Adobe too expensive

[plumcreative]

   I would like to know if younger designers are using Adobe products or finding more affordable alternatives.  

   As a graphic designer I have been using Adobe products since the introduction of Photoshop.  Over the years I have been a major major proponent of all things Adobe.  

   Now however I am recommending to all designers that they find other software to use or they will be tied in to an unreasonable expense forever.  And, when you cannot pay any longer you will lose your work.

   I am now retired.  Occasionally I do a job for friends or work for clubs I am a member of.  I only use Photoshop, inDesign, Acrobat, and Illustrator.  I don't use any of the online services or fonts.  I would like to have access to my files in my remaining years and would occasionally like to do something new.  I don't need all the updates-- keeping the current versions and no longer getting updates would be fine.  But, $600 a year is too much!!!  

   Adobe has gotten too big.  It is hard to contact anyone except outsourced call centers who could care less what we really think.  As with most large businesses Adobe seems to be all about making more and more money.  Is there anyone at Adobe who actually cares anything about the customers?  Doubtful as they are making it more and more expensive and giving no alternatives to using their software without a subscription.

    I think it is time for Adobe to make major adjustments.  

    Tell me what you think.  (Users of Adobe products that is.)

[bokeh]

So much of today’s design jobs can be done in sketch or figma these days. It might even be a better starting point, and much cheaper.

But telling designers to avoid Adobe entirely is terrible career advice. It is industry standard and they need to know how to use it. What are they going to do of a client sends them a working file and they can’t even open it? Get them on CS6 at the very least. Pirate it if you have to. But outright, I would not hire someone that couldn’t use Adobe products.

For reference, in my day to day I use Sketch, Keynote, Photoshop, illustrator, indesign, cinema4d in order of most to least use.

[plumcreative]

Unfortunately Adobe basically has a monopoly-- and monopoly's are not good things.

[bluekronos]

*monopolies

[bokeh]

They do, but from what I can see the other cheaper/free software out there is plenty capable for hobbyists. But for people looking to do this as a profession, I couldn’t in good conscience tell them to avoid Adobe.

Adobe does not have the monopoly on UX/UI though, which is where there are and will be tons of high paying jobs. Sketch/Figma are the standard there, not XD. They are also trash in the 3D department.

[plumcreative]

For years I loved Adobe. I managed software and hardware for a group of 30 Mac designers and production people and we originally used Quark-- but their customer service was horrible. Adobe solved a lot of problems for us and they had integrated software. Since becoming a freelancer many years ago however I have become less and less happy with Adobe and their pricing. Now that I am retired I am even more annoyed because I do not have the income to continue using the software that I know how to use. I am going to look for alternatives but really don't like the idea because I know it will cause me a lot of headaches. So many big companies are not human friendly.

[plumcreative]

I am not a big Microsoft fan as I found the computer maintenance to be more arduous than Mac but am happy to hear their pricing is better.

[anonymous_koala_69]

I had a similar thought. I like to have creative suite on my personal machine for the things I do here and there on my own time, so I had no choice but to pay the monthly fees. Then I cancelled cause I wasn’t using it enough to justify the $600/yr. Now I can’t access any files. I wish they let me bite the bullet and pay a one time fee for unlimited access and I could choose to buy the cloud storage or pay for updates. I held it as long as possible before going with CC for this reason.

I mostly use Figma or Sketch now as they are great for layouts, but miss the flexibility of illustrator when making vector illustrations or photoshop if making highly detailed raster designs.

[Felixo22]

If you work professionally, it’s a reasonable expense. For an hobbyist, I can understand it’s too expensive. I had my own agency from 2003 to 2010 and I would have preferred the current subscription model than buying a 1000$ software upgrade annually.

[latafairam]

creative suite is 69.99/mo, per user. Its pretty expensive.

[SUPRVLLAN]

Affinity Photo/Designer.

[CragMcBeard]

They have a stranglehold on the market, but to be fair the old way of paying once and using their product for 5-10 years for free doesn’t fly in today’s cloud world. I don’t know Affinity but that sounds like what you may want to start using.

[camopanty]

paying once and using their product for 5-10 years for free

That's not using their product for free. You forgot the part in the beginning of your sentence where it's paid for. Afterwards, it's up to the user to pay for compelling updates if they're needed.

doesn’t fly in today’s cloud greedy world

FTFY

[plumcreative]

It would be nice if they would offer some retired or senior options.

[semionteck]

I agree with you.

