I thought Adobe Creative Cloud was cheaper than the old Creative Suite

Despite introducing us to some of the best photo editing softwareI can’t remember a time when it wasn’t hip to hate Adobe. After all, it’s a mega-company that could theoretically ransom the creative industries with its suite of industry-standard software (unless you think that could all change with Apple’s recent acquisition of Pixelmator). But lately – after that messy AI terms debacle – it looks like Adobe’s naysayers are out in force.

Ask a group of creatives what they despise most about Adobe, and you can bet the vast majority will say Creative Cloud’s subscription model. And while I’m well aware that I’m in the minority, I’ve always preferred it to the one-time payments of the old Creative Suite, especially if you can land a juicy reward. Black Friday deal.

I first came across Adobe software when I was studying art and photography at university, around 2008. Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator classes were my absolute favorites. I quickly conquered the learning curve and found myself digging deeper into the CS4 software as an extracurricular activity. Every chance I got I was glued to one Apple iMac in my classroom. The problem was that at some point I had to go home…

Once I left college, I absolutely couldn’t afford Adobe’s huge prices anymore. Sure, the upgrade prices weren’t nearly that bad, but getting a foot on the Adobe ladder simply wasn’t feasible for me. And I suspect thousands of other aspiring creatives. Eventually I was able to access Adobe software at work, but even then I was forced to use CS5 even after the release of CS6. Not the end of the world, but not having access to new features was certainly annoying.

Then in 2011, Adobe launched Creative Cloud. In mid-2013, Creative Suite’s tenure came to an end. There would be no CS7, a Creative Cloud subscription was the only option if you wanted the latest Adobe software. And while many creatives – presumably those who paid for significantly cheaper upgrades – criticized the payment model, I could Finally Pay for Adobe software and never worry about paying for a large lump sum. Best of all, as long as my hardware was up to date, it would always be up to date.

That’s why I’ve always preferred the subscription model. It is more accessible for budding creatives. I don’t think anyone can deny that a large down payment of hundreds of dollars is a huge ask for a student or startup. Furthermore, Adobe was certainly not the first company to enforce a subscription model and today subscriptions are the digital norm. Everything from Microsoft’s Game Pass to Amazon Prime requires a subscription.

I’m sure the biggest concern is that the subscription model is cumulatively more expensive than the one-time payments of yesteryear. My biggest problem with Creative Cloud is that the subscription options are unnecessarily complicated. You can subscribe to individual applications, there is a Photography subscription, an All Apps subscription, you can add Adobe Stock subscriptions, you can choose to pay an annual flat fee, an annual monthly subscription or a monthly subscription that you can cancel at any time. There are business models, student models, year-round sales, the list goes on…

The standard package with all apps costs $59.99 / £56.98 per month (if you commit for a year). It costs $89.99 / £85.48 if you take out the ‘cancel anytime, no fee’ subscription. I’m going to take a closer look at the annual monthly plan as I think most users will use it. Within reason, a new Creative Suite was released every two years. So 24 months of use of All Apps totals $1,439.76 / £1,367.52.

Compare these figures to one-off CS6 prices and the results are quite interesting. The standard CS6 Master Collection costs $2,599 / £2,223. I could only find reliable US pricing for the Education bundle, $999. Obviously the subscription model is cheaper. But upgrades muddy the water. Again, it’s very difficult to find reliable CS6 prices these days, but a post about the Adobe Community Forums reveals that upgrading the CS5 Master Collection to CS6 will cost $1,049. That’s less than an annual Creative Cloud All Apps subscription.

So let’s assume that the Master Collection upgrades would have continued at around that price. If you paid $2,599 for the CS6 Master Collection and $1,049 every two years for the subsequent upgrade, you would have paid $3,648 after four years, six years, $4,697, eight years $5,746, and 10 years $6,795. Now for the Creative Cloud All Apps subscription. After four years $2,879.52, after six years $4,319.28, after eight years $5,759.04 and after 10 years $7,198.80.

But this really isn’t a fair experiment. I haven’t taken into account inflation, I haven’t taken into account any Creative Suite discounts or price increases, and I haven’t taken into account any Creative Cloud discounts or price increases. Let’s not forget that you can save a lot of money on the latter, depending on when you take out your subscription and how you choose to maintain it. And of course I only compared the Master Collection and All App plans, individual software may produce different results and Light room wasn’t even included in the CS6 Master Collection, so there’s another important variable.

There is of course a broader discussion going on about Adobe’s dominance within the creative industries and the high fees it has always been able to charge when it comes to its software. On the other hand, it’s worth noting that before Adobe came along, retouching was extremely expensive. According to Wikipedia: “When Photoshop 1.0 was released, digital retouching on special high-end systems (…) cost about $300 per hour for basic photo retouching. The list price of Photoshop 1.0 for Macintosh in 1990 was $895.”