Adobe CC Price Increase & Feedback

[PricelineNegotiator]

Hello all,

What do you think of Adobe raising its price for the Creative Cloud membership? I for one value my relationship with Adobe, but am quite baffled by such a steep and sudden increase. Are they testing the waters by increasing the price to 160% of its current value to see what they can get away with? Obviously they're not in too much financial trouble as it is, they just announced that they are building a new facility and ADBE is doing very well in the stock market - up from $121 one year ago to $218 as of this post.

I would honestly be on board if I could use unlimited fonts from Typekit and get more free stock photos, or see an option to use the InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat and Photoshop package, like they used to offer before the Creative Cloud, for a lesser price. To touch on the Typekit aspect, only being able to sync 100 total font styles is a joke. 500 or unlimited would be much more appropriate, but since the app does not sync very quickly, it leads to a lot of misused time micro-managing my installed fonts, and restarting of InDesign to get the fonts to sync correctly. I've actually run into instances where I can't install a single-style typeface when the app and the website state that I am only using 92/100 fonts.

Dov Isaacs, I would very much appreciate your response. No hostility is intended in my post, just some gripes I have if I have to pay $80 per month per user.

 

[Joe]

Where are you seeing this price increase? Their website still shows $49.99 for individual and $69.99 for teams.

 

[PrintIT]

I got an email the other day saying our price was going up from $49.99 per month to $52.99 per month.
I didn't find that too extreme since it's the first increase we've had since they went to the subscription model.

 

[MacTwidget]

I received the same email. It stated that when my contract renews in August it will go up to $79.99/mo. Up from $69.99/mo.
I have Creative Cloud for teams. I have 9 seats. That means I will be paying $1,080 more per year.

 

[pushpixels]

A 160% increase would be ridiculous. Is this going from $29.99 (I think the original promo cost) to $49.99? We had that happen a couple years ago. For the amount of software you get it is a good price. I think it would be unrealistic to expect the price to stay the same forever. I think a small increase every couple of years is to be expected.

As mentioned above, $49.99 per month to $52.99 per month. That isn't too bad. 160% would be bad.

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Since PricelineNegotiator used my name in vain …

(1) I am personally not involved in marketing or sales at Adobe and have no involvement whatsoever in setting or approving pricing. I possibly hear about such changes after many customers do.

(2) Although I am aware of a price increase for CC, as mentioned by others, at least for individual subscriptions that increase was fairly modest and less than the compounded increase in the consumer price index since the price was originally set. I don't know where the 160% figure comes from unless you are transitioning from some special introductory pricing to regular pricing concurrent with the price increase. (Or perhaps you are calculating in another base system? ) You mention “$80 per month per user” but I have no idea of what plan you are actually on. That certainly is not the base price of CC.

(3) Most multiple license shops use one of our Creative Cloud for Teams or Creative Cloud for Enterprise plans with fairly steep per-user discounts once one goes beyond 10 seats.

(4) The base Typekit support was really not designed for the demands of an enterprise that is serving as a service bureau / print service provider where typically printing is done from PDF files with all fonts embedded. There are add-on Typekit plans to meet the needs of organizations with requirements for large numbers of fonts synced at one time and/or pageviews per month. And quite frankly, the Typekit model is not for everyone. Since there are significant costs to Adobe to license the fonts provided in Typekit, it would be unfair to burden all CC users with the costs of those licenses required only by a subset of the subscribers. Similar arguments apply to Adobe Stock; Adobe pays licensing/royalties to the creators of that digital imagery (even for our own internal use of same).

(5) FWIW, I think the cost of Starbucks coffee for daily drinkers for a month has gone up more than the CC subscription fee!

- Dov

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

Well, I certainly got the email that said it will be going up to $79.99 per user per month, but I only pay $49.99 per month per user currently. It may have been an erroneous email from Adobe...no where does it say will increase from x to y for me to validate my concern. I attached a screenshot.

 

[Joe]

Well, I certainly got the email that said it will be going up to $79.99 per user per month, but I only pay $49.99 per month per user currently. It may have been an erroneous email from Adobe...no where does it say will increase from x to y for me to validate my concern.

Are you presently on the individual plan which is $49.99 per month now. Or do you have a discounted team plan @ $49.99 per month that will go to $79.99 per month with the discount coming off and the price increase?

