Review (August 2025)
The first choice for grammy-winning mixing engineers, music producers, musicians and sound designers, waves is the world-leading maker of audio plugins, software and hardware for audio mixing, music production, mastering, post-production and live sound.
50M
Estimated Revenue
3.21M
Website Visitors
4.3/5
Trustpilot Score
What do we know about Waves Audio?
Estimated Revenue (2020)
$50M
Total Employees
460
Founded
1992
Industry
Computer Software
Location
Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
About
Waves Audio: The first choice for Grammy-winning mixing engineers, music producers, musicians and sound designers, Waves is the world-leading maker of audio plugins, software and hardware for audio mixing, music production, mastering, post-production and live sound.
What is Waves Audio's Revenue?
Waves Audio's estimated revenue for 2024 is $50M.
What does Waves Audio do?
For 25+ years, Waves has been the world's leading developer of professional audio plugins for music production, mixing, mastering, live sound, and post-production. In 2011, Waves received a Technical GRAMMY® Award to honor its innovative software, which is used to create hit recordings, major motion pictures, and top-selling video games. Waves also offers licensable algorithms for consumer electronics to dramatically enhance audio performance in products by Dell, Google, Fitbit, Asus, and more. For more information: https://www.waves.com | https://www.maxx.com
What are the monthly traffic metrics for Waves?
6/mo Traffic Growth
27.20%
All Time Traffic Growth
Create Free Account
Monthly Hits
3M
Time on Site
3.8Mins
Pages per Visit
4.0
Bounce Rate
47%
How fast is Waves growing?
Waves has grown by 61.1% in the last 6 months according to SimilarWeb.
How do people interact with Waves?
Last month, Waves received 3M visitors who spent an average of 3.8 minutes on the website and visited 4.0 different pages per session. Overall, 47% of people bounce on the first visit.
How do people find Waves?
1.4M people (45%) visit Waves directly. 1.3M (42%) people search for them in Google. Whereas, 185.5k (6%) discover Waves through Facebook, Reddit, and YouTube. 64.4k (2%) visitors come from Waves's email newsletters. Finally, 93.3k (2.9%) people come from affiliates and or paid referrals.
Who uses Waves?
Waves's top market is the United States and they receive 784.1k (24.4%) people.Then the 2nd is United Kingdom with 197.1k (6.1%).The 3rd is is Germany with 169.5k (5.3%).
Traffic Growth (last 6 months)
What do Waves's customers say about them?
Review Score
4.3/5
Total Reviews
253
Info
Waves Audio5 Star
60.0%
4 Star
10.0%
3 Star
10.0%
2 Star
5.0%
1 Star
15.0%
Read reviews that mention
Alejandro Shoy
I only rate it a 5 because the plugins…
Reviewed on 2021-05-24T16:48:23
I only rate it a 5 because the plugins are amazing but unfortunately this is the end of the road for me and waves,the renewal fee is it a slap on the face for me ?
read more
johnremi
We will not buy Israeli products until occupation ends
Reviewed on 2021-05-11T20:14:34
If you do not oppose your government's genocidal actions against Palestinians, I cannot in goodconscience buy your products
read more
Amir
Read this before you purchase
Reviewed on 2021-04-30T22:03:02
The plugins themselves are good. But the way the licenses are set up is not. I wouldn’t get yourself into waves if you haven’t already.If you use multiple computers you CANNOT use these plugins on both at the same time, which is just ridiculous considering we are all producers/mix master engineers. And if you try to recover the license more than once you have to wait a full YEAR to get back what you paid for. Also forgot to mention if you want to update yearly you have to pay on top of what you already paid for the plug-in. If they ever change the way they use their licenses then I would say go all in, but the way it’s all set up is restricting for no reason. All in all, do what you want but this comes off as shady and inconvenient to me so they lost me as a customer.
read more
David W.
Believe the bad reviews
Reviewed on 2021-03-08T02:49:11
Believe the bad reviews. Not only do they have an atrocious upgrade policy for their substandard and overly-expensive plugins,but their corporate culture is abysmal. This may or may not matter to you, and some may consider it a positive rather than a negative: they are an Israeli company that does not disavow the official policy of the confiscation of Palestinian land and murder of Palestinians. It is sad indeed that politics must intrude upon music, but there you have it. To some this matters, to others it does not, and to some it's a positive. But you should know about it and make your own decision. No other plugin company is against human rights.
read more
Zazoo
Too unreliable, poorly coded plugins.
Reviewed on 2021-02-23T11:50:09
ME: Dear Waves,
For whatever reason RChannel keeps crashing my Logic project. I upgraded to RanaissanceMaxx a week ago and it seemed to work fine for a few days but now the only way my project opens is by uninstalling the whole pack.
I tried launching logic in Safe mode and removed RChannel from the project, then I disabled Core Audio and Re-enabled it but it crashed logic before I was able to save it under a new name. Those are the steps I took to try and rectify to no avail. I had to basically uninstall all my V12 plugins, then re-install all excluding Renaissance Maxx.
I can see you guy have made some improvements with Waves Central but if I can suggest you also have the option to uninstall a pack rather than the entire V12 collection. There seems to be no option to just uninstall Renassiance Maxx. It could also be RBass or RVox which is causing the crash but to my knowledge, it's RChannel that logic keeps crashing on when launching.
I filmed a short video in slow-mo if you like I can send it.
