Renewals- I have never understood why

Bill J

A year ago I came to Bitdefender after Kaspersky shut down United States operations. I have both Total Security and VPN. In the case of the latter, I don't use it that much because it too often interferes with me trying to go to legitimate websites.

My Bitdefender VPN is up for renewal and its trying to auto renew on an expired credit card. The charge is $69.99

Why would I want to pay almost $70 if I can buy the same product at Amazon for 34. 99?

Bitdefender pricing mimics how Kaspersky operated and why after one experience of auto-renewal, I made sure never to do it again.

I'm happy with Bitdefender's Total Security and would recommend it to other people. Kaspersky's software was great too but their customer service was horrible. I've had no need of Bitdefender customer service to date but acting like KSP used to do leaves me with a negative impression.

Alexandru_BD

Hi Bill,

Like you've noticed, subscribing to antivirus services is widely practiced in the industry nowadays. It's not only K and Bitdefender, there are other vendors who use this business model. Similar to streaming services, most cybersecurity vendors enroll customers in subscriptions, as opposed to the previous licensing models. I think that in the current market conditions, it is a natural evolution. Even car manufacturers have started charging for various features on a subscription basis, from heated seats to rear-wheel steering and things like that.

There are of course several benefits for enrolling in a subscription, and as far as the antivirus is concerned, auto-renewal keeps your defenses activated without interruption for all devices covered by your current subscription, and you won't have to go through all the steps of manually renewing your subscription (search, pay, activate the new code, etc.). And you will automatically get the most advanced versions of your security solution once they become available, at no extra cost. And you can opt out at any time.
Of course, the convenience of renewing your subscription automatically may come at a bigger cost (although sometimes personalized early renewal offers are sent to users), but this is not exactly a price increase, but the full list price of the respective product. Because if you check the official Bitdefender website, you'll notice that most products are offered with a considerable discount for the 1st year of subscription.
In the event the automatic renewal feature is kept enabled, the charge will be for the then-current list price of the product, excluding any promotional and discount pricing available at the official website, or any other points of sale (for example Amazon).

Of course, you could get a better deal elsewhere, but it's important to ensure the resellers from which you are considering your purchase are affiliated with Bitdefender, and have the right to sell those licenses. If we are talking about the official Bitdefender Amazon store, then sure, you can go ahead and buy confidently from there.

There are various offers available at retail stores on marketplaces (Ebay, Amazon, and others), but take into consideration that not all of them are affiliated with Bitdefender and I strongly recommend the purchase of Bitdefender software only from trusted sources and partners. This can make a big difference, because if the product is purchased from a doubtful source, it may not function properly, the activation code may not have the advertised validity, and in some cases Bitdefender is unable to provide support for such licenses.

Going back to pricing, I think it's normal for prices to fluctuate, depending on the market where the product is sold, currency, point of sale, resellers and their existing bundles, but also on various campaigns which may be available only in specific localizations and for a limited amount of time. These are not actually connected to the automatic renewal pricing. Each subscription has its own renewal flow, and if some vendor or partner decides to run a "Back to school" or "Cybersecurity awareness" flash campaign on their platforms, and cut 60% off their list price for a few days, this has nothing to do with the renewal pricing, which is entirely separate from this and the billing will take place using previously established list price (e.g. 50% off for the 1st year, full price for the 2nd term).

I hope this sheds more light on the automatic renewal practice and its role in the Bitdefender ecosystem.

Regards