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Well, I certainly got the email that said it will be going up to $79.99 per user per month, but I only pay $49.99 per month per user currently. It may have been an erroneous email from Adobe...no where does it say will increase from x to y for me to validate my concern. I attached a screenshot.

I certainly don't doubt that you got that e-mail. However, I believe that the real question is exactly what plan you are currently on. For that, you really should contact Adobe Customer Support. Maybe you are already paying for a plan that is more than you think you have or that you need. Nevertheless, no plans that I know of are increasing anywhere near that much! The fact that the e-mail mentions a price per user indicates that you have some type of team or enterprise license, possibly with an add-on for additional stock images or font access. Please check out what you currently have.

- Dov

 

[Joe]

I don't want to poke the bear but I have not received an increase notice from Adobe. We have the 'Adobe Value Incentive Plan (VIP)'. Any chance that price is NOT going up?

 

[Joe]

In answer to my own question:

https://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/subscription-price-increase.html

 

[Dov Isaacs]

I don't want to poke the bear but I have not received an increase notice from Adobe. We have the 'Adobe Value Incentive Plan (VIP)'. Any chance that price is NOT going up?

Do you have any idea about the double-entendre you invoked with “poke the bear?”

- דב

 

[Joe]

Indeed!

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

I certainly don't doubt that you got that e-mail. However, I believe that the real question is exactly what plan you are currently on. For that, you really should contact Adobe Customer Support. Maybe you are already paying for a plan that is more than you think you have or that you need. Nevertheless, no plans that I know of are increasing anywhere near that much! The fact that the e-mail mentions a price per user indicates that you have some type of team or enterprise license, possibly with an add-on for additional stock images or font access. Please check out what you currently have.

- Dov

We have two Creative Cloud All Apps and one Acrobat Pro DC subscription, under a "team". Bills to $114.97 per month ($49.99 + $49.99 + $14.99).

 

[Joe]

"Team" accounts are $69.99 per month presently (going up to $79.99 if you pay monthly). Was that $49.99 and introductory price?

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

I don't think it was. We've had it at that price for years.

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

I would honestly be on board if I could use unlimited fonts from Typekit and get more free stock photos, or see an option to use the InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat and Photoshop package, like they used to offer before the Creative Cloud, for a lesser price. To touch on the Typekit aspect, only being able to sync 100 total font styles is a joke. 500 or unlimited would be much more appropriate, but since the app does not sync very quickly, it leads to a lot of misused time micro-managing my installed fonts, and restarting of InDesign to get the fonts to sync correctly. I've actually run into instances where I can't install a single-style typeface when the app and the website state that I am only using 92/100 fonts.

Someone definitely listened to my feedback! Thanks so much Dov or the person that read my comment made both things work! Users with Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps subscriptions can now activate as many fonts as they want and also the sync issue will be of course mitigated due to this! Awesome update!

 

[Dov Isaacs]

Someone definitely listened to my feedback! Thanks so much Dov or the person that read my comment made both things work! Users with Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps subscriptions can now activate as many fonts as they want and also the sync issue will be of course mitigated due to this! Awesome update!

There was actually quite a bit of feedback and it did take a good amount of work to be able to expand what was Typekit to Adobe Fonts. It is important to remember that Adobe didn't and doesn't own the vast majority of the fonts that were in Typekit and in fact paid royalties for those from third party foundries. Obviously, appropriate negotiations as well as user feedback yielded the new updated product. (In terms of stock photos / artwork, the problem is much more complex!)

- Dov

 

[PricelineNegotiator]

There was actually quite a bit of feedback and it did take a good amount of work to be able to expand what was Typekit to Adobe Fonts. It is important to remember that Adobe didn't and doesn't own the vast majority of the fonts that were in Typekit and in fact paid royalties for those from third party foundries. Obviously, appropriate negotiations as well as user feedback yielded the new updated product. (In terms of stock photos / artwork, the problem is much more complex!)

- Dov

So what you're saying is that my feedback is solely the reason why Adobe implemented this change. I am glad to hear that. You'll be hearing more from me soon, I'm trying to think about other things to complain about at this very moment.

 

[Dov Isaacs]

So what you're saying is that my feedback is solely the reason why Adobe implemented this change. I am glad to hear that. You'll be hearing more from me soon, I'm trying to think about other things to complain about at this very moment.

No, it wasn't only you that provided feedback.