IK Multimedia 25th Anniversary Group Buy

IK Multimedia has their annual group buy going on. This one has some great products in it. We're at 8200 (buy 1, get 7 free) participants right now. If it gets to 10000 by the end of the month they'll extend it another 30 days.

https://www.ikmultimedia.com/25gb/

"How to Maximize the Value of the IK Multimedia Group Buy"

1. You currently own no IK products with an MSRP over $99.
Cheapest option: buy "ARC System 3 - Software only", which is the only item in the sale with a NON-Crossgrade price of $200. Use the coupon code "GROOVE3IKM" to bring it down to $170. ARC itself won't be immediately useful to you without a measurement microphone, but you can buy that later; this is just to unlock the best value options in the Group Buy. Unfortunately ARC isn't available with Gear Credits, so you just have to buy it outright the old-fashioned way.
Better option: for only $21 more, head to https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/index.php... and buy a "Custom Shop 300 Gear Credits" pack for $225. Use the coupon code "GROOVE3IKM" to bring it down to $191. Then install Custom Shop on your computer, and use those 300 Gear Credits to buy T-RackS 5 Deluxe. That not only gets you about half of the T-RackS modules right away, but since you bought a $300 MSRP item, you'll be eligible for the few freebies with an MSRP higher than $199, namely Syntronik Deluxe and Miroslav Philharmonik 2.

2. You already own at least one IK product with an MSRP over $99.
Cheapest option: head over to https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/index.php... and buy a "Custom Shop 200 Gear Credits" pack for $160. If you have any Jampoints, use them too, which can bring it down as low as $112; or use the coupon "GROOVE3IKM" to get it for $136. Then, open up Custom Shop on your computer and use those Gear Credits to buy AmpliTube 5, SampleTank 4, Syntronik, or SampleTron 2 - any of them you don't already own will do the job. Now you can get all the other $200 items for free.
Better option: if you don't own T-RackS 5 Deluxe yet, the "Better option" above (buying 300 Gear Credits and using them to buy T-RackS 5 Deluxe) is still a great deal. If you have Jampoints, you could get the 300 Gear Credit pack for as little as $158, which is totally worth it for the additional T-RackS modules you'll get this way.

3. The super-secret best option if it works out for you!
There is another offer going on right now - if you buy the bundle of ARC System 3 with the measurement microphone ($249, or $149 Crossgrade) and register it by the end of August, you'll get T-RackS 5 Deluxe for free. That's in addition to the ARC purchase unlocking up to 24 more freebies in the Group Buy. The trick here is, it's a hardware purchase, which means shipping, and you must have the product in hand and registered with IK by August 31 to get all the fantastical goodies. You want to get the full version, even if you would be eligible for the crossgrade - as mentioned above, most of really interesting freebies are $200, so if you bought the $149 ARC Crossgrade you wouldn't be able to get those.
ARC + Microphone is unfortunately currently out of stock at many online stores. You CAN order it (with free shipping in the US and EU) direct from IK, and "GROOVE3IKM" works too, bringing it down to $212 / $126. In my experience, that gives you a little bit of slack - if it happens to arrive after the 31st, you can probably work with IK's Support to get all the good stuff. I've asked IK for confirmation about that. Otherwise, shop around - I see a few available from resellers on reverb.com for as little as $199 for the full version, which would be an even better deal - you might want to pay for the expedited shipping. Or if bhphotovideo.com gets it back in stock, they were previously selling it for $183 with free two-day shipping, which would be an amazing deal.

4. The "I Want It All" option!
If you were planning to do any of the Gear Credit options above, consider buying 100-200 more Gear Credits than you need, because it gets cheaper per credit if you buy more at once. Then, after your initial buy-in, buy almost any 100 Gear Credit items in the Custom Shop - a T-RackS module, or an Amplitube collection, anything that's in the Group Buy. That will give you a whole new set of up to 24 freebies of $100 or less. That would be enough to fill out almost all the available T-RackS modules and almost all of the Amplitube Collections. Just be sure not to use your first $200-$300 qualifying purchase on any $100 items - get all the more valuable freebies first.
Whether you're a new IK customer or not, you could get a 500 Gear Credit pack for under $300 with "GROOVE3IKM" (even less if you have a lot of Jampoints!) and end up with basically everything IK makes, assuming the Group Buy gets up anywhere near 24 freebies. Use 300 credits to get T-RackS 5 Deluxe and all the freebies up to $300; use another 100 credits as mentioned above and get all the $100 freebies; use another 50 credits to get, say, one of the T-RackS CSR modules and get a bunch of $39-$49 SampleTank sets and cheap T-RackS modules, and you'll still have 50 Gear Credits left over. I haven't yet made an exhaustive inventory of every item in the Group Buy with their prices to know whether you could literally catch 'em all, but it would for sure be more stuff than you could ever possibly need.