looking back at my order history, I upgraded from Live 10 Suite (purchased 2018) to Live 11 Suite for $245.60 in 2021 and again from 11 Suite to 12 Suite in 2024 for $245.60.
Everyone has a different financial situation, but for me this is entirely fair pricing for professional grade software that does not have a subscription that I use on an almost daily basis. I am happy to continue supporting Ableton, they respect me as a user and are consistent in their quality and output. (I don't use FL Studio, this is not a dig at that company/platform, just a happy Ableton user).
Leading with a step sequencer, automation recording, a loop mangler, and a basic drum synth in 2026 isn't pushing the creative limits of DAW design.
IMO Live is a tolerable product rather than an exciting one. Back in the days when I was making loop-based music I got more done more easily with Sonic Foundry's (then Sony's) Acid, which is still my gold standard for ease of use for that idiom.
And I still think Vegas is the best video editor I ever used.
I think with vibecoding the days of the big DAWs are numbered. A few years from now people are going to be rolling their own designs. We're going to see a lot of slopware, which won't matter because it's single-user, and some rare but incredibly inventive and inspiring completely new takes.
What they should really have is a demo version of the next tier up for when I'm considering upgrading. Say if I have Standard Edition, I click the "Try Suite" button and it temporarily unlocks the Suite features without overriding my base install. I can then easily decide to upgrade (or not), but the main issue is the next tier's features are locked behind an install, so people go into it with the mentality that they have to decide on a product tier when they're a noob and don't know anything about the product.
The cost of audio (or any) software has been something people have been complaining about for decades. When I started in the audio software industry, the prices (amazingly!) were just as high or higher as the prices today. Some of this cost was due to physically creating boxes, manuals, storage media and paying to get the product into sales channels. Viewed historically, you might see that you are getting a much better deal today with Ableton for $300 than Opcode Studio Vision 1.0 in 1990 for $995. In 1990, you had to call into Opcode for support and there was no online community for support and information sharing.
It is real conundrum running a company that sells creative tools; the very users you want to bring in as new customers might be the ones that are the most resistant, or unable, to paying the full price. The industry has tried to come up with various ways to assist the people, including the $79 version of Ableton that you are not a fan of.
When you are actually deriving your income from the use of the product, the pricing becomes less of an issue and I clearly remember Warner Brothers buying dozens of copies of our software to support a Danny Elfman project because he was using our software. I also remember struggling composers begging for education pricing or even free copies of the software at our booth at the NAMM trade show.
FL Studio is not unprofessional noob software by any means. Ultimately, a talented singer, songwriter, composer, DJ, etc. will use any means they have on hand to be creative.
I've been making beats for about 20 years. For me music is essentially a diary that others occasionally read.
I'll never make a nickel off this.
Also if I buy a 2000$ microphone I own it forever and I can even sell it and maybe recoup half.
Vs paying 200$ a year forever.
Plus FL Studio is about 300$ once for the All Plugins edition.
You can easily get some older version and play around with that for free.
In my case I bought a launchpad many years ago and for a long time used the Ableton Lite version that came with it. Was more than enough for hobby usage.
I have no problem with paying for software I enjoy.
You don’t need to get the new major versions.
It’s also really easy to crack Ableton and use it for free if you just want to test it out - i think it’s part of their sales strategy tbh