I'd like to suggest that you run a "Great Perpetual License" blowout sale since these licenses are soon to be extinct. Say, "Perpetual Licenses for $99!" or something like that.

Just a suggestion... This would take the sting out of the new license price increases. I found out yesterday that you no longer offer discounted licenses for those that hold 2 or more licenses. I'm going to be in need of another license in 6 months and I had figured it would cost me $40/year like my old yearly license did. That apparently is no longer the case. You need to hold 5 or more licenses to get any kind of discount (yikes!). Now, it looks like I need to pony up $149 (if I wait until I actually need the license) and will be on the hook for $50 more each year or I lose the ability to upgrade that copy of IPB.

This is a bit of a shock!

So, I'm asking that you give us a shot at getting a discounted Perpetual License before they go away. I do not require support, but I do require upgrades (mostly to make sure the board software stays as secure as possible against attack - like the new security features of 2.2 do). This would cause me to buy a Perpetual License even though it is in advance for a project that may or may not ever get off the ground so you would take in some added cash now.

I would buy a Yearly license now for the license I need in 6 months (at $69) as this will convert to a $50/year license, but as I found out yesterday, there is no guarantee that you won't raise the annual fee for getting upgrades again to whatever you think you can get out of me. At least with a Perpetual license, I would have upgrades without facing some increased cost down the road.

Anyway, I'm still a bit shell shocked over the price increase announcement and the Perpetual license option going away.

I'm buying a perpetual license now, period.

But if they do what you described, I'll buy two!

Certainly, any time you offer a sale on a product such as IPB, you will get lots of people that weren't planning on buying making an impulse buy.

Frankly, the announcement of the price increases/elimination of Perpetual licenses, also has the same effect. People like you and me that weren't going to purchase anytime soon are motivated to spend money now to take advantage of the old prices before they go extinct.

I upgraded my Yearly license yesterday to a Perpetual license just because of this move by IPS. I didn't want to be held hostage for future years in getting the right to upgrade my copy (as I said, the pricing change yesterday made me realize that IPS could raise the fees on upgrades at any time for the Standard licenses like they just did by converting Yearly to Standard without a choice to remain the same).

Anyway, even though I think that if IPS held a sale on Perpetual licenses, they would take in more overall money than if they didn't, the motivation for a sale should be to take the sting out of the future price increases. As it is, they have just told us that pricing is overall going up and that our options are to buy off the existing price list "for a limited time". A sale would feel much better and in the long run, IPS would get their price increase.

I second this offer. Or a sale of 3 for $100 would be even better.

It annoys me most that they're getting rid of the 2 or more license discount, that was rather useful. I agree, a sale is a good idea. Personally I this kind of an increase is a bit dramatic, the current pricing scheme seems fair to me and works well for me and the people I know who are also using IPB.

I have a strange feeling that the reason they upped the amount for getting the discount, is that people were abusing it. Buying a licence for $40 and selling for slightly more.

It's a shame if people have been doing that, I found it was a very helpful thing to have; it was one less thing to worry about anyway, not having to fork out $70 but only $40.

I had no idea IPS would do something like this, as I had planned to purchase another license when I can afford one (most probably Feb. time) but the price increase is phenominal. To be honest it's the kind of thing that prices people running hobby board out of the market.

They could have easily taking care of that problem by just imposing a $29 transfer fee for transfering a discounted license to a third party. Full price licenses could be transferred for free. Problem solved.

By the way, for people who already ahve licenses, you shouldn't complain anyway.

Because:

1. The 6 month terms actually means you probably only need to pay $25 per year to get the important upgrades, maybe the whole $50 some years, just depending how often releases come out.
2. That is cheaper than $70
3. You can still buy perpetuals right now.


So long story short, nobody is losing a thing unless they pay after the deadline THEN it is more expensive.

Invision Power Board Perpetual License
This will give you a perpetual license to use Invision Power Board for one installation and access to all future versions. One year of support and related services is included. After one year an optional $30 renewal for support and related services is available.

I thought with the Perpetual license...all future upgrades are free. It's the support that you need to renew for. At least that's how I thought it read....Am I wrong in my understanding??? Unless one installation is for whatever version they are on now...and then when an upgrade comes out...does that count as another installation and that's how you're caught in the loophole? Ack....I am confused! Yeah, I know this is why they're changing the names and pricing because of the confusion.

Is this true? There was no statement in the announcement that said that if you let the 6 months support/upgrade period lapse that you could renew it at any time later and not have to pay the missed time periods.

I've owned lots of software that was sold with a perpetual license fee with annual maintenance fee and any time the maintenance fee was allowed to lapse, you needed to catch up on the missing fee amounts in order to reinstate maintenance.

If IPS wanted it to work like you say, they would just have an added upgrade fee option on any release (say, upgrade to 2.2 for $29). Otherwise, everyone would just wait until they needed support or to do an upgrade. Why would anyone prepay?

I just assumed you could always renew it, even if you skipped one. I am pretty sure you can. They surely would not make you pay hundreds for a new license.

