6 ms·

Adobe introduces subscription pricing model (Photoshop for $35/month)

74 points by oneplusone 15y ago

iwwr 15y ago
Is it now a given that any fledgling designer will pirate Photoshop?
- sudont 15y ago
  Yes. That or the educational discount, where Creative Suite is 200 dollars. I've been hanging on to my copy of cs3 for quite a while, and it only grows less relevant over time. Eventually there will be a different solution, but at this time there simply really isn't any application out there with as battle-tested as a UI as what Photoshop has. I think most of the sales that they "lose" are the same type of issues that the music industry faces: not a lost sale, just someone trying it out who wouldn't have bought anyway. I've never really seen any institutional or business piracy with Photoshop, just teenagers wanting to use it to mess around.
  - jarek 15y ago
    It's the same model as with pirating Microsoft Office. Adobe can't say it outright, but they'd much rather the individual users pirate as long as it means Photoshop/CS remains the industry standard, because most businesses will pay for it.
revorad 15y ago
This looks great, but it is incredibly hard to figure out how to actually buy a subscription on that site. Go here - https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&#38 https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=...;
- bricestacey 15y ago
  It's hardly difficult. You click Store > Adobe Store and right under Photoshop are 3 buying options including the subscription.
  - revorad 15y ago
    Once I found that it was ok, but the linked article led me down a wild goose chase with this link - www.adobe.com/go/cssubscription. Or maybe I'm just being slow today.
- hackernewz 15y ago
  I find it nearly impossible to navigate adobe.com. Takes like 2 or 3 days of visiting, getting frustrated/lost and then stopping for me to get the latest version of flash.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Retric 15y ago
I think subscription pricing fits the software model vary well. However, their pricing is stupid. If you pay for 6 months it would have been cheaper to just upgrade the product outright. Software is not like renting a car where you already know how to drive, you really need to know how to use it before it becomes useful and that takes time. Edit: Now I could see paying that as a daily rate. If you work on this stuff 3-4 days a month it would cost less and feel like less of a ripoff to rent vs. buy.
- jterce 15y ago
  It does depend on the type of business--for most it seems to make more sense to just buy. But the example given--Photoshop--retails for $699. So that's more like 20 months to break even.
- jcl 15y ago
  Photoshop is around $600-700 for the full product, $200 for an upgrade. That means that the full product plus one upgrade is approximately equivalent to two years of subscription -- which is the amount of time Adobe is planning to go through two versions anyway. After that point, owning plus upgrading is cheaper, but it seems likely that by that time Adobe will have tweaked the subscription and upgrade prices to make owning less appealing. The people they are really going after are those that need to swap Adobe files (e.g. creative consultants and their clients): Inter-version compatibility is a headache for any participants who aren't on the latest version. Things could get particularly ugly if they start releasing features to subscribers that aren't otherwise available until the next version.
  - Retric 15y ago
    Most professionals/companies already have a copy of Photoshop so they are competing with upgrade pricing more than full retail pricing. Upgrade pricing is set so low because most users don't need the latest version anyway. (It's still 200$ to upgrade from CS2 to CS5). Edit: You can also upgrade student editions to full retail versions, so "having a copy" includes the student edition. PS: For most non professional people a 400$ copy of CS3 is plenty. Next year they can probably upgrade to CS7 (for 200$) and then stay on a 2-3 year upgrade cycle after that.
jrubinovitz 15y ago
I think this is a good idea for Adobe. Maybe this will deter some people from downloading the software illegally. I only need to use PS once or twice a year, and the thought of downloading it illegally has crossed my mind several times. I haven't downloaded it illegally, instead I use it at my school's computer lab for free (besides what I pay for tuition). If I could download PS for $35 a month, I may just download it each time I need to use it and benefit from having the latest version on my own computer for a cheaper price.
- slacker2 15y ago
  You are able to download the full evaluation for free.
- jcl 15y ago
  Note that you only get the $35/month price if you sign up for a year. The product page says a month-to-month subscription is $49/month, which would only be worth it if you anticipate using it eight months or less out of a year.
chrislomax 15y ago
I think this is a cracking idea for freelancers. I know we pay out close to 2k for the web premium version and its outdated every year now as they are releasing a new version nearly once a year!
- city41 15y ago
  How does Adobe make the new version relevant enough to warrant its purchase? Do they do so in an honest or deceptive way? I'm not a designer, but I use Illustrator often. I just bought Illustrator 10 for about $100 and it more than meets my needs. How many truly relevant new features can really be added to a vector drawing program?
  - mneedham 15y ago
    Not sure about Illustrator but Photoshop makes upgrades pretty compelling by adding sexy new features. Like the content-aware fill in CS5 - novel/useful/fun enough to make everyone want to give it a go. Generated a ton of conversation pre-launch and likely contributed to a lot of new sales and upgrades.
