Buying multiple upgrades for future

Just a quick question, as I’ve seen it said that if you buy an upgrade today it can be used in the future.

Does that mean I could buy two upgrades from pro 9.5 to 10 and use them in the future for 10.5 and 11?

bump!! I would also like to know the answer to this. Can we buy an upgrade and leave it unregistered in our account and use in future during grace period.

My thoughts were that lets say you are running CB9.5 now and buy the CB10 upgrade but do not use it (do not activate the code) then when another new upgrade/version is released, lets say CB12, then as long as you activate your CB10 upgrade within the CB12 grace period or after then you will have a CB12 system.

This works well for bi annual upgrades as you can purchase the cheaper .5 upgrade rather than the full point upgrade. Of course you will always be tempted to just activate it so that you have the latest software each year :slight_smile:

Are you sure this it true? I recall I was on a version on 8.x and bought 9.5 upgrade in Aug 2018 but never bothered to use it. When my system finally had issues and I had to rebuild it in Nov 2018, I finally got around to activating it and only got 9.5. I can’t recall if this was during grace period of 10. But I def didn’t get bumped to 10.x

It is not something I have tried myself as I can never resist the install as soon as I get the upgrade but If you were in the grace period for 10 then I believe you should have got 10, if you installed before the grace period then you would only get 9.5. Maybe someone can confirm this is how it works for sure.

You get a grace period update to whatever the latest version at the time you activate the license is. Once!

That seems like the most likely scenario. Any licence you buy now is valid for Cubase 10. If you do not activate your purchase until the grace period for the next version of Cubase (10.5?) starts then you will be entitled to the next version of Cubase. If you activate at any time after the release of the next version, the licence will activate as that next version. If you activate during the grace period but before the release of the next version, you have to carry out maintenance on the eLicenser to upgrade once the next version is released.

It may well be that a version upgrade bought today will only be valid to upgrade Cubase 9.5 or earlier to the next version of Cubase when it is released. Upgrading Cubase 10 to itself, then a grace period update to the next version may well not be allowed - Steinberg’s logic may well be that you have to carry out a valid upgrade to Cubase 10 first before a grace period update is applied.

Unless you receive an assurance that upgrading Cubase 10 to itself is allowed directly from Steinberg, I would not buy a version upgrade during the sale if you are already on Cubase 10.


Unless Steinberg says otherwise, I would assume that you should only buy an upgrade or crossgrade in the current sale if you wish to do a transaction that would be valid today - using a version upgrade to upgrade from Cubase 9.5 or earlier, or using a crossgrade to switch to a higher edition of Cubase from Cubase 10 or earlier. If one of those scenarios applies, buy now and you have the choice of activating now if you want Cubase 10 or activating after the grace period starts for the next version.

The licensing system seems fairly strict about versions. There is an example in the forum of someone who bought Cubase 8.5, received a grace period update to Cubase 9, then bought an upgrade product some time later that was valid to upgrade from Cubase 8.5 or earlier. The system rejected the upgrade on the basis that the user was updating from Cubase 9 and needed a different, cheaper, upgrade product for their intended upgrade.

This will only work for the FIRST one you activate because after you activate the first update you no longer have a 9.5 license to update from for the second “extra” update you purchased.

Thank you, clearest reply that i can understand. :slight_smile: