I know there’s a slim to none chance anyone is going to get this, but since we were comparing prices of other plugin sets, I thought some of you might find this interesting. Code YNY23.
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I wish I could pull that one off! I’d be playing around with plugins for weeks!
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Yeah I’ve been getting emails from Waves about all their bundles being at the lowest price ever. It makes me wonder if they are getting desperate!
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I know! Really! 
They’re competition has really caught up to them on the high, middle, and low end of the user market. Now that they’ve introduced subscription plans and stuff, I wonder if they’re struggling to adjust their model to companies like Slate that really give you a heck of a lot of tools for really not a lot of money.
Waves does sell a ton of hardware, and people don’t get to use cracked plugins when they run them on the Sound Grid servers and digital mixers. I would imagine the W-up renewals are helping a bit. I’d be surprised if Waves was running short on cash, but they seem to be having to work harder in order to say “Pay attention to Meeeeeeee” lol
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I don’t think waves is struggling at all.They are raking in money with these sales. I think they’ve discovered how much more money they make when prices are lower so they’ve gone crazy with it.
It seems like a great short-term win, but do you think they’re also cheapening themselves as a brand? Their retail prices seem like a joke to me now, like they aren’t even taking themselves seriously.
I’m sure it’s cheapening the brand, but they had enough brand inertia to really cash in on today’s market. I think in the software world, stuff changes fast enough that you can’t hang on to brand strength for too long and expect it to make long term returns. They certainly can’t do this forever, but it buys them a few years to figure out their next step. If the held strong with their high prices, they wouldn’t have those few years to figure anything out.
They are only painting themselves into a corner if they get lazy and think they can sale themselves forever into the future. Given how quickly they were able to do an about-face on their pricing model makes me think they are smart enough to know the river won’t flow forever.
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Right, volume sales, economies of scale, etc. The possible downside I see is that with higher prices their market is smaller and revenue may sustain their customer support better, at least better quality support. But if the market is too small, maybe not. With lower prices, there’s a larger market, but also less profit margin (maybe?) and the customer support audience grows exponentially … straining their support resources. Just a theory.
I would hope they have a strategic plan. 
The way I look at it, there may be several factors:
- Some of the plugins in their arsenal are quite old and well past their “payoff” point in terms of R&D etc., so on those there may be essentially pure profit. That may help lower the price of bundles within reach. I assume they have a streamlined process for moving each plugin code to new versions with minimal effort.
- For the Signature plugins, I’m sure there are fees paid to the mixers/artists who endorse those, maybe even royalties, but they may be higher up front (plugin release) and dwindle with time (legacy). That may give Waves some flexibility in their pricing model too.
- The plugin market may have changed, or be changing. This whole thing keeps growing, evolving, and expanding. New kids coming in expand the market, while presumably market die-off is minimal. Affordability expands the market, and may be irresistible for them as their overhead (i.e. support) may have grown over the years.
It would be interesting where they see things going in the next few years and beyond, and what their plans are for that. Kind of a “crystal ball” as it were. 