I feel like the pricing on Houdini Indie is off.
As an Indie developers, we got used to pricing models like Unity's, where you use it for free until you make a certain amount of money, then you have to pay for subscription or a percentage of your prophets.
This is much better that this “Apprentice” version, which is restricted in key areas like exporting to the Houdini Engine (or exporting anything for that matter).
Here is my issue: I wanted to create assets and publish them on the Unity Asset Store, and see if that works out, but there are many problems with that:

• I can't use the Apprentice version commercially, even on a small scale
  
• I can't even test my assets inside of Unity
  

so I can't even tell if this is going to work out or not, and I absolutely can't afford the Indie version (broke student).
So I think there is a lot of wasted potential there, if the Indie version was made free until one makes a certain amount I think it would make a lot more sense. At least for me.

H indie is anywhere from 5x to 15x times less expensive then competitors. And no, you can absolutely not use competitors apps for creating assets for game engines with the student license.
I understand you are monetarily constrained, but there's always b3d for these types of situations.

REO_3D
I feel like the pricing on Houdini Indie is off.

agree, there's a steep barrier-to-entry for low-end commercial work, given the resources required to get work processed/rendered overnight, plus last-minute revisions, plus general sketchiness of clients in that bloody arena. The recommended solution is to ‘don’t go there', however its by far the best training for vfx at all levels (not just technical) and is where Indie can best serve as a gateway drug… so-to-speak.

The ideal solution would be free licenses for Indie, but Sidefx can tap you to pay-up at any time, or else cut you off. This way all of the nubs & recalcitrants can slug it out against their Blender competitors without handicap, while those few who get lucky will feel the hand of Sidefx in their pocket.

I would like those 1-post-heroes to mention in their rants that they are generally working for free for anyone and only require a minimum percentage of an employer's income if that employer makes more than a given amount of money.

Because that is exactly what these anonymous superstars are saying: If they are expected to pay money for other people's work, the “world is off”. Everyone should provide their tools to these people for free, so they can make their first dime.

Oh, and in the supermarket, you should get everything for free, too, and only have to pay if you are making actual money from cooking what you bought. If you are only eating your meals yourself, it would be “off” to have to pay for it. Same goes if you are only cooking for a bunch of friends and every friend is only paying you a small fee, say a thousand dollar per meal. Because from a thousand dollar a meal you don't get rich, do you. So that should be free, too.

Not to forget that buying cars should mean you get a car for free if you are not using it as a paid taxi. Uber doesn't count because Uber is making more money from you driving that car than you are. So cars should be free for anyone.

And if the tool you are sell… you are giving away for free to all those rainbow unicorns, you HAVE TO provide all the training for free, too. And you have to be available for support needs. And you have to adjust your tool to the very specific, highly unskilled abilities of aforementioned one-post-celebrities. Because … well, erm … because.

Really, it's all so off. The offest is that money even exists in the first place, it should be freely available to anyone BUT bankers.

Marc Albrecht

I always wonder how people saying they can't afford software licenses are able to finance their workstations and monitors.

On another note: Even a static rendering – be it a product shot or arch vis – is easily worth around 1k. Seriously, just get a grip!

“…then you have to pay for subscription…” No! lets not go there…ever!…cough cough…sorry, adobe fur ball…

Personally, I'm outraged that SideFX doesn't pay me to use their software. The exposure for them would be tremendous.

what about bug logging for SideFX ?…effectively you are working for free to improve the software…reckon $5 a fix (well ok, not a fix but a bug detected) is nice beer money for a poor student !!!

Beer is a powerful motivator.

This is all very silly. These arguments were used against anything resembling Indie pricing when only FX/Core were around. Then when Indie came out, everyone thought that was great.

Lets see here, Houdini Indie is $22.41 a month. I thought it was a smashing deal for the power it has, and I'm a poor hobbyist. Its only slightly more then the video games people pay a subscription for. I find that quite reasonable for up to 100k of game sales. I also use Adobe Substance. They lowered there prices so Hobbyists can afford the high end stuff. The other thing about Houdini is they give you 3 licenses. I travel 80% and live in hotels most of my life. So I have it installed on my high power home computer. that still hates doing hair in Houdini, and my laptop I travel with. No shortage of learning for a small price.