The subscription plot thickens

Topaz Labs enters the subscription fray.

681 words; 4 photographs; 3-minute read

As a ‘founding customer’, I received an email today from TopazLabs, stating that they will be moving to a subscription model. If you use Topaz, you may have received the same email. I was assured that my current desktop version of PhotoAI would remain valid in perpetuity with the standard caveat of free updates being available for up to 1 year after purchase.

So, in some ways, things haven’t changed: buy PhotoAI desktop for USD $199 and use it forever with 1 year of upgrades. Renewals are USD $119 unless you choose to auto-renew which is discounted to USD $99/year.

All of this is confirmed on TopazLabs website. However, a little digging turned up some interesting reading.

A Monthly Subscription has been introduced for each of their desktop apps (PhotoAI, Gigapixel and VideoAI). Photo AI will be USD $35/month. I choked when I saw the price. Why so much? For 12 months, it would be $420!! I just rechecked the website and, sure enough, it really is $35/month. And that does not include additional ‘Cloud Credits’ for faster AI processing.

Huh? What am I missing here? Why would someone pay $420 each year for software that is $200 + $100/year thereafter?

Currently, I’m paying CAD $16/month (USD $12/mo) for Lightroom Mobile and desktop + Lightroom Classic + 1 TB of Adobe cloud space. It’s easy to forget that this subscription also comes with the highly useful Lightroom Camera for iPhone (with hdr-raw capture), Adobe fonts and a highly customizable Adobe Portfolio website—the platform I use for luxBorealis.com. Adding industry-leading Photoshop (mobile and desktop) puts the monthly cost up to CAD $26/month (USD $20/mo).

You can do the math as well as I can—$35 for PhotoAI versus $20 for Lightroom + Photoshop. It’s a no-brainer. To be fair, Topaz offers WebTools, a series of apps that are similar to, though not as complete as the various desktop modules in PhotoAI, (denoise, sharpen, upscale, etc.). But even they are, collectively, $20/month for an annual commitment of $200. Even Capture One, as industry-leading as Lightroom, is USD $25/month. What’s with TopazLabs?

Earlier this year, I did a fairly detailed direct comparison of Topaz with Lightroom and DxO: how well could each demosaic, denoise and sharpen raw files? I found the three were almost indistinguishable. So, in my eyes, it seems more than a bit unreasonable for Topaz Labs to be charging as much as they are for software that may match Lightroom in basic image quality, but lacks the complexity and depth of Lightroom as an almost complete editing suite.

Anyway . . . I’m still shaking my head.

On a related note . . . Earlier this week I was approached by DxO HQ in France to evaluate DxO PhotoLab 9. They assured me that it would remain a standalone app and would not be transitioning to a subscription model. I figure it will take me a few weeks to put together a thorough review in the context of someone who is well-entrenched in Lightroom—so stay tuned!

My hope is that DxO has come through with an editing suite that will be a solid standalone competitor for Lightroom, along the lines of Capture One, if only to make the switch away from subscriptions closer to reality. Interesting, last week Fstoppers had an article The End of Adobe’s Monopoly? Why Creatives Are Switching which has generated much discussion. Perhaps with Topaz’s pricing challenges and a new DxO PhotoLab 9, we may be one step closer to ditching subscriptions.

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