Sweetwater wrote back to clarify about the $149/year statement that Cakewalk mentioned for the upgrade:

"As far as I'm aware it's a one time charge, not annual ."

So it seems you can HP the product and pay it off, or buy the upgrade outright

For info


BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.