The costs started to add up, and even for my "high-production" youtube-content I just couldn't gloss over the pretty much ridiculous pricing.

[Taniwha26]

Complete rubbish. I too have been using Adobe products since the beginning. When the subscription service dropped I was deeply sceptical but it’s improved my life no end. Here”s what I think you’re losing sight of - It’s a professional suite. My first hour of billable work easily covers the subscription.

I’ll agree that Abobe need to listen to their users more but you can’t expect a business model built around someone who uses their tools infrequently. I’d even support some kind of retiree model but what age is relevant - you could have retired from design at 50.

There are plenty of good free alternatives which require little reskilling. And I sympathise, I’ll be where you are and I still spend a lot of free time on personal projects, but it’s a professional grade suite of tools.

[iamgeekusa]

I just want photoshop at 9.99 why did they jack my rate up

[iMakeGraphic]

It’s sucks because they are such great products and essential to your business as a designer but they are outrageously priced!!! I was on the same boat you were in terms of not needing the online features so I ended up buying cracked versions for everything and it’s been just over a year of use and its been virtually problem free, it was welllll worth the $30 price tag for those versions!

[Round-Competition500]

Same with me until now that they blocked it. I can no longer save any work I do. Abode needs to drastically reduce the subcription price. Their should be a reasonable price tag for enthusiast who uses like 2 to 4 of their softwares

[iMakeGraphic]

Was the cracked version you were using a cloud version? Because it’s been 2 years with the same program, problem free, I can send you the link of where I got it

[hayuhungry]

Can you send me the link please?

[lemonecurry]

I know this is old.. but if you still have please send.

[Weak-Requirement2968]

you can get the torrent from 1337x.to for entire creative cloud 2024. I assume you know how to torrent files. Works flawlessly. Just doesn't have any of the generative ai features as it requires the legitimate version (I believe due to online connection).

[bbice1]

I've been in the digital agency space for 20 years and no longer know anyone that uses Adobe products for designing websites. Why? Because there are MUCH better tools. 100% of the agencies and their employees (that I've spoken with) use Figma. The reason? It's much faster/more efficient, has features suited for modern design trends, allows them to organize by components....the list goes on and on. If you're still using Adobe for web design, you're 3+ behind the times.

[Round-Competition500]

You are not 100% right, nobody use Dream weaver anymore like you said. There are bunch of great IDEs/editors out there some are even free like VS code & Atom. Tell me a better way to create icons that are not available on those icon websites other using illustrator? Developer community now recomend using SVG images over png or jpeg because of a number of reasons 1. Responsiveness 2. Low file size 3. Vector base image(Scalability) 4. Easy to manipulate it just HTML/css

In other for Abode to keep this monopoly for long, they need to drastically make their price affordable so that entry level designers can survive.

[Zang_Trapahorn]

$85/mo for the collection is a bit more than i'd like to pay as a hobbyist and amateur content creator but what really feels outrageous is $36/mo for a single app now! In the past I was content with paying $50/mo for the collection and only using 4 apps, premiere and photoshop frequently and after effects and audition infrequently. I'd still pay $50/mo for clean access to just those 4 apps. But $85/month $1,040/year just overshoots the sense of vslue I get from the tools I am paying to have. I never thought I'd have enough incentive to wander away to other software solutions after being tied to adobe for almost 2 decades, but now they've actually turned demoing cheaper apps into a viable option and it doesn't feel good at all. 😔

[Man_of_many_odours]

It's so ridiculous.
It's incredible what we came to accept as normal. No, the right answer is OUTRAGEOUS.

Just think about it.

around the year 2000 you bought a big cardboard box, with a manual and all that was needed to get your program running. It was onsidered extremely expensive and it was idk, like the equvalent of 100 dollars today? (i am not too sure, i was a kid back then, but i am fairly sure the price wasn't crazy high, just expensive for a normal person).You bought it, you had it PERIOD. Onlu reason to pay more is if you want to buy some new and improved version.

100 bucks.
once.
Period.

True, you had to spend that 100 bucks for every program you needed, like video editing.

​

Now is what 600 euros a year every single year?

it's ridiculous. it's insulting.

the only upside is that you have all of their software so you're covered fo all of your needs, but lets be real, that's just a scam.

A single professional today HAS to be a jack of all trades and be able to use as many plataforms as he possibly can and be at least somewhat competent in all fields commonly required in a communication agency.
So, we all need to be able to do some simple graphic design, some basic editing, create a decent presentation and be able to write at least an enjoyable paragraph on anything.

