Substance Subscription Changes: details & FAQ

[profmarkc]

@profmarkc We will be flexible with the exact cutoff time, don't worry

Thanks for the confirm - put a reminder in my diary - Oct is not that far away!

[stas3dart]

Hi,

1. Yes, you have until the end of October to get your perpetual version.
2. You will not get new credits but you will keep access to the materials you downloaded and you will keep any unused credit.
3. Yes, definitely!

Thank you Jeremie, most helpful!

[ARTEHAGA]

Thank you for all these information guys. I am paying a monthly subscription since October 13th 2019, which means I have already paid my 12th month and now I am about to pay $49 to get my perpetual licences. (1) I would like to know if I will be entitled to another year of small software bug fixes. (2) I would also like to know if after having my new Painter and Designer perpetual licences and I decide to update them in two years time if my only option is to purchase a full licence from Steam..?
Thank you in advance for your patience. I know is not easy to answer all the random questions. I appreciate your efforts.

Osmar A.

[Jeremie Noguer]

Hi, when you get the perpetual license, it does not include future updates. The current version will be the last update you are entitled to (including bugfix updates until the next feature update).
Moving forward, Steam will be the only way to get as perpetual yes.

[Maak]

Hi There,

Is the $49 charge for a perpetual license a new thing?  I was planning on waiting till the very last moment to purchase a perpetual license and now I've just received an email stating that I'm going to be charged $49 to do it.  I was under the impression that the monthly rent to own subscription would offset the cost of buying a license.  I've been subscribed for 49 consecutive months, to charge me $49 on top of that seems a bit cheeky.

[padamowicz]

I have a perpetual indie licenses on the allegorithmic website with maintenance till november 29.

So let me get this straight:

If I get a $150 sub on November 30, after one year, I'll be screwed because the software won't work anymore and my current perpetual license will go poof because it's been converted to a subscription (and in any case I wouldn't be able to open files saved with the newer version from the sub anyway).
If I get perpetual licenses on steam, I have to pay $300 instead of $150.
If I wait till the last moment to get maintenance for the next year, I'm still screwed out of a month and then after a year I'll have to pay double for the Steam version.

Is there an option where I'm not screwed?

[pheonixflame9]

Right, so I was unaware that we would be losing our perpetual licence upgrades/updates at the end of this year, so now I'm stuck trying to figure out how on earth I can keep up to date.

When Adobe took over I was specifically told that I would be able to keep on upgrading my perpetual. So that was a lie.

Look. I'm indie. I have no available funds to keep paying another monthly subscription, but I need this sort of software to earn the money to pay for it all. Adobe is converting everything to subscription services that add up and make paying for them hard. These perpetual licenses are the only thing keeping my head above water.
Why can't this be done so you have to go monthly over a certain amount, but the perpetual option is always there for lower incomes? It would keep the software in everyones hands instead of just promoting those who already have the money to keep paying.
To keep a software up to date I have to pretty much sacrifice another software I may rely on.

I'm sorry but I am very dissapointed here.

[foglevel]

As of today (09/30/2020), I'm confused. I'm not sure what I have; I'm not sure what I need: I'm not sure how much it will cost me, and the official explanations are not helping. It's sounds like what we use to call "double talk." What is going on at Substance? I'm losing confidence in them to be there for me when I am in the middle of a WIP. This is disturbing. I want to keep using Substance, but I'm shopping around.

[ameanie]

Can anyone confirm that it's too late to purchase a subscription and change the licenses to perpetual? It seems like if I go through Steam, it will only get me Substance Painter standalone (and/or Designer).

[DanCaldwell3D]

Hey guys,

I have a few questions about the perpetual licence upgrade, just want to be crystal clear:

- if I pay for perpetual licenses, will they be for the current versions of Painter/Designer (ie. not a version from say 6 months/1 year ago)?
- if I pay now, and a new version comes out between now and 1/11/2020, do I get that automatically?
- do the perpetual versions still work with the Substance Launcher (I quite like it!)