You are correct about Perpetual licenses, but IPS will no longer offer this licensing choice when 2.2 comes out. So, you are covered now for future upgrades, but if you need to purchase another license after the new pricing policy goes into place, you no longer get upgrades for free. You must pay a fee every 6 months to keep that option even if you don't need any support.

Basically, they have eliminated Perpetual licenses and raised the price (significantly!) of a Yearly license and slightly lowered the renewal fees that you would have paid under the old Yearly license fee. They want to get more money up front while still retaining the ability to generate ongoing revenue from renewals.

It's a price increase. It happens when the popularity of a product wanes so that they need more revenue per user than when it was growing. Not sure if this is the motivation here (I, for one, think the main competition is kicking butt), but it is usually the case.

I wouldn't hold your breath witht e license blowout.

Unless they state you can skip the maintenance fee and pick it back up at a later time without paying the back fees, I think you might be surprised in a few years when you go to upgrade your old license with expired support to 3.0.

I have been selling software and coming up with licensing terms for well over 20 years and a sale at this time would be the best move for IPS. Whether they decide to do it or not is another question...

Okay. I went ahead and bought another Perpetual license today. I guess IPS got what they wanted from me. Made me buy a high cost license that I won't need for a while since I can't take the risk that they will change the Annual licenses again to increase the cost.

Well. That certainly was $300 I hadn't expected to fork over this week (upgrade a Yearly to Perpetual and purchase a new Perpetual). Still would have taken the sting out a bit if they had offered a discount on the Perpetual. I should have bought these back when they were $140...

Oh! I hope they take all our money and hire more programmers to work on IPB. The feature upgrades have been fairly slow over the past 2 years since I bought the first 2.0 version.

Oh believe me, sales are few and far between. I was one of the rare few who got Lifetime licenses just before they vanished off the face of the earth. There was no sale there either (though ironically, my Lifetime was upgraded from a discounted Yearly - I'm feeling so lucky I made that call then!)

I don't get why holding a sale for the perpetual license would benefit Invision. They make a lot more profit from someone who pays $150 + $50/yr for the new standard license than from someone who pays $185 for a perpetual license, so why would they try to get more people to buy it?
There's a good reason they're phasing it out...

145$

What a confusing thread - it's like going into your local supermarket and suggesting they hold a sale whereby you get everything for half price, sounds great, but the chances of them doing it is about 0%

I have to say it's a bit of money, but it will help push future development for 3.0!

I'm buying a perpetual licence.

Well for myself I am NOT buying it. I already have purchased 2 licenses when I got 2.1.4 and it was promised then that ALL future updates would be free, but support would run out after one year.

Invision needs to keep their promises, simple as that. If I decide to buy another license, then that should simply be like buying the software all anew.

As to reselling a license... rather than deter present and potential customers, they can simply eliminate it. I don't buy a sandwich, eat part of it and sell the rest... Or if they do allow reselling of it, then simply add a re-licensing fee.

Besides, I keep with IPB in hopes that Dean will turn IPB into what it should have been before he had to make all the mods that brings it almost up to the levels of much cheaper competition (at todays prices and not the new "send all the IPB corporation on world cruise vacations").

Invision will have to recognize that todays economy is getting worse! Everyone must tighten their belts and make do with less income. I personally took a $3 an hour pay cut recently. IPB should be LOWERING their prices to stay in competition, not raising them.

Not sure what you are referring to. As have been repeated quite a bit - if you already have a license your terms are not changing.

All the word I am getting in PM's and emails right now even, from all the sites I recommended IPB to, is that they hear they need to buy a perpetual license, as they won't be allowed to get upgrades... All that I have read in the forums here, many many customers also understand this to be the new standard.



(hehe.. can't find the quote icon in this version..thank goodness regular good old faithful manual bbcode works )

Why would someone not be allowed to get upgrades? Sorry... I'm still a bit confused as to where you're getting that from

if you have a yearly license once it expires you wouldnt be able to get upgrades, unless you renewed

But that's the same with the licenses now I am not sure why the poster would be confused on that point.

who knows, with new versions you have to expect price increases, its just a way of life

Oh I understand the reaction to pricing changes. There will always be some that don't care, some that are not happy, and some that thing it's a good idea. We purposely announced the pricing change very early so we had time to answer questions

More often than not you always get a good percentage that react without really looking at the whole picture. Then there are the people who, no matter what, you just can't please

But in the end current customers with Lifetime and Perpetual are not impacted. Current customers on Yearly are not impacted until their Yearly runs out. So if you bought a Yearly today then you have a full 365 days before you even need to care

im in the process of getting money to get my yearly upgraded to perpetual, ty for giving us that option

At least they didn't do to you what they did to me. They flat told me in a ticket I could upgrade my expired lciense for the $115.05 and now they just say they amde a mistake and won't do it for me when it is right there in black and white that iw as told I could do it. So i don't know what I am going to do now. I think if another company did that they would have to stand by what they said in support.

I'm pulling my hair out, and I don't even work for IPS!

