When considering a subscription to Adobe Creative Cloud, the apps and capabilities it offers may seem tempting. I have been using Adobe apps for about seven years for creative tasks, especially video and photo editing.
I’ve been lucky enough to have them for free for most of that time through my studies and employers who offer them to employees, but here are the reasons I’ve been considering ditching these apps and opting for Adobe Creative Cloud alternatives. Whether it’s the high cost, the licensing complexities, or the uneven performance on some devices, there are plenty of reasons to look elsewhere. Check out our comparison of Canva vs. Adobe Creative Cloud: Which is better for designers?
The subscription is prohibitively expensive.
Adobe’s pricing model is ridiculously high. Adobe’s flagship, all-in-one Creative Cloud plan costs $89.99 per month ($1,079.88 per year) if you pay monthly, $59.99 per month ($719.88 per year) if you sign a one-year contract, or an upfront annual payment of $659.88 per year ($54.99 per month).
For freelancers or profitable creatives, this cost may not be huge for the value it provides. Conversely, for aspiring creatives who aren’t making money from their work yet or don’t make enough to offset expenses, these numbers are very expensive. Check out Is Adobe Creative Cloud’s “All Apps” subscription really worth the cost if you’re not a professional?
Adobe offers some individual apps and smaller bundles at reduced costs, but many creatives, especially those in video, can’t get by with just Premiere Pro, or just Photoshop and Lightroom. I only use four Adobe apps regularly, and yet I have to pay to use the entire suite.
Adobe has established itself as the industry standard for professionals and creatives, making it the most likely choice for most aspiring artists and students, and this control gives Adobe the leverage to charge these high prices. In many cases, Adobe's apps are only worth the money for professionals.
While Adobe offers student discounts — up to a whopping 66% off — these also often face scrutiny due to Adobe's aggressive pricing model.
Adobe uses exploitative pricing practices.
I mentioned that Adobe Creative Cloud costs $59.99 per month if you sign a one-year contract. While Adobe has been more upfront about early cancellation fees, most consumers are unlikely to read the fine print of what they mean. I say this as someone who wanted to cancel early, but then chose not to because of surprise fees.
When reading our cancellation terms, AdobeIf you cancel your $59.99/month Adobe Creative Cloud plan after 14 days or before the final monthly payment for this contract, you will be charged 50% of the remaining annual price for this contract.
Let’s do the math. The annual plan costs just under $720 per year. If you use it for three months, decide it’s too expensive, and want to cancel, that cancellation fee is $720 minus three months of $59.99, then split in half. Roughly speaking, that’s about $280 to cancel your Adobe subscription after three months of use: a cancellation fee that’s about $100 more than you paid to use the service.
I wouldn’t have any reservations about the pricing model if Adobe were more clear about its implications. However, instead the company ends up tricking most users into thinking they’re paying a better monthly price, when in fact it’s a monthly price with expensive terms attached.
Many creators with limited funds are likely to buy the “cheapest” monthly option, end up wanting to cancel because it’s too expensive, and then find out they have a huge cancellation fee — I was one of those people. It’s exploitative, to put it simply, even US Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission Adobe sued over its pricing scheme.
The Terms of Service give Adobe a very high degree of ownership of your content.
Adobe has recently faced controversy over its updated terms of service, where the company may “view, access, or listen to your content through automated and manual means in order to improve our services, software, and user experience.”
The company clarified its statement and revised some language in its terms of service, noting that user content will not be used to train Firefly, Adobe’s generative AI tool. However, it has already done so in other areas.
Adobe Stock is a service where photographers can upload high-quality images and get paid when people use them. However, Adobe states that it used Adobe Stock images to train Firefly. Check out what are the limitations of creating AI images using Adobe Firefly?
While many of these photographers and artists were compensated for providing these images to train Firefly and may have known how their artwork would be used, unless they carefully read Adobe's Terms of Service repeatedly and thoroughly, they likely had no idea that their own work would be used as training data.
AI features can add layers of efficiency to creative workflows, but many in creative fields may not want their content used unknowingly, especially given Adobe’s somewhat vague terms of service regarding content rights. As such, many may end up preferring to use apps that offer better protection from AI. Check out Adobe’s free apps test: Do they measure up to the paid versions?
Adobe loses its position as an industry leader
For many creative tasks, Adobe has been and remains the leading software solution. There are very few alternatives that are fully feature-equivalent to their Adobe counterparts. However, as creative tasks have spread to more and more job roles, more user-friendly alternatives to Adobe have emerged, such as Canva Which gives non-designers powerful and easy design tools, and Snapseed for free mobile photo editing.
Furthermore, many of Adobe's alternative tools have outperformed it in certain tasks, such as DaVinci Resolve, which offers many superior features to Premiere Pro, especially when it comes to color grading and correction. DaVinci Resolve There is also a completely free version, albeit with reduced features, which can also serve as a free trial before paying $295 for the full version.
Likewise, many browser-based alternatives to Illustrator are free, and Affinity offers many of the same features as Photoshop, Lightroom, and InDesign with similar ease of use but for a single purchase, rather than an expensive monthly payment.
Even that Affinitywhich was recently acquired by Canva, offers a free six-month trial for new users who want time to learn the app before committing financially. And since the controversy over Adobe’s terms of service erupted, the company has offered a 50% discount on its base price for the app through August 15, 2024, a lifetime license for a one-time purchase.
In my case, as a video creator who often edits photos and graphics, I can buy Affinity for $82.99 (on sale) and DaVinci Resolve for $295 to replace Photoshop, Lightroom, and Premiere Pro for my work. For these two one-time purchases, I’d be spending $377.99 at once on all the apps I need to create content, while a year of Adobe with no discounts would cost me $659.88 at the lowest price I could get.
Moreover, many creatives can do without completely free alternatives to Adobe.
Great apps don't outweigh bad ethics.
I’m writing this as someone who has used Adobe for many years. I think the company’s apps are generally great, and in many cases, they’re the best solution for many creative tasks. However, with the exorbitant fees, predatory pricing model, vague terms of service, and a growing base of alternatives, I probably won’t renew my subscription next time. I’m willing to sacrifice some features and a comfortable workflow between apps, but I can’t ethically support Adobe until it improves its pricing and privacy model. Check out I tested a bunch of Adobe’s mobile apps and these are the options worth using.
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