For those of us who use Adobe Photography products, it’s time to get your planning hats on, as the company is planning to jack up its prices.
Price rises ahoy – Image, Adobe.
Adobe is putting up the prices “to better reflect the value that the apps deliver”.
It seems the move is to push people onto annual plans, rather than monthly plans. For Photography and Imaging users, here are the nasty numbers (in USD, adjust for your own currency).
- Photography (20Gb Cloud Storage with Lightroom, Photoshop, Bridge, etc) – The monthly plan rises to $14.99 a month (one-year contract). Annual prices remain the same at $119.88. More worryingly, this plan will not be available to new users from 15th January 2025.
- Photography (1Tb Storage with Lightroom, Photoshop, Bridge, etc) – Both remain the same at $19.99 monthly and $239.99 annually.
- Lightroom Only (1Tb Cloud Storage and Lightroom) – The monthly plan rises to $14.99 a month (one-year contract). Annual prices remain the same at $119.88.
These plan updates come into effect for new subscribers on January 15, 2025, and will become effective for existing members only when your plan next renews.
Adobe will be communicating to its user base over the next 30 days where you stand.
Well, this sucks
I… tolerate… Adobe’s products, out of convenience and workflow. Bill rises like this are never welcome – be it for home, work or professional requirements. In effect, Adobe has done the following.
- Can’t pay for a year’s worth of software? Welcome to higher prices
- Want a Photoshop and Lightroom? If you’re not on the 20Gb plan, prepare to pay double in 2025.
There won’t be many ways around these rises.
This was an easy way around for a lot of people to access Adobe Photoshop, as well as Lightroom, without subscribing to the whole Adobe Creative Suite (and don’t get me started on Acrobat Professional Licencing – that’s a bigger pain in my life than I wish it to be).
When Amazon has had its “Prime Days” or two-day sales events, I’ve tended to purchase my renewal keys for about half the list price. It could well be worth keeping an eye on Amazon during those sales events if you’re in the middle of an Adobe Licence agreement (although with the suspension of the 20Gb plan for new users, I suspect this is Adobe’s way of blocking this “cheap” subscription backfilling).
It will depend on your workflow and requirements – and only you know what you need.
There are options for both Lightroom and Photoshop (with Techradar having some options), which may provide an off-ramp, especially if you’re sick of dealing with another subscription (for context, your writer prefers using Pixelmator Pro… although for how long that is going to last, no one knows since it was taken over by Apple).
Just don’t cancel early.
Whilst those of you on monthly plans may be tempted to cancel early, remember, you signed a year-to-year term when you clicked the “I accept” button of Adobe Creative Cloud. Adobe has been known to claim the rest of your payments for the rest of your contract period.
My plan
For me, I’m in a “safe” position as I have enough credits and renewals loaded in my account to December 2025 before I have to open my wallet again. However, in the run-u,p I’ll be starting to look at other options.
To be blunt – I can count how many times a year I load Photoshop up on my laptop – so for me, something with the image management and processing tools of Lightroom will be on my shopping list, with CaptureOne Pro and On1 being my first looks at where I go next for my editing software unless I can keep the costs down on Lightroom.
Or heck – I might get a Lightroom-only product when it’s on sale on the next Amazon Prime sale day.
But if you manage or edit photos, you need to be thinking about your next steps.
Otherwise, Adobe will happily bleed your wallet dry.
A little out of my normal writing sphere… but an important write-up.
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