browj2 and csehz, thanks for raising the error 500 shop issue, big apologies for that - the shop devs are working to resolve it asap. You're right, the purchase actually goes thru Ok and the Update Service is extended, but that is far from obvious.
So far as the pricing goes, the cost of all Designer Pro upgrades was increased last September, 2016, after discussions with Magix. Before that the price had indeed been the same for many years, and therein lies the problem - since the cost of producing continuous updates to features and content, in multiple languages and more frequently than before, has not remained the same. So the price for renewing your Update Service after expiry is the same as upgrades to 365 since last September, although there is a discount for upgrades before expiry. You can see details for pre-expiry here
http://www.xara.com/expiring/designer-pro/ and post-expiry here
http://www.xara.com/expired/designer-pro/. Update Service renewals for Photo & Graphic Designer and Web Designer Premium currently remain the same cost as upgrades at the launch of 365 last year.
Several of you have mentioned the search feature in the Designs Gallery of v11. Yes that is one way of searching your Content if you don't renew, but just a heads up - the Designs Gallery search has not worked properly for quite a long time, certainly not in v11 (keywords in any relatively new content are not being picked up), we only finally resolved the issue by moving search into the OCC.
I'm really sorry to see that many of you are still not convinced by the Update Service model, and we continue to listen to and weigh up all the feedback both + and -. But do always bear in mind that you don't have to renew until you see enough updates to make it worthwhile for you personally. And of course your software does not disappear completely if you do not renew, as in the Adobe model!
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