Is it a miniature candy bar? (Plug-in prices)

[Sundown]

Hey all,

 

I have a hypothesis about chocolate…

 

If you put full-sized candy bars in a bowl, most people will walk right past. They have the self-control to say no, or they just aren’t interested in an entire candy bar.

 

But if you fill that same bowl with miniature candy bars (the kind handed out at Halloween), not only will people eat them, they will eat more than they would if it was just a single full-sized bar. Sometimes much more …

 

When I see the prices charged for some plug-ins, I wonder if it’s the same effect. I own *a lot* of Waves plugins. And most of them were purchased for somewhere between $19 and $35 over a long period of time. When I first started, I paid at least $200-300 for the Native Powerpack and The Renaissance Collection (each), and those bundles weren’t nearly as good as the Waves plugins available now.

 

Similarly, I’m a sucker for the annual holiday sales. I own *a lot* of UA plugins, and many of them were purchased during holiday binges. It’s hard to say no to $99 on a plugin that costs $299 throughout the year. 

 

Both companies have been around for a while and I hope they are on good financial footing, but I wonder how they can afford to sell plugins so cheap, when the R&D and proprietary coding must take a long, long, long time to develop and fine-tune.

 

Thoughts?

 

Todd

 

 

 

 

[bill5]

8 minutes ago, Sundown said:

I wonder how they can afford to sell plugins so cheap

I think you answered your own question.   And yeah, those "bite-sized" candy bars are deceptively dangerous!

[Sundown]

49 minutes ago, bill5 said:

I think you answered your own question.  

 

Well, let’s put it this way … When I renew my annual Waves coverage, I’m paying the plan maximum (about $240)… If they counted my plugins it would be higher.

 

Todd

[Anderton]

Waves and UA have both been around for decades, so people trust their products (and with good reason). They also both sell hardware - interfaces for UA, SoundGrid for Waves. Another consideration with plugins is they sell a lot of vintage emulations. By definition, those are going to have looooong legs in the marketplace. Waves won't be selling a "New! Fairchild 670S! Now with solid-state, tnrasformerless sound!" So, they can amortize the expenses they put into a vintage plugin over a long time. After a while, they just need to make sure that the plugins are compatible with current hosts and plugin formats.

 

So...Waves can do bite-size chocolates except for some of the super-pro items, like the Clarity VX Pro noise reduction ($250) and pro de-reverber ($150). It's going to take a while to amortize the R&D they must have put into those suckers. 

 

Harkening back to your other thread about gift cards, UA gives the people what they want. Subscription? Sure. Native? Sure. Perpetual license? Sure. Bundled with hardware? Sure. License good for whatever UA stuff you want to use on your machine? Sure. And like Waves, the stuff sounds good, too  

[o0Ampy0o]

But the UA gift card or the mini UA candy bar? No.

[Anderton]

1 hour ago, o0Ampy0o said:

But the UA gift card or the mini UA candy bar? No.

 

He's not talking about a literal candy bar, more about the impulse item aspect.

[o0Ampy0o]

2 hours ago, Anderton said:

 

He's not talking about a literal candy bar, more about the impulse item aspect.

 

Yeah it was an analogy but UA produces good products and they would likely make a good mini candy bar. As a people a good mini chocolate bar is what I want. 😄

[Anderton]

Throw some peppermint in there for the holiday season, and I'm all in.

[KuruPrionz]

On 11/18/2023 at 6:58 PM, Sundown said:

Both companies have been around for a while and I hope they are on good financial footing, but I wonder how they can afford to sell plugins so cheap, when the R&D and proprietary coding must take a long, long, long time to develop and fine-tune.

Bear in mind that R&D and proprietary coding get done once and will become easier the more they are developed since they've created a foundation to build on. If a company sells enough of a plugin at it's standard retail price, once the R&D and proprietary coding is paid for, there is profit. If sales slow down, the logical approach is to lower the price. If most companies selling plugins have specials on holidays and one chooses not to they will lose sales as the money is spent elsewhere. 

 

There is much competition for "bread and butter" plugins like EQ, ambience, modulation and compression. If your prices are high, a competitor can out-sell you by offering a similar quality product at a lower price.

 

It is dog eat dog and patient consumers will be rewarded with steep discounts.