  - chrislomax 15y ago
    Well not that we actually use it because we are a .net studio here but, the version of Dreamweaver in the packages has to be updated at least once a year to take into account new standards etc. Obviously when the web switched from tables to div's then Dreamweaver had a lot of changes to make also. I think you are right regarding the Illustrator issue though, I still have CS2 on my machine and I don't think there has been a noticable change up to CS5, that might be why its one of the cheaper subscriptions?? Photoshop is constantly changing in my eyes, they introduced the 3d tool 2 versions ago and I would imagine they spend the next few versions perfecting it. At that point they introduce another big feature. I think a lot of the time the upgrades are non essential though and are just a money spinner. Apple do it though once a year but they only charge a nominal fee for their software. Microsoft do it every few years but they are a rip off. I know that if I was a Freelancer and my software was not covered by the company then I would be more inclined to go down this route than downloading it. I don't know many freelancers that start up and can afford the latest version of any of Adobe's products. They are the industry standard and they have people by the balls, this way they can try to get potential illegal downloaders interested.
mgkimsal 15y ago
What would be useful too is if a portion of your 'subscription' could count against a full purchase if you decide to buy. Let me pay $49/month for a couple months for indesign while I need it. If I decide that I want the full version, give me a prorated discount.
- sjtgraham 15y ago
  Yea, I would also love to say to my landlord "Hey bro! You know I've been renting this apartment from you for a few years now, and I would like to buy the joint at a prorated discount"
  - pjleonhardt 15y ago
    It's called Rent-to-own. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-to-own#Real_estate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-to-own#Real_estate
  - albedoa 15y ago
    "Well I should hope so! That's the agreement we came to a few years ago. Bro."
  - tristanperry 15y ago
    Yeah I'd agree. There's a big difference between leasing/renting, and leasing-to-own and I'd be very surprised if Adobe offered a prorated discount system as a result.
  - mgkimsal 15y ago
    It actually happens a lot in situations where people know the landlord. If you agree to it ahead of time, even moreso. I'd see nothing odd with Adobe giving people who've leased for 6 months a 10% discount coupon to incentivize them to get a 'full' version ("you've like it so far - lock in our current pricing now and save!") Adobe gets more cash quicker, user's been able to try it out without a lot of cash down up front.
  - dpcan 15y ago
    It doesn't compare. At all. Your Landlord can't just create an infinite number of apartments on the fly and rent them to an infinite number of people at almost no extra cost to him. With software, this is a very real possibility and rent to own makes perfect sense. The minute Adobe says they will do this I'm in. I would love to be able to pay for 12 months and finally have my own copy. At about that time, they may release a new version, and at that time, heck, I might just stay on the subscription plan so I get the newer one. BUT, if I stop, I still have version 5.5 that I paid for in full.
ryan-allen 15y ago
Despite the Australian Dollar currently being higher than the US Dollar, Adobe are charging an extra 20% to Australians. I used to use Photoshop daily, but I don't any more. I'd love to be able to use it though I would only use it casually. Their price point is still too high for me so I'm going without.
vessenes 15y ago
For all you freelancers, this is a good opportunity to change your billing -- I think you could probably add an Adobe subscription fee to your work; don't get greedy, just pro-rate it over the number of days you used a product for the project. You'll make money, and your clients will have a hard time complaining about it. So, $4k project, 12 days, used Photoshop, = $49/(12/30) = $19.60. This would be hard to complain about as a client. For you, on every project you do, if you're a typical small design shop where net income is roughly 10%, you'll be adding 5% to your net income. Or, if you need two or three programs, then 15% to your bottom line. Of course, if you're a freelancer, then you're adding $19.60 to your bottom line. But, I bet it would be nice to add those up, especially since projects tend to run long in days, not hours.
- vessenes 15y ago
  er, $49 * 12 /30, excuse me.
- originalgeek 15y ago
  I disagree. I expect a professional to show up with the tools of their trade, and be ready to work.
  - vessenes 15y ago
    That's fine, but I bet in reality even you, holding this perfectly valid viewpoint, wouldn't mind if someone showed you their rate card, and it disclosed this at the bottom, and when questioned the principal said it was due to an 'accounting practice' rather than just rolling in the obviously low delta in price.
    - originalgeek 15y ago
      I'd call bullshit on the "accounting practices" smokescreen and send them packing. What's next? I get billed for computer time by the hour because they wanted the 12-Core Mac Pro? But more than that, they way I view someone like that is someone who would rather nickel and dime me to death than to just just honestly charge the rate they need to charge. I would feel there were going to be numerous little surprise charges on their invoices. And being a hired gun myself, who started out as a nickel-and-dimer, I would view the individual or agency as lacking in experience.
tomjen3 15y ago
Not really - that is only if you buy for an entire year. So it is really a year at $35*12= $370. Which doesn't seem so good anymore.