I have to say this is really annoying as I stopped using Waves for almost a year, purely for the fact that your plugins are unreliable. But then I decided to give it another go and upgraded my plugins to V12 hoping you've eliminated the errors but I was wrong. Waves yet again, crashing my project. Not impressed. I think if you guys spent half as much effort building more reliable plugins as you do with your marketing, you'd have a much happier customer base. Otherwise I love your plugins.
WAVES: Dear ...,
I suggest a complete uninstall-reinstall to overcome this issue.
First, uninstall:
In Finder go to Applications and remove the Waves folder and Central application.
In Finder, click on the Go menu while holding down [Alt/Option], click on Library > Preferences and send the Waves Preferences to the trash.
In the same Library folder go to Caches and send the Waves folder to the trash.
Go to Macintosh HD > Library > Preferences and send the Waves Preferences folder to the trash.
Go to Macintosh HD > Library > Application Support and send the Waves folder to the trash.
Delete any WaveShell files you find in the following locations (if exist):
Mac HD > Library > Audio > Plugins > Components
Mac HD > Library > Audio > Plugins > VST
Mac HD > Library > Audio > Plugins > VST3
Mac HD > Library > Application Support > Digidesign > Plugins
Mac HD > Library > Application Support > Avid > Audio > Plug-Ins
Mac HD > Library > Audio > Plugins > WPAPI
Now to re-install:
Download and install Central.
Run Central and log in.
Go to the Install Products page in the top left corner.
Under My Products, check mark the products you wish to install.
If your licenses are not activated, you can choose a device to activate to when installation finishes under Target Device for Licenses.
If your licenses are already activated, click Install on the bottom right.
Once done, please refer to our How to Find Your Plugins in Logic Pro X article and follow the steps provided.
Let me know how it goes.
ME: Ahh the nightmare of using Waves repeating itself. I won’t be following any of those instructions because Waves have already consumed enough of my life, through no fault of my own. It’s your poor coding. I stopped using Waves for nearly a year and I didn’t experience a Single crash, after just one week of using Renaissance my project won’t open.
You guys must be aware of the stress these kinds of situations put your users. There’s never a right time for a project not to open, after having invested days of our time into mixing and all of a sudden project crashes.
I think I should get my Money back or be credited with a voucher so I can put my money towards a different plugin. This has nothing to do with me, it’s Waves, not me.
The alternative is to stop using Renaissance Maxx until other plugins start causing issues. I won’t be reinstalling those plugins because I have clients waiting for tracks to be finished in a timely manner and not when Waves decides to work.
Please can you offer me a refund or a voucher? Otherwise thanks for the million instructions but otherwise no-thanks, I won’t be using your plugins, and once again I’m at a loss, Waves gets their money.
Regards
read more
Chris Dawkins
The best customer service
Reviewed on 2021-02-19T19:45:30
I have needed customer service twice since installing waves plug in bundles. Customer service is quick to answer the phone,and the tech was really skilled at handling my problem with licenses.
read more
waxtaste
Beware Some plugin won't work on specific formats as .vst3 or .Au
Reviewed on 2021-02-09T13:27:23
I've been using Waves plugins for a while now, and one thing I really don't understand is how they make updates or releases new plugins that won't work on specific formats like VST3.As an example, I own the Renaissance plugins (which I love btw), and I was using the VST3 format on Ableton Live10 as they consume less cpu. My surprise was when suddenly this format on some of the plugins stop to work (they don't even load) (probably after one of the waves updates), so I've got in contact with the support. They gave me some instructions and guidelines that didn't work, so I went back to them, but they cut communication and stopped to assist me or response to my emails, this happens a few times with different plugins so I just accepted that I have to use a .vst or a .au (in some cases weird enough as this format shouldn't be working on Ableton). Same thing with "Epic" as they made a release with out a .vst3 version which make this plugins very cpu demanding.
I would love to see a tech team that doesn't stop to communicate and help to fix the problems you encounter with the plugins and I would love to see all the plugins working on Vst3 formats but I guest I just need to stop using Waves and go to another more reliable company.
read more
Obliti Sunt Dii
Superb.
Reviewed on 2020-12-24T14:35:28
Firstly: Products that I have bought are fantastic and so is the customer care. Kind and understandingpeople.
Secondly: You must understand that if you upgrade your operating system from mac to windows, other way around - or for example new version of windows; you have to pay upgrade fee that varies from amound products that you own. This is because upgrading software to new platform needs work, and work takes time and time is money. Just be aware this before you purchase the products if it is an issue for you, or if you are changin' computer right about now.
Upgrades rarely include any actual updates to the plugin's exept for the new platform support. This probably is because the plugin's are looking for certain function or sound (they are mostly based on old real models of some compressor etc). that you would want to change anyways. For new sounds and functions they release new plugins.
So getting these plugin's for fun or home studio might be more expensive than you think in the long run: but for professional use and home studios that are deticated to making that extra push for their sound they are totally worth the money.
About the upgrade fee: Upgrading about 50 plugis is aprox 300$. Usually with combuter that I use that fee comes due every 8 years or so. So it comes around 40$ a year extra cost. For me paying that is totally worth it, since I use them every day.
If you are looking for the best professional plugins to add to your studio: Waves is absolutely the way to go. Highly recommend.
read more
You May Also Find These Company Reviews Interesting
Mightynetworks
Create or grow a website, community, online course, or paid membership site without coding. 14-day free trial.... More
Category
Business and Consumer Services