It used to be a lot more expensive! IIRC, they had a per thread-ish licensing scheme for a while (maybe blocks of 4 or 8 threads?). Lots of software did in the

It used to be a lot more expensive! IIRC, they had a per thread-ish licensing scheme for a while (maybe blocks of 4 or 8 threads?). Lots of software did in the late 2000s. Then a few years ago, to stem the tide from Arnold (which was 1000 euros per node), they lowered their price to this current $600 price point and free for academic/non-commercial. They kept MPC/Technicolor and ILM as well as many smaller shops, but the other major studios either have their own renderer (including Disney Animation!) or use Arnold.