74 points by oneplusone 15y ago

iwwr 15y ago

Is it now a given that any fledgling designer will pirate Photoshop?

sudont 15y ago
Yes. That or the educational discount, where Creative Suite is 200 dollars. I've been hanging on to my copy of cs3 for quite a while, and it only grows less relevant over time. Eventually there will be a different solution, but at this time there simply really isn't any application out there with as battle-tested as a UI as what Photoshop has. I think most of the sales that they "lose" are the same type of issues that the music industry faces: not a lost sale, just someone trying it out who wouldn't have bought anyway. I've never really seen any institutional or business piracy with Photoshop, just teenagers wanting to use it to mess around.
- jarek 15y ago
  It's the same model as with pirating Microsoft Office. Adobe can't say it outright, but they'd much rather the individual users pirate as long as it means Photoshop/CS remains the industry standard, because most businesses will pay for it.

revorad 15y ago

This looks great, but it is incredibly hard to figure out how to actually buy a subscription on that site. Go here - https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-US&#38 https://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?store=...;

bricestacey 15y ago
It's hardly difficult. You click Store > Adobe Store and right under Photoshop are 3 buying options including the subscription.
- revorad 15y ago
  Once I found that it was ok, but the linked article led me down a wild goose chase with this link - www.adobe.com/go/cssubscription. Or maybe I'm just being slow today.
hackernewz 15y ago
I find it nearly impossible to navigate adobe.com. Takes like 2 or 3 days of visiting, getting frustrated/lost and then stopping for me to get the latest version of flash.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Retric 15y ago

I think subscription pricing fits the software model vary well. However, their pricing is stupid. If you pay for 6 months it would have been cheaper to just upgrade the product outright. Software is not like renting a car where you already know how to drive, you really need to know how to use it before it becomes useful and that takes time. Edit: Now I could see paying that as a daily rate. If you work on this stuff 3-4 days a month it would cost less and feel like less of a ripoff to rent vs. buy.

jterce 15y ago
It does depend on the type of business--for most it seems to make more sense to just buy. But the example given--Photoshop--retails for $699. So that's more like 20 months to break even.
jcl 15y ago
Photoshop is around $600-700 for the full product, $200 for an upgrade. That means that the full product plus one upgrade is approximately equivalent to two years of subscription -- which is the amount of time Adobe is planning to go through two versions anyway. After that point, owning plus upgrading is cheaper, but it seems likely that by that time Adobe will have tweaked the subscription and upgrade prices to make owning less appealing. The people they are really going after are those that need to swap Adobe files (e.g. creative consultants and their clients): Inter-version compatibility is a headache for any participants who aren't on the latest version. Things could get particularly ugly if they start releasing features to subscribers that aren't otherwise available until the next version.
- Retric 15y ago
  Most professionals/companies already have a copy of Photoshop so they are competing with upgrade pricing more than full retail pricing. Upgrade pricing is set so low because most users don't need the latest version anyway. (It's still 200$ to upgrade from CS2 to CS5). Edit: You can also upgrade student editions to full retail versions, so "having a copy" includes the student edition. PS: For most non professional people a 400$ copy of CS3 is plenty. Next year they can probably upgrade to CS7 (for 200$) and then stay on a 2-3 year upgrade cycle after that.

jrubinovitz 15y ago

I think this is a good idea for Adobe. Maybe this will deter some people from downloading the software illegally. I only need to use PS once or twice a year, and the thought of downloading it illegally has crossed my mind several times. I haven't downloaded it illegally, instead I use it at my school's computer lab for free (besides what I pay for tuition). If I could download PS for $35 a month, I may just download it each time I need to use it and benefit from having the latest version on my own computer for a cheaper price.

slacker2 15y ago
You are able to download the full evaluation for free.
jcl 15y ago
Note that you only get the $35/month price if you sign up for a year. The product page says a month-to-month subscription is $49/month, which would only be worth it if you anticipate using it eight months or less out of a year.

chrislomax 15y ago

I think this is a cracking idea for freelancers. I know we pay out close to 2k for the web premium version and its outdated every year now as they are releasing a new version nearly once a year!

