Thanks a lot for trying us out!
The annual extension fee is just $36/year for Starter and Unleashed licenses. It is also optional.
If you choose to not extend your license, you still own a copy of the software at the current version that was available at the time of the lapse, but your update eligibility changes.
If your license extension has lapsed, you can download patch releases within the same minor OS version that was available to you at the time of the lapse.
For example: Your system is eligible for Unraid 7.1.0 when your extension lapses. You qualify for the remaining patch releases of the Unraid 7.1.x series. Once Unraid 7.2.0 is released, the 7.1.x patch releases will only include security patches. Once Unraid 7.3 is released, version 7.1.0 will be EOL, and there will be no more 7.1.x updates.
Our naming convention for releases is: <major>.<minor>.<patch>.
You can choose not to extend and wait until we release some new feature you like and then jump back in. You can also start with Unleashed and later upgrade to Lifetime.
We typically run sales over the Summer and over the Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend in November.