as I rather just listen to the music and judge for myself in one platform.
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I can’t see myself ever getting lifetime. If the cost were closer to PlexPass then it would be a no brainer but at 699 and soon to be 829 I hate the idea of being locked into a service, especially something like Roon that is constantly evolving. It’s a huge investment and effectively locks you in if something major with Roon changes in the future or if a new service comes along. It’s both bad for the consumer and bad for Roon. I feel a tiny bit of FOMO with the price increase but the idea of being locked in to a service at such a high investment stops me from jumping to lifetime.
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I think what got lost in this thread is the mention of additional streaming services being added next year. That’s a big announcement. Doubt it will be Apple or Spotify. I could see it being Deezer and possibly Amazon. Nice to have more options.
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It will be Deezer.
I didn’t realize this but it’s worth noting, Roon hasn’t raised the annual price ever it seems. I found multiple articles stating the price was $119 a year as of 2015. A 30 dollar increase after 8 years really isn’t such a big deal in the grand scheme of things. @danny can you confirm this? All I can find are posts about raising the lifetime price from $499 to $699 but not the annual. If this is the first ever increase I think this is pretty reasonable.
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That’s correct. We have not increased the annual price since we launched in May 2015.
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I feel like this should be stated in the announcement. I think a lot of people would be more accepting of the increase if this were more well known. With global inflation, I’m sure your operating overhead is much higher than it was in 2015. The fact that the price has stayed at $119 for 8 years should be commended when so many other services have steadily increased prices. A $30 increase is much more palatable with this context added. My cup of coffee at Starbucks costs more than the month to month increase on the annual plan. At first I was a little upset but with this added perspective this really isn’t such a big deal. Thank you for being transparent.
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