I have not bought software from you guys in such a long time. I did not have too. You have always supported me when I needed it. In saying that I have never really had any serious issues with your wares and have a;ways been treated fairly since the beginning. I develop web sites for friends and family and not as skilled as some but the wares I have from you made up for most of my short comings. I do not use any of the big brand ware I have never needed them. I may not be a professional at this, but I do know I appreciate the market you guys fill. Your ware is awesome and fun to use. I just really wanted to say thanks. I will stay with you and maybe in the future when the tools you have provided me no longer fulfill their function you will be the first people I come to for a replacement. All the best...

Gerry got a T-shirt? I'm up to date with the CC Editor, but I never got a T-shirt.

Times have changed. No longer would I settle for a WYSIWYG, absolute-positioned T-shirt. I want ... no, I demand, a responsive T-shirt, a shirt that magically fits no matter how extravagantly my adult-beverage-enhanced belly might swell. (And it might even shrink, you know. My wife advises that this is definitely possible.) A T-shirt with breakpoints, in case someone peers at me through a telescope or watches me on UHDTV.

JPEG capability would be fine. No PNG background transparency, please.

I understand and agree with Gerry's point. A "lifetime" upgrade policy should last a lifetime. Marketing hyperbole has gotten out of hand. People should not be criticized for expecting a company to fulfill it's promises.

If CC had promised a long list of features for a product to get people to buy it, then delivered only half of them, would customers have a right to complain? Damn right they would! If CC purchased a lifetime hosting package for their website, but the hosting company came back 10 years later and said the program was ending, would they have a right to complain? Definitely! It doesn't matter how much was received. If the promise wasn't fulfilled, the customer is well within his/her rights to expect and demand some kind of compensation or restitution. If that's a burden for the company - too bad! Next time, don't make a promise you're unwilling or unable to keep.

Some companies change the name of a product to get out of having to meet their lifetime upgrade obligation. This is disreputable and any firm that does it should be shunned.

If a company wants to entice customers with the promise of free upgrades for a long period of time, but are not sure if they'll be able to do it forever, they should call it something other than lifetime. If a company isn't smart enough to realize they may lose money on certain offers, then they have no business making those offers. If they do and then renege on them, they're not as customer-focused as they claim to be and people should make their buying decisions accordingly. Existing customers should consult a lawyer.

Generally speaking, offering something, then delivering something of lesser value is called bait and switch - no matter how much time passes between the original purchase and the switch.

Under your account Richard, all your purchases were from 2016. Our lifetime upgrade policy ended years ago, so that never would have applied or even been marketed with your purchases.

In over 20 years of making amazing Web Design and other software products, CoffeeCup has in general, delivered improved versions of the software free of charge. We will continue to do so, especially when a new version mainly consists of minor improvements and fixes. However, from time to time there will be new versions that require rewrites of the application or parts of the application. This process requires significant research, design, development and testing time. In those situations and on a case by case basis, CoffeeCup reserves the right to require a fee for upgrading to the new and improved version of the software. Given the resources it would take, we would hate to withhold implementing these improvements purely based on financial decisions; charging a nominal fee for updates is the only way to accomplish this.

Our lifetime upgrade policy was actually changed quite some time ago and you will not find any references on our website that allude to any lifetime policy. On our website we do list our Upgrade Policy. This is also in the EULA when you install the Editor. Yeah that legal stuff we all click YES on.

Even though we have had this policy in place, we have still been providing updates for free which I certainly can see why some may have the impression nothing has changed when the opposite is true. For years our customers have been telling us we are too generous on our free updates and that they would be willing to pay fees to make sure the program they love keeps getting plenty of attention. We held out for over 15 years though and finally decided after much discussion that it was just time to do so. Yes, it is a big change for some and we know not everyone will be happy with that, but we need to do what we think is the best for us and our customers. We still plan on having many, many free updates as we feel that is very important but once and a while there will need to be a small fee to help offset these costs.

For Gary, he spent $39 is 2001 so he got an amazingly long run of free upgrades. No reasonable person should even complain there. ;-)

I think it's quite some time since this 'lifetime' offer has been made. And you could also try to interprete the meaning of 'lifetime'. Whose lifetime? Is it YOUR lifetime?, That of the developer? Of the programme? or perhaps the programme version?
Over time the internet has changed, the capacity of browsers, and so has the way of coding (just think of html5, css3, responsive design on all platforms), and for a sofware company to go with the time and keep up with the changes and demands can be cumbersome and costly. Some times a programme has no function any more, such as all the flash applications that were so popular some 5-6 years ago, and it may be cost effective to dump it and instead create something new. Would it be wrong to charge a price for such new programmes? If new programmes, which are made to replace old and outdated ones, were given out for free, the company soon wouldn't be able to pay the developers and would go bust after some time, and there would not be any support any more.
Coffeecup has long since left the idea of lifetime free support and upgrades, and notifications have been published about it quite some time ago. Coffeecup still makes upgrades to a new version or a replacement programme very cheap for a time after they have been launched, and every now and then they have campaigns with discounted prices. And they are also giving support on older, outdated programmes for years after they were discontinued.
I think my Bucks go pretty far with purchases at Coffeecup.

What Inger said.

I may be the only one, but I actually read that "legal stuff". In your "policy" aka T.O.S. (the legally binding contract you agreed to) 10 years ago, you offered unlimited lifetime upgrades with a purchase. Whether someone got 1 year, or 100 years of "free" (included in the original purchase price) upgrades is irrelevant. What Adobe does is irrelevant, other than to speculate that you offered "lifetime upgrades" to entice customers away from Adobe.

I can buy new software if I want to. It's not about money. It's about principal. You could have ended the incentive, while still fulfilling the promise you made to existing customers.

Joe Deasy
(not dead yet)
(unlike your credibility)

Hi Joe,

What is it your expecting a lifetime upgrade too? What product specifically?

Whether or not someone got a sweet deal doesn't alter anything, it's the fact they were offered a better deal, stuck to their end of the deal by paying the set price, and didn't get all they paid for even if they did still get a good deal.

If I offered you a £250,000 Ferrari for £10,000 and you paid, only to be given an £15,000 BMW, you'd be getting a nice deal still, but tell me you wouldn't be pissed.

This is not even a fair comparison. What the previous person was complaining about was not receiving lifetime updates to the apps he had purchased from CC. When in fact they full-filled their obligation and provided free updates for the life of the existing purchased app. Since then they have come out with a completely new product that has nothing to do with the old one.

A fair comparison would be to say I purchased a washing machine with a lifetime warranty and the manufacture discontinues that line of washing machines. Do you think the manufacturer should continually giving them free washers for life? I would think they wouldn't nor should they. They provided lifetime warranty for the life of that product.