If you purchased 2.1.x licenses then your terms remain the same. Perpetuals are as you described; nothing has changed, they simply won't be offering the perpetual license to NEW customers after 2.2 goes final. Yearly licenses allow you to run the software forever, but upgrading privileges cease after the license expires, as always. IPS, however, is converting yearly licenses to the new Standard license. This will allow you to have support + upgrades for $25 every six months--a savings over buying another license each year.Show us where they've broken a promise?

I don't see how you figure this?

You think the economy is only getting worse for you and not for IPS? They are in business to make a profit, not because they are altruists. Just like Mercedes produces cars for clients wanting the best, IPS produces a community suite of products aimed at those who want the best of breed online community software. They never promised, "hey, we'll always be the cheapest!" or anything of that nature, so I don't see where you get the "broken promises" argument.

IMO, switching to a competing product at this juncture would be silly. You have the license now, and it is free to continue using and (even upgrading, depending on license type). What's the problem?

My above post is an example of a promise being broken basically. Plus their past statement that it would always reain free.

Whatever the case, I just hope it doesn't affect the modding community and affect the number of skinners and modders out there right now. If it doesn't, then hey, Im cool with that. I really hope someone, or IPS can take my suggestion into heavy account. It really opens a whole ton of new possibilites and I do not think it should be too complicated for the experts at IPS to do:

http://forums.invisionpower.com/index.php?showtopic=227235

I'm afraid I'd have to disagree. You weren't promised the upgrade at that cost, you were misquoted a price. Why would it be fair for only you to have that particular exploit awarded in your favor? The next thing is everyone would argue that since you got the upgrade at a reduced price, then they should, too (which would seem fair). I don't think IPS should have to do such a thing all because one representative made a mistake. We all make mistakes. In any case, this isn't a "broken promise" as it was not some kind of official company announcement. It was simply the goof of a single person within the company.

I think what mgalyen was trying to get at was that he's always been under the impression he will be able to upgrade his forums freely without the need for a renewed licence once it runs out.

Price increases of course have to be justified, and they obviously are - you're paying for what is now a better product than previously. Not to mention that all businesses have to pass on their own operating costs which increase every year in one shape or form (tax, bills, additional staff etc).

As for "always rein free", there was never a "promise" made, the product and company expanded so much it was becoming increasingly harder to maintain costs for servers and good levels of support. How can you really expect that from a product such as this which Matt, Charles and the rest of their workforce has work so vigilantly on and dedicated their lives to over the past 4/5 years? They deserve every penny.

Charles - I know you are giving people warning before price changes are put in place, are you planning on issuing a date for the described changes?

Which if he has a perpetual or lifetime license - he will. Those license holders see no change in service.

With yearly license holders - upgrades always stopped after one year, unless renewed.

Nothing has changed in that affect.

Before we set a date, each customer that will be impacted (Yearly license holders) will be emailed directly with a message specific to their situation. We want to take the dates and items that impact a person individually and let them know what to expect.



I just looked up your ticket and you were indeed told incorrectly and later corrected on that. I do apologize for that confusion.

So Charles, gonna offer any special discounts for mutliple purcahses? A sale or something?

Let's say my Yearly license expired in 2003...

Did you happen to twirl around three times and purchase on a Tuesday evening when it was raining?

I hear that if that's the case, it will be upgraded to an Enterprise. So yes.

We're busted again!

I ended up renewing my yearly license today... well, I bought a new one, I coudln't figure out how to just renew it since it expired in February.

Maybe, depending on how much my paycheck will be next week, I'll upgrade it to perpetual before the first.

My only concern here is this.... With the Standard license - we're going to be paying *double* what we currently pay for a yearly license with only *half* the license duration?

Isn't that a bit much for a price change? I could see keeping it the SAME price for only 6 months, or making it maybe 100 or so for a year...

but to double the cost and cut the duration in half all at the same time?

It just seems a bit extreme to me.

I think you have your math wrong.

Currently you pay $69.95 per year.

With the change you'll be paying $25 every 6 months ($50 per year).

Unless you have 3 or more licenses it is only 40 a year........... nice thing being taken away.

A nice thing that was often used in ways it shouldn't have.

Let's not get into a debate on the abuse of the old discounted license system

What happens if after my license expires - and I don't have the need to renew right away, if there aren't any upgrades or whatnot, or maybe if my forums are going slow, etc and i'm not worried about the support/etc?

Then - four or five months after my license is expired, am i still going to only be paying the $25.00 to renew? Or am I going to have to start all over with an entirely new license?

And Charles - I didn't do my math wrong.... with the new system, new customers (or existing customers that need another license) are going to be spitting out $175.00 the first year. Sure, after that it's only $50.00 a year, instead of $70.... but what is the benefit of "saving" $20.00 per year for years 2+ if you're spending $105.00 more the first year?

I'm not really complaining - because I'm not going anywhere... I'm just trying to see the logic in the price increase. I understand that this will be better for IPB as a business, just because it will mean making more money in the long run - but how is this justifyable to customers?