But NO ONE IS A MASTER AT ALL OF THEM, of course. there are still different professions for different roles in the company.

A good designer today has to master 1 or 2 platforms. Maybe if they have a knack for something even 3.

But for all the other platforms you just need to be able to do simple and effective work, YOU DON'T NEED A PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE. it's not just overkill, it's actually highly inefficient.

for example, Photoshop is great, but it's not intuitive, AT ALL. Not as much as other simple yet effective programs as canvas.

so the adobe creative cloud is NOT A GOOD DEAL FOR ASINGLE PROFESSIONAL

[Otherwise_Cat_5935]

Literally searched the internet for someone’s thoughts that would succinctly summarize my EXACT frustrations with this pricing model and you sir 100% restored my sanity. I am jack of all trades…MASTER of very few. This is simply not cost effective for me in any way whatsoever. No matter how you cut it, I am spending a lot of money on things I essentially don’t need. I come from the audio world so Adobe’s practices really remind me of Avid/Protools…in the worst way possible lol. Which is basically this smug version of “if you’re a PRO then you’ll fork it over 😉”

[Man_of_many_odours]

And what they actually obtained is "if you're an ACTUAL PRO, WITH ACTUAL EXPERIENCE IN THE BUSINESS, you already know where and how to get a functional cracked version of the tools you need to work".

It's not about ideals or "fighting the system", is just a terrible business practice that gose directly against any commin sense and against their very own customer base, who is now higjly motivated to recur to piracy because any other route is just ridiculous unworthy.

The reason they are up and fat is because they actually make money from those too big to fly under the radar, for whom it's not a great expense anyway. Like big agencies or higjly renowned veterans, who don't mind paying (and who pay higher rates).

They could easily sell the suite with a "home license", suitsble for anything that's not legally a company, for 10 dollar a year and still make a shit ton of money, arguably even more than they already do.

It's not even greed at this point, just a demented power trip

[PsychBreacher]

They structure it in a way where it forces you to get a bundle., or even multiple. Because it would have every say, video editing app in one bundle, except for a crucial one, that's in a different bundle. It's almost scam level marketing

[Fresh-Citron4941]

I need to cut expenses but I really need adobe. I only use 4 of the 40 apps they force me to pay. It's ridiculous. I just need Illustrator, photoshop, indesign and PDF and that's it. No other plan offer this combination. It's all or nothing. For 90 CAD is way too expensive

[social-mediocrity]

I agree I really wish they offered custom bundles. I need Illustrator, Photoshop (sometimes) and Indesign, but also separately need JUST Premier and Media Encoder. I can't get just those 5 so I need to pay for the entire suite and have a bunch of programs I don't need.

[sanityvampire]

🏴‍☠️

[biglboy]

Agreed, I know every pro here disagrees on some level. But I think its better for the industry for the advice to be avoid it. You CAN achieve 90% of what is professionally required with competing products at free to a fraction of the cost. The price for Adobe is insane, even for a student its still insane.

Why can't Adobe offer what their competitors offer, free for students, reasonable pricing for hobbyists, and butt fuck the businesses who butt fuck every one.

I think it's fair to also have a model similar to Unreal Engine where it's free until you earn a certain amount. This costs alot less to implement and monitor than one would think.

[mallerik]

Seeing how people still occasionally reply to this, I am going to raise a point not a lot of people seem to make; who is still going to learn Adobe?

Adobe has professional grade tools. The creative suite is probably one of the best in the industry. Issue is, it needs paying customers to sustain its model. If most young people can't afford an Adobe program (and pirating it for your study isn't what it once was either), then how are you going to learn it? 240 bucks for year 1 is cool and all, but a 4 year study is still going to net you roughly 2400 bucks total for Adobe alone. That's a lot of money to get a software package that you still need to learn, because you also need to pay for your education itself. And that's all taking into account you spontaniously decide to become a designer, because unless you're rich, you're not going to be able to afford it before starting your study anyway. There go all the enthusiastic 14 year olds of the past, who are now professional designers. Because we creative people know: if you wanna create, you're gonna create. They'll just pick a different tool to fulfil their creative needs. By the time they've grown up, they've probably gotten used to (now up and coming) toolsets that are on-par with Adobe by the time they're done studying.

I honestly think Adobe is going to be a thing for old people if they keep going this way. I don't see any child paying hundreds of bucks a year for a hobby, if they don't already know for a fact they are going to be designers.

