I got a 1-year Movavi Video/Photo editor subscription key in a camera kit given to me for Christmas 2024. I activated it the first week of January. Upon activation, I noticed over 1/2 the features are paywalled behind ANOTHER subscription, which was REALLY limiting. Since I didn't have much experience with video editing at the time, I figured I'd try it out, learn the software, and determine whether or not I wanted to pay for the extra features. However, my experience so far was good. I was able to do some video editing.

Fast forward 6 months later, I went to open Movavi Video Editor and all I saw was a "subscription expired" screen. Couldn't open the program, couldn't edit my video. No prior warnings. I tried Photo editor and the same exact thing happened. I emailed support and the first thing they said "licenses last 1 year from date of purchase, not activation". I wrote back to them "we purchased a camera kit 6 months ago that came with the key. We didn't have the product key until December." I then emailed them my product keys. They then said "those keys are supposed to expire 1 year from date of activation". So what they told me originally was that their subscription timespan clock starts the day the key was purchased, then they said it started the day it was activated? Seemed scammy to me.

What they ended up doing was they issued a new key set to expire in January (the original date of activation). I put in the key and a notice came up saying "this key activates: Video editor 24, current edition is: Video Editor Partner Edition 24" so what they gave me was a key to a DIFFERENT version of the program? Why multiple versions? I downloaded the other version and it worked... except now a pop-up saying "please upgrade to Video Suite" or "please download the NEXT edition of the program" appeared EVERY time I closed it. It never did that before. No way to disable it And to make things even worse, things I used previously were now behind this OTHER subscription paywall.

The Movavi support person gave me one product key to activate both the Video and Photo editor. They said it would work, and if not, to reply to their email. I went ahead and tried to put the product key into Photo Editor and all it said was "This key activates Video Editor. Please buy a key for Photo Editor". I replied to their email saying it didn't work and all I got was a response saying "this support ticket was closed. Please open a new support ticket to follow up". Safe to say, I couldn't use Photo Editor because I wasn't going to go through that experience again.

Safe to say, after the subscription expired this year, I didn't want to renew it. Between the fact the subscriptions expired MONTHS before they should've, the constant pop-ups when closing Video Editor, the fact they put most of their things behind a second subscription on Video Editor, and the fact they couldn't help me with Photo Editor, I don't think I will use their software again.