What version of Ableton Live should I buy?

Ableton Live comes in three different versions: Intro ($99), Standard ($449), and Suite ($749).

My recommendation is to buy the Standard Version if you have the $$. The intro will still fully capable but has some limitations.

The downside of the Intro version is that you can only have up to 16 tracks. Some multitrack songs are 20+ tracks, and when you start building sessions in arrangement view (which is what I recommend) and you start stacking songs on top of one another for crossfading, those tracks add up fast. Many of my Sunday morning sets have 100+ tracks.

Start with the 30-day free trial.

The cool thing is that Ableton lets you have a 30-day free trial of their Suite version of the software. I was hesitant about dropping hundreds of dollars on software, but after a few days with the free trial I saw that it was totally worth it. I also learned that I did not need the extra instruments and effects that come with the Suite version. That's why I ended up going with the Standard Version.