You’ve probably heard, Adobe announced yesterday that the company will focus all of its creative software development efforts on its Adobe Creative Cloud (CC) offering moving forward, thus killing off the boxed tools previously known as Creative Suite. It’s a move everyone saw coming, though I had guessed it wouldn’t happen until after CS 7.
There’s a lot of misinformation and assumption going around, so before you get frustrated and fly-off the handle, here are the facts.
Pricing:
- If you currently own Creative Suite 3, 4, 5, or 5.5: $30 per month for the first year and $50 per month after that.
- If you currently own Creative Suite 6: $20 per month for the first year and $50 per month after that.
- If you’re a new user buying Creative Cloud for the first time: $50 per month.
- Student or educator version: $20 per month for the first year if you sign up before June 25th. After June 25th, or after your first year, you’ll pay $30 per month.
- Single app subscriptions, like Photoshop only: $20 per month, per app.
[zilla_alert style=”yellow”] The above pricing only applies if you subscribe to Creative Cloud BEFORE JULY 31, 2013! After July 31, you pay $50 per month or $30 per month as a student or educator (barring any future discount offers). [/zilla_alert]
Other Facts about Adobe Creative Cloud:
- Despite the “per month” term used in the pricing, you cannot subscribe to CC on a per-month term. CC is only available in 12-month subscriptions. So the standard CC subscription will cost a new user $600 weather you use it one day per year or 365 days.
- These are not cloud apps. The Creative Cloud apps are the same desktop apps you’re currently using. You download them and install them just as you would any other app you buy.
- You do NOT have to be connected to the internet 24/7 in order to use CC apps. The apps will connect to the Adobe license server one time per month to verify your license (which is tied to your Adobe ID, not a serial number). Just an FYI, Creative Suite apps have been doing this for quite some time now anyway.
- Any updates to the app that occur in your subscription year are free.
- You can install CC apps on up to two computers, and your subscription includes access to the Mac and Windows versions of the software
- You do NOT have to upgrade to the latest version if you choose not to. If you were to subscribe today, you could continue using the current CC apps as long as you continue to subscribe.
Is it right for you?
Well it really doesn’t matter, does it? Adobe has chosen to drop the standard boxed Creative Suite, and I don’t see them reversing coarse. Ever. This is the future of all software. It really doesn’t matter if it’s going to cost you more or less than the current pricing model, because this is your only option if you want/need to continue using Adobe applications.
If you currently have Creative Suite 6, you may be wondering if you should subscribe after the new versions of the CC apps ship in mid-June. I can’t answer that for you, but I will say that you’ll get them for $240 for the first year, a $360 discount.
I’m not happy about the lack of options with pricing either. But it is what it is. And quite frankly, I’ll be quite happy to not have to wait 18-months for feature updates to the software I use every day. And I’m really looking forward to using the new InDesign (what would be known as CS7) and some of the Creative Cloud collaboration tools.
If you’re a print designer, you most likely have little option to switch to something else. There are no true substitutes to InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat, Flash, etc. in our industry. Only Photoshop has any real competition (Pixelmator is excellent!). This may change in the future, but for now Adobe is king of the sandbox and you have to play with their toys. If you’re a web designer, your options are much more open. If you’re willing to learn new software that may not be as full-featured as Adobe’s, I encourage you to seek them out and give them a try.
Adobe is just the latest vendor to announce the switch to a subscription model. Microsoft recently announced that they’ll be switching to the same model with MS Office when the next version ships as well.
If I upgrade to CC will I be able to save my files as CS6 or CS5 and so on? I have some clients that are still using older versions and I have to down-save files for them on a regular basis. If I can’t down save then this is just another HUGE problem and my main reason not to upgrade.
Yes. You can save files as IDML which works with CS4 and higher.
So if I save my CC files to a previous version then I can also save my files for future use if I decided to not use CC again? This sounds like a good back up plan.
Yeah, you could save every ID file as an IDML as well which would allow you to open them in CS6. This of course isn’t going to work forever because eventually ID won’t be able to save down the files all the way to CS6. Also, some features simply don’t translate to older versions. For instance, when I upgraded to CS5, I noticed that when I had an object and used the new rounded corner options and saved the file down for my clients to open, the rounded corner boxes were turned into embedded raster images rather than fully editable objects.
I wish we could pay what the US customers are paying… if we would choose the CC package (which we are not doing) for the English version we pay 80 dollars (61 euros) in the Netherlands.
Outside the US Adobe will lose a lot of customers, we’ll be sticking with CS5.5.
Hello all,
There is a lot of discussion going on at the moment and I think it will only intensify as the launch date gets nearer. Some people will jump straight in, for example, I also have my own freelance design and ilustration business, as a sole trader the single subscription is great for me as it works out to be roughly the cost of the usual upgrade from one version to the next. What concerns me is that the business model has no options. The company I work for only uses the design standard suite. We were opting for the premium, but we would be paying for things we wouldn’t use. This, as I have stated along with James, is a major sticking point for the business subscription. A$70 per month, per designer is expensive. If Adobe had offered a middle ground option, A$50 (49.99) for teams that don’t need the web or video software, we would subscribe. The only drawback is that if we don’t subscribe in June and we wait, we will end up paying more later.
Eventually we will have to subscribe, we will have no choice, but it will impact our business. We will have to up our rates across the board to cover this, and it may mean we don’t take on new staff or a junior, curb our staff incentives (training etc) or update other areas of the business.
As an aside, we always save a IDML file with all our final artwork, so that if we have problem we can still open the file in older versions, also some of our clients – who have InDesign – are using older versions are then able to access the file. We also save all work to our own server and back up to disc and harddrive. We rarely use a cloud for saving files, other than word files as this is a easier way to edit copy with clients.
