ALL of Adobe’s core products (and more) for $49.99 a month? Adobe Creative Cloud is an absolute game changer.

Not a month ago, Boris and I were discussing the absurd prices Adobe charges for its products. How could this supposedly innovative technology company be so behind the times? We were genuinely considering launching a campaign against Adobe (an advertiser on our site no less) in the hope that with enough support, Adobe would consider reducing its prices, or indeed providing a reasonable subscription for them.

Just moments ago I received an email from Adobe to inform me of the official arrival of its new subscription service, it’s called Creative Cloud and I’ve already paid for it. And to think I almost went ahead and ignored the email.

Adobe has been listening all along and taken a huge but necessary gamble; it has completely revamped its pricing system.

You can now get ALL of Adobe’s core products and more for $49.99 a month and upgrades are included – no need to ever purchase or pay extra to upgrade any individual product.

Yes we covered its announcement and yes, we knew its pricing, but to see it launch – particularly after years of pirated versions and paying through the nose – is glorious. Yes, glorious.

Comparison

Let’s take a quick look at the comparison below. For virtually every new product in Adobe’s Creative Suite 6, plus limited access to cloud storage, device sync, Business Catalyst (Adobe’s hosting service), Typekit (Adobe’s recently acquired font hosting service) and Story Plus (Adobe’s Screenplay Software) you’re paying $49.99/month. Yes, that’s $600/year you’re obliged to pay but remember that includes all future upgrades of each product.

If you were to purchase all of the products included, you’re looking at $2,599 for Adobe’s Master Collection or or $7000+ if you were to attempt to purchase a selection of the apps available individually [amended for clarity] .

That figure also excludes subscriptions services such as Adobe Muse (which enables designers to create HTML 5-based websites without writing code) and Typekit. What’s more, Adobe Lightroom is also soon to be thrown into the mix. For design and creative professionals it should be a no brainer.

It’s also worth noting that if you’re a student or licensee of Creative Suite 3, 4 or 5, or one of the individual apps, you’ll pay $29.99/month, that’s a very reasonable $359.88 for the first year. One caveat however, this offer is only available to customers who licensed the product direct from Adobe.

Now it’s not all butterflies and roses. In Europe you have to pay 61,49€, which is almost 80$ a month, roughly 960$ for the year. Still cheaper than what it would cost to purchase but more expensive than the US. It’s also not available worldwide yet which will frustrate many.

Will The Gamble Pay Off?

Adobe’s main competitor in this space isn’t competing products interestingly enough; it’s Bit Torrent. Will $50/month convince the masses that are still pirating the software to go legit? My money’s on yes. A subscription works out to less than $2 a day. That’s less than the cost of a cheap sandwich. And with it you receive full, legal, supported access to all Adobe products with update requests that don’t make you sweat.

So…will you pay?

➤ Adobe Creative Cloud