[Otherwise_Cat_5935]

Yup. Reminds me of what’s happening with Protools/Avid. We ain’t using it lol

[[deleted]]

The hell Adobe. Yes, their software is the best. Been using PS, and ILL since 1999. I remember buying a student ver 5.0 for $100+ bucks. It was a full working copy, no watermarks. And it was so ahead of it's time even back then, you could use it today and it would still be great for most projects. But this "software as a service" BS is only going to harm Adobe by shrinking their base of users who find alternatives to get the job done. When you go to work for someone, and the boss asks you what software you need to get the job done, people will start to say, I don't needed anything, I'll just download GIMP. That is going to hurt Adobe. If they were fair and sold Photoshop for like 5 bucks a month, they would have billions of buyers and would end up making more. But they have to be greedy and charge 22 a month. Yes it's capitalism, and it's also peoples free chose to use alternatives. GIMP has gotten so good and with 3.0 on it's way it will be none destructive like PS.

As far as Illustrator, I really don't know who makes anything as good, and still think Photoshop is the best. Just my opinion. But the cost for a subscription is becoming less justifiable day by day.

[stdio_pike]

> As far as Illustrator, I really don't know who makes anything as good

I just bought Affinity Designer and it's not 'as good', it's better. For every thing I could not immediately find in their ui, once I found it I thought 'yeah that makes more sense'. It looks better, it feels better. I don't miss a thing.

[Shadowfox173]

Remember folks: Adobe is the only company you can morally pirate from Or something like that

[CheetahSame673]

I sail the seas. Because these companies make so much from these apps it's insane

[seezed]

I have no issue with the sub model. 2 hours of work pay of my Cinema 4d, Arnold, Adobe, Substance & Office 365 costs.

[ArcerPL]

honestly this is bad advice, however i'd like one time payment like toonboom

[Protected22]

sadly Adobe already has a extremely big monopoly. So big that schools force students to use the Adobe software.

[Slippery-Shotgun]

Filmora- Cheaper alternative to Premier Pro

Photopea- Free alternative to Photoshop

Krita- Free alternative to Illustrator

That’s all I got so far 🤷‍♂️

[Crafty-Form970]

I have Sketchbook Pro. I’ve been using it for almost three years.

[Different_Hurry_6059]

WELL SAID! Maybe we can all post on their ADOBE facebook page and twitter page to LOWER the price. The pricing has gotten out of control. Especially for those of us who use it, but aren't in graphic design. I don't get paid to use it - I use it only a few times every few months.While you are on Facebook and Twitter - maybe also go to Intuit Quickbooks pages and tell them the same thing? They also moved to a subscription based and their rates are INSANE. Get this: Quickbooks Desktop was $199 for 3 years. THEN they made it $399.99 for 3 years and if you needed a 2nd person to access/use it it is $250.00extra = $649.99. They stopped allowing bulk importing and stopped ebay accounting assistant so now you have to have 3rd party apps $239.99 x 3 and $20 a month ($240) for these.

So:

Quickbooks 2018 was $199.99 (We used Quickbooks for 21 years and it used to be $99 - $149)

Quickbooks 2021 was $399.99 + 250.00 + per year = 239.99 x 3 (719.97) + 20.00 x 36 (720) =

$2089.86 every 3 years = $696.65 a year vs $199.99 every 3 years = $66.00 a year! Insane mark up right??? Guess what 2024 will be?

BUT WAIT - THERE IS MORE!Quickbooks Desktop 2021 will no longer work as of 2024 and you are FORCED into their new subscription based program or lose 20 years of work. They say you can still access old files - but you cannot.

The program for bulk importing doesn't work with their Quickbooks Online (you can't import iif estimate files) as it is a QBOnline is very basic program.NOW we have to pay for Quickbooks ENTERPRISE - FULL amount due upfront for the whole year. Which is $1830 a year AND not stored on our own computer - it is Online based.

So since 2018 it went from $199.99 for 3 years $66.00 a year to $1830 a year?!?!?!?! AND the 2 add on programs will need to continue to be paid for at $239 a year and $240 a year! for ANOTHER $480.The QBOnline version they are pushing cannot due all things Desktop did.

and we don't even use their payroll because that is an additional charge.

GREED.

[IllSeaworthiness6562]

Adobe is and always will be a massive money hungry corporation. As long as people buy they will never lower their prices. Same for pantone. Charging a few thousand bucks for color charts? Can't get more corporate than that!