Discussion benefits everyone

First, thanks a lot for all your responses, suggestions, opinions & messages  – good spirited and even not-that-positive ones. They both count as they show us different views. Since some points we made in the original article were not clear, there was some confusion and questions we want now to clear out.
This follow up article tries to explain some points better and answer you all questions where we know the answer (there are some questions where we ourselves do not have the answer yet, however our intentions and visions are crystal clear).

Also we have decided to change couple of things based on your suggestions. We try to be as fair and transparent as possible.

I have decided to write this blog post in Q&A fashion. Most of the questions were raised by you. Also some facts and topics we did not cover in the first article are published in this one.

Make yourself a tea or coffee and enjoy the long blog post.

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But just in case, that you do not have that much time, you can find quick summary below. But I strongly recommend you to read the whole article.

QUICK RECAP

Previous article about Prices & Release date of 3dsmax version.

SaaS

• Unlimited access to all major, monthly, and daily experimental builds.
• Costs 24.99€/month (19.99€ for first year with our initial promo discount)
• 1 floating workstation license (usable also as render node) + 3 floating render nodes
• Paid monthly, with voluntary option to pre-pay 1 year
• Cancel at any time without any charge
• NEW: we added SaaS versions with 5 render nodes instead of 3 (29.99€/month), and 10 render nodes instead of 3 (45.99€/month)

Box

• Forever access the version 1.0
• Costs 449€/ paid once (349€ with our initial promo discount)
• 1 fixed seat workstation license (usable also as render node) + 3 fixed render nodes
• Access to all bug fixes for major version 1.0.
• Eligible for future paid upgrades to versions 2.0, 3.0, …
• We have scrapped the 90 days of free subscription – no longer applicable
• Subscription
  • Costs 99€/year
  • Gives permanent access to future major versions (2.0, 3.0, …), monthly builds and daily experimental builds released while the subscription is active
  • Must be purchased when buying the box license.
  • Valid for 12 months, can be renewed
    

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Questions regarding development

SaaS vs. BOX: Why SaaS? How is it connected with development?

Artists are used to the “upgrade model” – they buy version 1.0, then wait for 12-24 months while getting some minor updates for free, and suddenly there is a new paid version 2.0 packed with a lot of new features. But the new feature-rich version was not created overnight. Developing many new functions takes a lot of time. In the meanwhile, companies must decide which features to release immediately as 1.01, 1.02, …, and which to stash and keep unpublished until enough of them accumulates to create a paid upgrade. We are not saying companies are doing this because they are greedy or evil – it is a necessity with this model – they need the income from updates, because developing software is a very expensive task.

We really don’t like this model. We want to deliver the latest tech as soon as possible, and we never want to make decisions hurting  the product to keep the business afloat.

Look what we have achieved in past 12 months. We have released version A6, A7, fix A7.1 for max and we are about to release version 1.0.  Every single version was packed with new functions and improvements. It really means that we were able to release 3 major versions this year only. Each one of them was released when it was ready and stable.
This would not be possible with the traditional model – we would have to wait with these new features for at least 12 month and only then we would be able to offer them to you in a new major release. That does not make any sense.

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 We have released 3 major versions this year only.

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So because the traditional “BOX” & upgrade model does not really work with our speed of development, we had to look for alternatives. That’s why we come up with “Fair SaaS” as a solution to this problem. It enables us to always deliver you the latest tech with fair price and conditions, and makes our development truly independent of business aspects.

We still however see a place for the box license. First, there will always be some people who are simply not used to a concept of using software for a small monthly fee similarly to mobile phone, electricity, water, heating, gas, rent, TV, car insurance, Dropbox,  …. Probably everything needs time to get used to it. These people are here and it is their right to have different opinion and reasons to not take the SaaS route. Second, some people feel like they are being held hostage by SaaS-only companies, since the price can increase in the future. We are keeping the Box also as a safety device – you can always switch if you feel our SaaS is becoming  unfair. We promise to announce any changes to pricing & conditions with enough time to react.

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Are the SaaS & Box licenses equal?

In our eyes, BOX is a obsolete and problematic solution if it is bought without subscription.

And I am going to admit it that we certainly do not prefer that solution. BOX with subscription is on the other hand much better, as we can deliver you updates in same way as for the SaaS users. And we will certainly try to make SaaS version more attractive.

So if you will buy SaaS or BOX with subscription, you will make our lives as developers less complicated. Because these two options will be equal in a sense of delivering updates.

Subscription is non-mandatory. So you can buy it or not during the purchase. It is up to you. But it will be the best solution for both sides, if you have it.