city41 15y ago
How does Adobe make the new version relevant enough to warrant its purchase? Do they do so in an honest or deceptive way? I'm not a designer, but I use Illustrator often. I just bought Illustrator 10 for about $100 and it more than meets my needs. How many truly relevant new features can really be added to a vector drawing program?
- mneedham 15y ago
  Not sure about Illustrator but Photoshop makes upgrades pretty compelling by adding sexy new features. Like the content-aware fill in CS5 - novel/useful/fun enough to make everyone want to give it a go. Generated a ton of conversation pre-launch and likely contributed to a lot of new sales and upgrades.
- chrislomax 15y ago
  Well not that we actually use it because we are a .net studio here but, the version of Dreamweaver in the packages has to be updated at least once a year to take into account new standards etc. Obviously when the web switched from tables to div's then Dreamweaver had a lot of changes to make also. I think you are right regarding the Illustrator issue though, I still have CS2 on my machine and I don't think there has been a noticable change up to CS5, that might be why its one of the cheaper subscriptions?? Photoshop is constantly changing in my eyes, they introduced the 3d tool 2 versions ago and I would imagine they spend the next few versions perfecting it. At that point they introduce another big feature. I think a lot of the time the upgrades are non essential though and are just a money spinner. Apple do it though once a year but they only charge a nominal fee for their software. Microsoft do it every few years but they are a rip off. I know that if I was a Freelancer and my software was not covered by the company then I would be more inclined to go down this route than downloading it. I don't know many freelancers that start up and can afford the latest version of any of Adobe's products. They are the industry standard and they have people by the balls, this way they can try to get potential illegal downloaders interested.

mgkimsal 15y ago

What would be useful too is if a portion of your 'subscription' could count against a full purchase if you decide to buy. Let me pay $49/month for a couple months for indesign while I need it. If I decide that I want the full version, give me a prorated discount.

sjtgraham 15y ago
Yea, I would also love to say to my landlord "Hey bro! You know I've been renting this apartment from you for a few years now, and I would like to buy the joint at a prorated discount"
- pjleonhardt 15y ago
  It's called Rent-to-own. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-to-own#Real_estate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-to-own#Real_estate
- albedoa 15y ago
  "Well I should hope so! That's the agreement we came to a few years ago. Bro."
- tristanperry 15y ago
  Yeah I'd agree. There's a big difference between leasing/renting, and leasing-to-own and I'd be very surprised if Adobe offered a prorated discount system as a result.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  It actually happens a lot in situations where people know the landlord. If you agree to it ahead of time, even moreso. I'd see nothing odd with Adobe giving people who've leased for 6 months a 10% discount coupon to incentivize them to get a 'full' version ("you've like it so far - lock in our current pricing now and save!") Adobe gets more cash quicker, user's been able to try it out without a lot of cash down up front.
- dpcan 15y ago
  It doesn't compare. At all. Your Landlord can't just create an infinite number of apartments on the fly and rent them to an infinite number of people at almost no extra cost to him. With software, this is a very real possibility and rent to own makes perfect sense. The minute Adobe says they will do this I'm in. I would love to be able to pay for 12 months and finally have my own copy. At about that time, they may release a new version, and at that time, heck, I might just stay on the subscription plan so I get the newer one. BUT, if I stop, I still have version 5.5 that I paid for in full.

ryan-allen 15y ago

Despite the Australian Dollar currently being higher than the US Dollar, Adobe are charging an extra 20% to Australians. I used to use Photoshop daily, but I don't any more. I'd love to be able to use it though I would only use it casually. Their price point is still too high for me so I'm going without.

vessenes 15y ago

For all you freelancers, this is a good opportunity to change your billing -- I think you could probably add an Adobe subscription fee to your work; don't get greedy, just pro-rate it over the number of days you used a product for the project. You'll make money, and your clients will have a hard time complaining about it. So, $4k project, 12 days, used Photoshop, = $49/(12/30) = $19.60. This would be hard to complain about as a client. For you, on every project you do, if you're a typical small design shop where net income is roughly 10%, you'll be adding 5% to your net income. Or, if you need two or three programs, then 15% to your bottom line. Of course, if you're a freelancer, then you're adding $19.60 to your bottom line. But, I bet it would be nice to add those up, especially since projects tend to run long in days, not hours.

vessenes 15y ago
er, $49 * 12 /30, excuse me.
originalgeek 15y ago
I disagree. I expect a professional to show up with the tools of their trade, and be ready to work.
- vessenes 15y ago
  That's fine, but I bet in reality even you, holding this perfectly valid viewpoint, wouldn't mind if someone showed you their rate card, and it disclosed this at the bottom, and when questioned the principal said it was due to an 'accounting practice' rather than just rolling in the obviously low delta in price.
  - originalgeek 15y ago
    I'd call bullshit on the "accounting practices" smokescreen and send them packing. What's next? I get billed for computer time by the hour because they wanted the 12-Core Mac Pro? But more than that, they way I view someone like that is someone who would rather nickel and dime me to death than to just just honestly charge the rate they need to charge. I would feel there were going to be numerous little surprise charges on their invoices. And being a hired gun myself, who started out as a nickel-and-dimer, I would view the individual or agency as lacking in experience.

tomjen3 15y ago

Not really - that is only if you buy for an entire year. So it is really a year at $35*12= $370. Which doesn't seem so good anymore.