Reply To: ⚡ Cakewalk Sonar Boxing Day Special $67 Promo Rate; $179 Renewals

[LinkedMusicians]

I checked the FAQs at the Bandlab website and it appears that the company has lowered its annual rate from $179 per year to $149.50. It’s unclear if that’s some temporary renewal offer or not. @thesteven Where did you see $99 for subsequent years or find that past subscribers can get promo rates?

Bandlab has removed the regular price of their annual subscription from most of their pages about Sonar, intentionally making it more difficult for potential customers to understand how Bandlab will be raising their subscription fees after their first year. The one place where I found the subscription rate at was their FAQ page (help.bandlab.com/hc/en-us/articles/20758981227033-BandLab-Membership-FAQ) where it states:

BandLab Membership costs USD $14.95 per month for the monthly plan and USD $99 for the first year on the annual plan and renews at $149.50 after the first year. Your subscription will automatically renew at your selected interval until you choose to cancel.

As the flash sale has now expired, these are the current promotional rates for the first year (only) of a Sonar subscription. It automatically renews at $149.50 per year (although it’s unclear if that $149.50 renewal rate is only temporary and the non-promotional rate will eventually return to the $179 price). These are the current promotional rates — only for people who have never subscribed to Bandlab in the past. Statements from Bandlab’s social media manager and other staff on the Cakewalk subreddit make clear that the Sonar promotional rates are NOT available to any past customers, only those who have never subscribed to any Bandlab services in the past. From Bandlab’s website:

$70 first year only.
$14.95 per month

Renewal rate for subsequent years and annual subscriptions for those who have never subscribed to any Bandlab service in the past: $149.50 (again, this is usually $179, and may only be a temporary promotion).

[Let’s not do use live hyperlinks to Bandlab / Cakewalk. Google sees that as an endorsement of Bandlab from LinkedMusicians, and I certainly do not condone the practices of Bandlab or the company that Meng’s family operates which gave him his billions, which has long been found to ALLEGEDLY use child labor (as young as 8 years old) and slave labor for their palm oil business. Meng‘s family business, Wilmar Internationalhas long been reported to ALLEGEDLY routinely censor employees, former employees, journalists, and critics using litigation, so I certainly don’t want to be a target for that; Bandlab’s forum practices are very reflective of the company’s widely reported practices with its palm oil business. If anyone wants to link to a Bandlab / Cakewalk forum page, you can discuss the company and their products as you like and share your opinion, just don’t use live hyperlinks, which Google interprets as LM voting for their site having value in its category.]

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