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OK, tell me the benefit of Fair SaaS once again please, I still do not see the advantages for me

Lower Initial Cost
Your upfront investment is precisely zero. You pay just for the usage of the software.
This makes software affordable to everyone as well.

Better CashFlow
You do not have to save money up front for the software. Also if you do not have a steady job, this solution lets you save money: Just cancel during the “dry” months without jobs.

Scalability & Easier Budgeting
Do you need more licenses for project for a short time? Just buy SaaS licenses for the time needed, then just cancel them with no penalty. You exactly know how much money SW cost you on each project. No more guess work.

Continuous Innovation
You will always get the hands on the latest versions and you will have the choice of downgrading if you want to. Easy as pie.

Cancel Any Time
You can cancel you license any time. If you go for holidays, you will simply cancel your license and save some money.

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What are the stable monthly builds?

Stable Monthly Builds – We will try to deliver roughly one stable build per month. You can look at these builds as 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 versions if you want. They will be tested and they should be stable. So you will have new tech if you want. They are again non-mandatory and you can downgrade to older build.
So instead of waiting a year for new version for next big version 2.0, you can grab new features every month.

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What are the daily builds?

Daily builds are irregularly updated development builds. They are usually the latest builds which we have. There is high possibility that they contain bugs and that they are not stable. At this moment only small group of testers have access to it and they are aware that these builds can and have bugs. It is really for the brave and for those who cannot live without the latest tech.

 

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What are the payment options?

We are planning to use an industry-standard paygate with 28 payment types. From various cards to digital payments like paypal etc, so I think that this will be pretty much covered. No bitcoins/dogecoins yet 🙂

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I want to have Fair SaaS, but I do not want to pay monthly!

We understand it is sometimes more convenient to avoid monthly payments, so we will also offer one year upfront payment. Because this way we will save some money on transaction fees, we will slightly lower the price to reflect this. Payment by one year in advance will be possible during checkout.
But there is little disadvantage in this scenario. You can cancel, but you will not receive refund. So you will be giving up this particular advantage of FairSaaS.

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How will the licenses be sold?

Digital only, no dongles, no physical delivery of any kind. That just puts prices up.

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What are the prices for other plugins?

We would like to sell each plugin of Corona with a separate license, for the same price in case the product has the same value.
But other plugins will will remain free until they are ready for release and have similar feature set as Corona 1.0 for 3dsmax.  This will be later in the future. The 3dsmax version is currently ahead because it is our primary dev platform.
But important thing to say is, that rendering cores are always identical. So even Corona Alpha 1.1 for C4D has got exactly same core as 3dsmax version Alpha 7.1.

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What is the price of standalone?

The facts mentioned in the above answer about other plugins applies also for the standalone version. As almost no one really uses standalone on massive scale, it is currently not our priority.

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What is the subscription price for BOX licenses?

The price is 99EUR per year.

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 What is the upgrade price for BOX license?

We cannot tell you the price of the upgrade yet, because we do not know exactly how long it will take before we will release next stable version. Which is logical.
But price will be slightly higher than the subscription price and we plan to release roughly one major version per year. (i.e. version 2.0 is scheduled for the end of 2015)

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Can I get more render nodes on SaaS? 3 is not enough

YES. Original idea is that one workstation license comes with 3 render nodes. From our statistics we know that most of the users who will buy one license have 2-3 render nodes maximum. (Workstation license can be used also as render node if needed.)  But some of you working in small teams have more than 3 render nodes and you let us know that this does not work for you. The problem was that with a specific number of nodes (5), you would already have to buy second full license, so adding one computer could double the price and leave you with 3 more licenses you would not need. Because of this we have decided to offer SaaS license versions with more render nodes in a pack:

1. 1WS + 3 NODES for 24.99 EUR per month (19.99EUR with 30 day introductory offer)
2. 1WS + 5 NODES for 29.99 EUR per month (24.99EUR with 30 day introductory offer)
3. 1WS + 10 NODES for 44.99 EUR per month (39.99EUR with 30 day introductory offer)

This way you can save 19.99€/month when you have 5 or 6 render nodes, or 29.98€/month when you have 10 render nodes. This applies only to SaaS model but not to Box model. Read on for more.

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Can I buy separate render node on SaaS?

No, not at the moment and we do not even think that it is needed anymore with the new license packs. The fixed transaction fee which we would have to pay from single render node payments would be simply too high. If we ever resolve this, we could start offering separate nodes in the future. But not at this point.

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Can I buy separate render node packs without WS license on SaaS?

No. You can use the included workstation license as render node as well. So if you buy a license where is 1 workstation and 3 render nodes, you can use the workstation license as render node, and you have effectively 4 render nodes. The reasons is that we are trying to keep the system as simple as possible.

