The updated Vuforia pricing page includes a critical detail that the letter from Jay did not: The Classic Plan "does not include object targets, cloud-based reco and internal use apps". (Source: https://developer.vuforia.com/pricing ) In Vuforia 3.x we could build internal use apps and, we could make limited use of cloud based recogntion.
So, correct me if I'm wrong. You've apologized for the pricing misstep, but your correction is give us a subset of Vuforia 3.x for $499 PER APP? The most advanced Vuforia features that keep it competitive with other AR platforms aren't even available at $499 per app.
I simply cannot understand your thinking. Surely you would make a great deal more money with a better value proposition. This plan is essentially the "Pay us $500 per app that you need to update for now until you can move to a new platform." So, by not supporting iOS any longer with Vuforia 3.x, you've held us ransom for a $500 fee or two, and chased us off your SDK entirely?
Use the Unity business model. Can you not see the tremendous goodwill that developer community has for Unity3d? Charge a flat fee, or a monthly fee. Do not charge us per recognition (unless there is a cost to your infrastructure like cloud reco), and do not charge per app. Something like $99 / month or $999 per major release is what the market will bear. Surely that pricing level would yield more Vuforia bound dollars than the exit strategy pricing you're offering now.
As a freelancer who made/makes apps/games with AR that are pretty small the clasic plan looks pretty bad .
Mostly we do small apps and many so this plan is rubish .
I plan on moving to metaio if no other solution is found and my client agrees .