I would love to stay on as a subscription member (I have been for 3 years now) but sadly Covid-19 has seen my work dry up

Thanks

[david.kemp.webb_1]

Called it, now you are taking away our ability to pay maintenance presumably because adobe made you or because people aren't paying maintenance because you haven't innovated in years, there are still massive flaws that should have been fixed years ago, but instead you focus on nothing updates that tweak a few UI quality of life things. I'm done with substance. Lies and lack of effort, that's all it became. You had such a diamond and you ruined it. I would advise anyone to move to quixel or the like. If you are using blender check out the bake wrangler addon and use it with quixel instead of this disaster.

[Nicolas LIATTI]

Hi all,

We announced 1 year ago that there are 2 ways to get our products:
- "Substance" is a subscription to an ecosystem with Painter, Designer, Alchemist and Source. This offer is available on substance3d.com. We warned users that, following this plan, maintenances for perpetuals wouldn't be sold anymore on Substance3d.com 1 year later, in October 20.
- Perpetual licenses for Designer and Painter on Steam

Those changes happened 1 year ago. We sent yesterday an email to remind people having perpetuals that maintenance would stop to be sold on Substance3d.com in October.
If those users wish to keep having updates they can either subscribe to Substance, or purchase perpetuals on Steam.

Hope it clarifies the situation!

[Jeremie Noguer]

@Maak The $49 fee for conversion to perpetual has been in place for several years now. I agree that after such a long period of subscription (thank you!) this may seem harsh but the fee is the same for everybody no matter how long you've been subscribed.

@padamowicz If your current maintenance ends on November 29, you'll be able to upgrade one last time for an additional year of maintenance on October 29th (maintenance upgrades can be done up to one month before their end date. It will not deduct a month, the new maintenance will start at the end of the previous one).
After that year, so in November 2021 you may need to switch to Steam or to the subscription. In any case, we will likely have transition programs letting you switch to the other offers with a discount.

@pheonixflame9 We never promised anything about the future simply because no company can give you that kind of assurance 2 years in advance, things change all the time. I'm sorry that the subscription is not a viable option for you, but Steam should be a good alternative. More often than not if you get your license during one of the numerous sales during the year, you'll get your license for cheaper than you would have on our website.

@foglevel If you tell us what kind of license you have today we can let you know exactly what your options are.

@ameanie Subscription require 12 months straight of sub before you can convert to a perpetual, so only subscriptions started a year ago have this option. What kind of license do you have today?

@DanCaldwell3D If you pay the $49 fee to convert your sub into a perpetual, you will get the latest version available at the time of conversion (now). Typically you'll also be entitled to any bugfix release coming out before the next large feature release, even if they come out after the conversion date. and yes! the perpetual versions are compatible with the launcher.

@david.kemp.webb_1 Nobody makes us do anything, we are masters of our own destiny here. I invite you to look at the recent change lists, the past year has seen the largest amount of new and innovative features since the first release of the products and we have plenty more that's being worked on.

[foglevel]

from @foglevel

Thank you, very much, for responding.

I have a Subscription. I changed to Subscription from Perpetual on 06/04/2018 (April 6, 2018, I'm used to MM/DD/YY), to end on 15/10/2020 (October 15, 2020). I'm taking this info from the "LICENSES" page of my Web account.

The 'SUBSCRIPTIONS" page  says that I have Subscription for "Substance - Indie License" that started on "2018-04-06" and "Next payment is planned on 2020-10-06."

It looks like I've been paying $19.90 per month, to keep this account. Does the change mean that I will, now, be paying more to keep this account or I keep paying $19.90. I'm okay with a price change, but I need to know what is going to happen.

The newsletter confused me. That's probably my fault.  I tried to send you a message through "contact us," using Chrome and MS Edge. When I hit the "SUBMIT" button, I got a message that "The captcha wasn't entered correctly. Reset." There is no "captcha."

[Jeremie Noguer]

For you nothing changes.
If you do nothing, you will keep your current subscription for the same monthly price.