 

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Can I get more render nodes on BOX? 3 is not enough

If you need more render nodes, then simply buy another license. You can use workstation license as a render node. So each new BOX license gives you 4 more nodes. We have decided not to offer BOX licenses with more render nodes because SaaS is the main solution, and we are trying to keep the system simple (we would have to make special pricing also for the upgrades, subscriptions, sidegrades, etc.).

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What is the subscription for BOX license?

Subscription with BOX license lets you access daily builds, monthly builds and get free upgrades to any full version. Subscription has to be bought during purchase of your BOX license. Subscription on BOX license and it is valid for 12 months and can be renewed. You can use any Corona version released during your active subscription even if you let the subscription expire.

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How is it with the bug fixes if I do not have subscription?

If we will find a bug, we will fix it regardless if you have or do not have subscription paid on your BOX license. You will always get your bug fix for free!

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Why BOX license does have only 90 days of subscription for free?

This is no longer applicable. The whole idea of 90 days was scrapped. It was just confusing for users who thought that after 90 days, there will be no bug fixes available. But that was not true. We meant to fix bugs for free, just monthly build and daily builds access would be missing. I repeat, 90 days is not applicable anymore .

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What is the upgrade on BOX license?

If you did not buy subscription during your purchase of Box license, that means that you do not have access to daily builds or stable monthly builds. You have to wait for the release of next major version (for example 2.0) and you will have the opportunity to buy this upgrade with one-time payment.

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What is the subscription price for BOX licenses?

Price is 99EUR per year.

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What is the upgrade price for BOX license?

We cannot tell you the price of the upgrade yet, because we do not know exactly how long it will take before we will release next stable version. Which is logical.
But the price will be slightly higher then subscription price.

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Can I buy subscription later if I did not buy it when purchasing the BOX license?

No. You have to wait till next major version is out. Sorry but we have told you.

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Can I sell my BOX license?

Yes you can. We do not mind.

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Various questions

What about cross-grade?

No problem with that. If you were using 3dsmax version and you will decide to migrate to cinema4d, maya or any other version which will be there you can do it for free. We do not see any problem with this. No fee or anything else. But if there will be some price difference by any chance (which we do not plan, we want to keep prices same for every platform) you will only pay the difference.

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Are licenses floating?

SaaS
Our intention is to make licenses floating on SaaS if that will be technically possible. And we will do all what we can to make that happen. Right now we are working on the technology which will easily allow that. But I cannot give you exact technical details at the moment. But do not worry, we want to do something very easy to use.

BOX
BOX licenses will be node locked. But they can be re-hosted.
Right now we are working on the technology which will easily allow that. But I cannot give you exact technical details at the moment.

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Can I use Corona on my home pc as well as on my work PC.

SaaS
Yes, if that will be technically possible. And we will do all what we can to make that happen.

BOX
No. Buy SaaS or get limited free version for your home use.

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Network license server? Network licensing?

I will repeat myself a little bit. Right now we are working on the technology which will easily allow that. But I cannot give you exact technical details at the moment.

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What if internet connection is lost?

No big deal. Application will start and let you work for couple of days without connection to the internet.
Note: If there is still no internet connection for couple of days, there might be end of civilization anyway, so go home and spend it with your family or just call your internet provider.

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What if license servers are gone?

As above, no big deal. Application will start and let you work for couple of days without connection to license servers. Our servers will be cloud based, so this should not happen.

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What about free version?

Yes, we promised that back in the day that there will be some sort of free version and we will fulfill that. There will be two free versions.

1. Alpha V6 for 3ds max will remain free forever.
   It does not have any time lock and it is very capable version. This version will be freely available for all the hobbyists without water mark, resolution limitation or anything like that. Simply free version. But it will not receive any bug fixes.
2. The latest version with limitations.
   There will be some limitations applied. We will think about this more at the end of the year, before the A7 expires.

Everyone should be happy. 🙂

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Discounts for Alpha Testers

Over the years we got help from many talented artists who were active in our alpha tester teams and some of them did amazing job looking for bugs, suggesting solutions and so on. Also lot of the users created some pretty nifty and helpful scripts/tutorials/free models/… which pushed our software forward. We do see that and those users will be rewarded. We will start contacting these people prior release and we will give them license for free or with considerable discount.
During those five years we had encountered many people, so there is a possibility that we might forgot someone. So if you feel that you should get your free license, please write us to info{at}corona-renderer.com and refresh our memory. We will then decide if you are eligible for the discount.

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Vote for your favorite solution

Please let us know which of the version (if any) you will get. Thanks a lot!

 

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Let us know your opinion

Here under the article or on our let us know on our forum

 Adam & Ondra