Thanks for your consideration,
Note that, you already have a summary values which merge quality variables and pricing, so this overall rating (here, 90%) already give an hint on the price/quality ratio. :P
Personally as developper as Open Source solutions (REAPER scripts and WordPress plugins), I always come to a point where I have to choose between sharing for free or sharing as premium. So for me, this come after the product is made, and so, it is not that a different process for the product creation itself. It is not different category, it is just “what I want everyone to be able to enjoy, what I think it would only fit some professionals needs”.

It’s an interesting suggestion, although, in my opinion, being a “free” product can’t be a requirement for a five star rating. As a big fan of freeware and open source software myself, I see it as a completely different category. I do understand that you’re suggesting that it would be better to give more weight to the price itself (as opposed to the price/quality ratio) when determining our pricing rating, and I’ll give it some serious thought in the days to come. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, it’s very much appreciated.

Your system of pricing notation seems fairs, but maybe you put to much influence on the “quality” of the software, rather than what a regular ‘bedroom producer” could afford (think students, teenagers, independent who shares everything free, people who don’t work in sound full time, hobbyist, retired, seniors, people with low income, people without full time jobs etc…). You already evaluate quality on the other rating parameters, if you split criteria. There is a point where you could have the more advanced software ever, if it is 100000 dollars, you can’t deserve a 5 star ratings for price as no one will be able to afford it, even it if has good graphics, good performance, good workflow, good audio, and if it creates a market. In a lot of countries and for a lot of people, 399 dollars is a lot of money. Enough to be considered as ‘too much’ for a lot of guys, even with a 50% reduction one week end per year.
I would propose a more pragmatic system, with less place to ‘instinct’ and influence of quality: for a lot of people, money will be a determinant criteria. A price system more ‘bedroom producers’ oriented.
5 stars : It’s free. you can’t beat that. Everyone one can enjoy it, no matter what. Money is not a problem.
4 stars : fair pricing. The product is affordable for people with low income. The price is better than the competitors with similar features.
3 stars : Not that affordable, it is aligned on the concurrence and is what you can expect from software of this type. No surprise here.
2 stars : that’s a bit expensive for most bedroom producers. You may consider alternative if there is ones serious enough, which may be less powerful but will be way more cost savy.
1 stars : Really expensive. The product may be good but there is definitely a customer selection. It doesn’t fit bedroom producers, and only target companies. What it affords can be found for far less money in other softwares.
In this system, Kontakt would be a 2.5 or maximum 3 points.
Be sure that I think Kontakt is great, I would personally have put more stars on workflow and design.

Not sponsored – none of our reviews are.

As for the pricing rating, the $399 base price is indeed steep. However, it is commonly known that NI products go on sale every Black Friday, which is when the prices drop by 50%. It happens every year, and many users wait for Black Friday to purchase NI products.

In my opinion, $199 for a tool like Kontakt is an accepatble price. To be fair, Kontakt is way more than just a sampler. Many sound design companies are making a living by selling custom made (and custom scripted) Kontakt libraries. An entire segment of the market exists because of Kontakt. In that regard, no other sampler comes close to it.

Also, let’s not forget about the prices of other comparable software on the market. MOTU MachFive is priced at $459, Omnisphere 2 costs $499. The pricing rating is relative to the complexity of the software, its quality, as well as how it compares to other similarly priced products. Otherwise, we’d just remove the stars as the price goes higher, which doesn’t really make much sense.

A $9 product that does absolutely nothing is not a bargain.

It is ok if it is, sponsored review may be a good way to earn money, especially on software we already like and use.
But you have to admit that, considering the average wage of people around the world, 399$ isn’t that affordable, no matter how efficient is the software, is it ?

If for you KSP scripts is what make the difference, reconsider HISE:
– it offers JavaScript, a well known language, that you can use in a variety of apps, and with a tons of documentation. It is not a proprietary language.
– JavaScript is an advanced language, with Object Oriented Programming support, which fits very well needs of virtual instrument creating thanks to code reusability. Note the case of KSP.

So, you have to reevaluate pricing considering how competitors succeed in the same domain, and how expensive they are. As HISE is free and theoretically offers a more advanced programming environment than Kontakt…

We don’t say that Kontakt isn’t good, or that your review is bad. Kontakt is currently the most advanced sampler available, and we like it. But it is definitely not the most cost efficient one, or the more affordable, and so, it doesn’t deserve this price rating, especially for “bedroom producers”. Remember that folks here may use free DAW, on free OS, with free virtual instruments.

This leaves me with one question : is this post sponsored by Native Instruments ?

As I explained in the review, there was a time when I saw Kontakt as “just a sampler”, but there’s SO much more available to you than “just sampling”. You have to roll up your sleeves and dig into the guts of Kontakt to appreciate its full potential. I agree, $399 is a lot of money, but you’re not buying any ole’ sampler here. Kontakt is the most powerful sampler engine on the planet. There are people who’ve done amazing things with their own KSP scripts.

I just wish it was possible to work on the VPL level in a more modular way. That I think is what NI should focus on. It’s hard to appreciate how powerful the sampler engine is when a lot of that power is reliant on script processing.

You need to show the license upfront on your website, like every open source project. Otherwise I wish this project the best success, as Kontakt really need competition. Their pricing policy is outrageous.

Kontakt is waaaaaay overpriced. It deserves no more than 2 stars in Pricing category.

HISE isn’t quite Kontakt yet, but it will surpass it within a year if development continues as it has. It isn’t free to release a HISE library, you have to have a JUCE license and commercial license for HISE. I’m not quite sure what the deal is if you’re releasing a free product though, you might only need the JUCE license.