Lets see what the next few weeks bring, perhaps Adobe will tweak their pricing plans, we can but hope.
Drew
I suspect we will see pricing options in the future. I doubt this all or nothing pricing can sustain the company.
I am not surprised by Adobe making this move. I understand it will most likely cut down on pirating of anything they do in the future, But at the same time, see it opening a big market for pirating current Adobe products. I do see Adobe losing some of its customer base over this move as it really limits you in regards to the options they offer. You are pretty much obligated to using their complete program even if you only require two individual programs, such as PS & AI. I do see Adobe adding more pricing options down the road as people start looking for other alternatives. I have always been a firm believer in keeping my Adobe software up to date, but also like to wait a couple of months after a release to allow them to work out some bugs. I will eventually have to go to CC if a good alternative does not come about. Otherwise my customers are going to have to pay additional cost to help me recoup some of the subscription fee’s. I am just a small business owner trying to make an honest buck and these large software companies keep making that harder to do. Sure wish Adobe would have put out a survey to it’s clientele before pushing forward with it. But I also suspect they already know what kind of response they would have received back. Oh well, still a happy Adobe software customer, just becoming less enamored with corporate greed.
I guess I wouldn’t mind the subscription model if they didn’t lock us out of our files (proprietary Adobe formats) should we stop the subscription. It’s an extortionist scheme.
In my opinion, that’s not really a valid argument because most programs are proprietary formats. They can’t be expected to support every competing program on the market, and they’re in business to make money selling their software. But your underlying point is heard loud and clear… once you subscribe and use the CC apps, you’re pretty much locked in forever unless you no longer need those files.
James, thanks for the summary, but you seem a little confused about the facts yourself!
Rene brings up a very valid point – and the one that most of us are having an issue with – that is under the new subscription scheme as soon as you stop subscribing all your files are effectively useless as you are ‘locked out of them’. You simply cannot access them at all.
With a perpetual licence you have access to the files you have created for as long as you want – simply because you still have the software. It is nothing to do with the propietary format.
That and the continuing unreliability of the system are what concern most of us. Just read the Adobe forums some time and see how many people get locked out of their software through the bugginess of the subscription system. That’s annoying if you are a hobbyist, but unacceptable for those of us that rely on the software for our business.
The fact that it is quite a bit more expensive than the perpetual licence (as Drew points out) as well doesn’t help, but we could live with that if it wasn’t for the other issues.
As for ther subscription model giving us access to quicker updates and features – that would only sway people who haven’t used Adobe software before. Most ‘features’ are just gimmicks these days and the updates rarely fix the real bugs. That is why a lot of users skip versions – there simply isn’t any reason to upgrade for the latest gimmick.
The sad thing is that eventually we will gradually all be forced to go to the subscription model purely so that we can open files that unwitting individuals have created using CC products. That is the only way Adobe will get most professional users to switch.
I’m guessing the only people unaffected by this nonsense will be the pirates. They’ll likely have it cracked and sorted within a couple of days and carry on using the latest versions as and when they please. If Adobe thinks this new model is going to slow people like that down then they are being incredibly naiive!
What is the price as i am CURRENTLY using CC (for CS6). So while I don’t ‘own’ CS6 – I am payig for it via a CC subscription.
The pricing details are for individuals. I work in a small company with 8 other CS6 users. Are we really expected to pay $50 per month for each designer (after the first year). The upgrade from CS5 to CS6 was much less than the pricing shown here. The single user pricing seems ok, but I’m not sure if any body has worked out the cost on small businesses. The Adobe website is vague on these details. I would love to hear what other small design companies are doing or are thinking of doing or if any one has information on price structure for companies.
Pricing for companies (Creative Cloud for Teams) is $69 per month, per seat.
With the increased cost over individual licenses, you get:
• 100GB of cloud storage per person for file sharing and collaboration
• Centralized administration, purchasing, and license management console
• Centralized deployment — package all apps, or a customized subset, for your team
• Access to Adobe experts (two 1:1 sessions per user, per year)
Hi James,
This is all good and I appreciate the benefits of cloud storage, admin etc. It’s just that for the 8 of us, it is a lot of money per year. A$70 per month, per person is A$560 x 12 that’s A$6720. Our upgrade from CS5 to CS6 only cost us A$450 per machine – A$3600 in total.
These updates usually happen approx every 12-18 months, with upgrades costing pretty much the same. We will be paying more than double. Granted we get access to all the software, but we don’t use dreamweaver or flash, we use external providers for that. This is something that we – and I’m sure other small design companies – are going to have to look into very carefully as it is a big expense every year.
Drew
All valid points. And you bring up the one sticking point for me. It’s not that I mind paying a monthly fee to ‘rent’ the software. Quite frankly, I find the cost minimal compared to my income that I make using it. My beef is that (like you) I don’t use all the software that comes with CC. I use Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator and Acrobat – perhaps opening Dreamweaver once or twice a year. That’s why I used to buy the Design Premium Suite. I would happily pay $30 per month for just those 5 apps, but I don’t have the choice. And that’s where I think Adobe is going to face the most angry customers.
I am running an earlier version of CS. If i choose to not ‘upgrade’ to Cc will I be able to open and edit existing and create new projects with my installed software or will I be locked out of my own files?
ANY previous version of CS will operate just as it does now. You won’t be ‘locked out’ of anything. The current CS versions you may own are not tied to any account.
Thanks. Sounds like a good move for those not wed to the bleeding edge might be to purchase a closeout copy of CS 6.