Topaz Labs subscription offering

OldMainframeGuy · Sep 17, 2025

Has anyone taken up Topaz Labs on their subscription offering? I have two of their products and really don't want any part of their subscription program. I'm not sure what the future is of the products I own if I don't take them up on it but they're too expensive to automatically pay for upgrades once a year.

z3r010 · Sep 17, 2025

I have a couple of Topaz products (Photo AI and Gigapixel), I won't be renewing as I'm sure there is plenty of free stuff around these days that can do the same job if I need it.

glasskuter · Sep 17, 2025

Sadly, more and more great paid softwares are going subscription and stopping development of their older versions. Also sadly, fewer and fewer free replacement softwares continue development or new ones being developed. Everyone wants a piece of the pie.

PhilB · Sep 19, 2025

glasskuter said:
Sadly, more and more great paid softwares are going subscription and stopping development of their older versions. Also sadly, fewer and fewer free replacement softwares continue development or new ones being developed. Everyone wants a piece of the pie.

Blame the stock market, which prefers subscription sales to one-time sales.

cereberus · Sep 19, 2025

x509 said:
Blame the stock market, which prefers subscription sales to one-time sales.

Huh?

jimbo45 · Sep 19, 2025

x509 said:
Blame the stock market, which prefers subscription sales to one-time sales.

???? You can buy stocks - one off --- It's not the stock market that's the problem but people just paying up to these wretched subscription things without realising how much they are spending -- e.g 3 USD here and 5 USD there soon mounts up.

Apart from stuff you get no choice over e.g utility bills , broadband, mobile phone service provider I pay an annual fee to Amazon Prime (free and speedy -- often Same Day delivery is easily worth the subscription - even if I don't watch much of the content on Amazon Prime), a 13 year one off to Nordvpn and a fee to Netflix.

Subscriptions if you don't keep a handle on them can diminish your Bank account quicker than a N.Korean Hacker with your passwords.

If consumers just stopped buying or ensured they stopped a service after the usual "free trial period" expires - tactic by a load of companies hoping the typical consumer forgets to cancel - this type of offering would diminish.

Good use for A.I here -- put all your "free trials" into a spreadsheet and get an alert reminder every time a free trial is near expiry date.

Avoid also Direct Debits from your Bank as these can be raised if the organisation you are paying wants more money. For regular payments Standing Orders are better as the Bank have to notify you on any change. At least in EU/UK most of USA = although each state has different Banking laws and I think also in AUS and NZ.

Cheers
jimbo

cereberus · Sep 19, 2025

jimbo45 said:
Avoid also Direct Debits from your Bank as these can be raised if the organisation you are paying wants more money. For regular payments Standing Orders are better as the Bank have to notify you on any change. At least in EU/UK most of USA = although each state has different Banking laws and I think also in AUS and NZ.

Cheers
jimbo

An even better solution (imo) is to use paypal to pay subscriptions as one can simply cancel the paypal subscription with no fuss, and no need to contact banks which can be a PITA, especially at weekends. Also more secure as you do not expose your bank account or payment card details to the organisation wanting payment.

The only subscriptions I make directly to my bank account is to Amazon for Prime and Microsoft for 365, and Macrium Reflect. I only have Amazon on automatic renewals. I would use paypal as well but none of these accept paypal.

With regards free trials, I usually cancel them straight away - you usually get to complete trial but do not have to remember to do cancel it in time. If I really want the product after the trial, I would just set up the lease afterwards.

The worst offenders (in my experience) are MVNO Sim card Pay and Go Monthly providers who auto renew each month but make it difficult to not autorenew. Worse, often you cannot contact directly to easily cancel things. Paypal is great - I had one that just did not respond to my website efforts to cancel more payments. I cancelled the paypal subscription and then got an email saying they had tried to renew via paypal and if I took no action the monthly contract would be cancelled (

perfect!).

As an aside, Amazon Prime used to give you a few Premier League games now and then free but now they want you to sign up with a partner (TNT I think) for £31 a month. Bollards to that - I would just go to pub and watch a specific game!

jimbo45 · Sep 19, 2025

@cereberus

Agreed == watch a game in a Pub -- Even on a SAT afternoon !!! - when in the UK the local pub I use it has an R.O.I (Irish) box which works.

Never thought about Paypal -- will investigate -- seems to be safe enough.

Cheers
jimbo

OldMainframeGuy · Sep 19, 2025

glasskuter said:
Sadly, more and more great paid softwares are going subscription and stopping development of their older versions. Also sadly, fewer and fewer free replacement softwares continue development or new ones being developed. Everyone wants a piece of the pie.

I cancelled my "automatic renewal" option yesterday. I was a bit confused about some wording that Topaz used - it implied that "auto renewal" meant I didn't need a subscription. I wrote to support about that and they agreed that auto-renewal is of course a type of subscription. Playing with words.

PhilB · Sep 19, 2025

cereberus said:
Huh?

When I once worked for a startup that was planning an IPO, the CFO explained to all of us why our company had a subscription model, which was not that common at the time. He said that Wall Street places a higher multiple (for the stock price) on subscription revenues because they are more predictable than one-time sale revenues.

PhilB · Sep 19, 2025

cereberus said:
An even better solution (imo) is to use paypal to pay subscriptions as one can simply cancel the paypal subscription with no fuss, and no need to contact banks which can be a PITA, especially at weekends. Also more secure as you do not expose your bank account or payment card details to the organisation wanting payment.

The only subscriptions I make directly to my bank account is to Amazon for Prime and Microsoft for 365, and Macrium Reflect. I only have Amazon on automatic renewals. I would use paypal as well but none of these accept paypal.

With regards free trials, I usually cancel them straight away - you usually get to complete trial but do not have to remember to do cancel it in time. If I really want the product after the trial, I would just set up the lease afterwards.

The worst offenders (in my experience) are MVNO Sim card Pay and Go Monthly providers who auto renew each month but make it difficult to not autorenew. Worse, often you cannot contact directly to easily cancel things. Paypal is great - I had one that just did not respond to my website efforts to cancel more payments. I cancelled the paypal subscription and then got an email saying they had tried to renew via paypal and if I took no action the monthly contract would be cancelled ( perfect!).

As an aside, Amazon Prime used to give you a few Premier League games now and then free but now they want you to sign up with a partner (TNT I think) for £31 a month. Bollards to that - I would just go to pub and watch a specific game!

Simple. Don't do free trials.

pewa · Sep 19, 2025

I have zero subscription.
You see, I am one of those unfortunate people who are allergic to subscription software.

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