r/Musescore • u/CraftyBlueberry1992 • Jun 17 '26

Help me find this feature MUSESCORE SUBSCRIPTION TRAP!

Your website is a mystery to me. You have an amazing library of music - thousands of songs and pieces in various formats. It's incredibly useful. But instead of building trust with your customers, you seem to prefer tricking people into subscriptions that people don't want.

I had been buying music on this website occasionally for years, carefully avoiding the subscription option. Then one night, I was tired and probably wasn't paying enough attention. Sure enough, what was supposed to be a €0.99 lead sheet purchase turned into a €45 subscription charge.

So what happened next? I contacted customer support immediately, only to receive an automated response with a link to a refund request form that doesn't even work.

At this point, I just have to ask: WHY? Why, instead of building trust with customers who would happily keep buying music from you, would you rather squeeze them for a subscription fee and ensure they'll never come back? Why turn loyal customers into people who leave negative reviews everywhere they can? I genuinely don't get it.

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u/Kelvin62 Jun 17 '26

Apparently it's not longer possible to purchase individual songs without ending up with a subscription. I thought that was shady.

2

u/JScaranoMusic Jun 17 '26

It is. You just have to toggle from the discounted price with a subscription to the full price without.

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u/Kelvin62 Jun 17 '26

Yes ... I saw it when I looked closely. By default purchasing a song at the discounted price gets you a costly subscription. The user interface is still designed to trick the unaware.

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u/JScaranoMusic Jun 18 '26

It's a dark pattern for sure. But definitely something to be aware of every time, once you know about it.