I saw something that says you can pay one-time and get Unity Plus/Pro forever but that might’ve been old or false.
current plans are here:
there used to be these,
No, there is not. You can pay the subscription fee in one for a year and get some discount.
that really sucks because I don’t like subscriptions. what if I don’t have enough money to pay for it for the month?! I like one-time payments because you are more aware of how much money you have to spend on it.
If you are unable to budget for the product then unfortunately you will be unable to use it. If you would have been able to afford it in one go (as in for a year), there is nothing stopping you putting that money aside so you have it for each payment each month
Unfortunately the world has moved to subscription models and while we dont all like it, there is nothing to be done about it
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you can use the free version, it has same features (even dark skin now)
“Eligible if revenue or funding is less than $100K in the last 12 months”
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Given the revenue threshold of $100K per year before one needs to pay, failing to find $400 per year seems like a major fail for any business. Its probably less than the stationery expenditure.
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There’s no permanent license option right now, as far as I’m aware.
Unity plus is $400 per year and Unity Pro is $1800 per year. That’s per year per seat.
Normally I’d expect a beginner to use Free Version of unity (same features, but it has forced splash screen), and then switch when they hit earning limit of $100k/year.
Trying to buy a subscription implies that you EXPECT to earn AT LEAST $100000 per year from your project. In this case, like @MadeFromPolygons_1 said, you’re supposed to have a budget for this already.
Otherwise, if you REALLY don’t want subscription and can’t afford it, there are other engines. Unreal is royalty based, meaning no upfront costs, for example.
If you’re unable to afford Unity Plus/Pro then you’re likely not making money with Unity in which case you most likely don’t need Unity Plus/Pro. If you’re making $100,000 which is the threshold where you can no longer use Unity Personal you can afford the cost of Unity Plus/Pro.
By the way, just in case you’ve been reading entirely too many older articles, Unity Plus/Pro only unlocks the ability to disable the “Made with Unity” splash screen. All other features are available to Unity Personal (though the dark theme requires a fairly new release).
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There also was a PayToOwn perk for longtime Unity Pro license owners available for a while during the transition period to the subscription based license model. My license is ( or at least should be ) still covering that …
Of course all traces of those EULA’s and TOS on the Unity website have disapeared - but i have my screenshots stored - just in case …
I feel ya OP, it’s not a budget thing for me so much as I don’t really like the subscription model for most software in general, but as has been mentioned it’s the way things are going now. It’s VERY beneficial from the company’s perspective in terms of stabilizing revenue inflow so unfortunately the nobel is not going away.
It’s VERY beneficial to the customer too as the company isn’t inclined to hold onto major functionality until the next time a major release is ready. Many companies did exactly this back when they sold perpetual licenses which led to having to wait years for functionality that could have easily been ready in months.
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That’s true.
One drawback though is that in the old days you could spend $600 on, say, photoshop 3 and use it forever with that functionality. If you didn’t need the new stuff that came with photoshop 4 you didn’t have to buy it and you could keep using the old version on your old hardware for literally the rest of your (or your hardware’s) life.
The subscription model is great for consumers who like to stay on top of the tech but it’s bad for people who are happy to use an older version indefinitely. You literally don’t even have that option with the subscription model.