P: Photoshop pricing structure is too high

Whoever thinks the price of Photoshop or CC in general is insane and greedy.  I subscribe to the entire suite for $600 a year (at $49 a month) and the amount of money that the suite allows me to make is ASTRONOMICALLY more than the cost of the software.  It's a professional software suite and true professionals (who understand the value of the services they are able to offer) will appreciate the value of the software.  If you're not a pro there are SO MANY FREE AND INEXPENSIVE options.  Gimp for example and a multitude of very cheap options on the Mac store.

If you drive in the Grand Prix you buy a Ferrari, if you drive for Uber you buy a Honda.  Go buy a Honda and stop complaining.

I also agree with them who say it's a little to high. There are thousands of users with low income but who have great skills and talents of art. I published in my board the idea of prices especially for lower incomes. Others do it also. We have rising prices all over the world. These people can build up their little business with the amazing software of ADOBE. Later they have more money to pay a higher price. But with high prices right from the start poor people will never ever have a chance to work hard in art to make the world great with awesome artworks. I also built up my community and videos from less as nothing to a real good business. Please, thing about it... help the world growing..

I understand but I don't think you guys get it. At that price range it's a great price if you're a pro making a living with it. If you just want to play around with it then it's too much.

Greg

You can rent Photoshop for just a month if you like. The per month price is higher if you do it for just one month than if you do it for a whole year, but in the end you are only renting it when you need it.

Over $300 annually? That's way too high for casual users. I'd consider a 10th of that as a reasonable fee. I'm a Lightroom owner and I'd consider spending some money to be able to use Photoshop when I occasionally need to. But over $300 annually for the CS suite is ridiculous. I'm sure you're covering the high end of the market well, but there's a lot of casual users who you're missing with this price structure.

the price of a Photoshop licence in completely reasonable for a graphics company. But photoshop is completely ubiquitous for non professional hobbyists playing around with their vacation photos or creating silly images to post on facebook. These users want all the functionality of the full version of Photoshop, but it's unreasonable to expect them to pay the full price of a professional licence. That is more money than a new computer costs these days. the creative cloud doesn't really help since an ongoing membership still ends up being very expensive and is overkill for occasional sporadic use.n The pricing of the educational licence seems appropriate for these users, and is in spirit more appropriate for the non-professional creative hobbyist, but that licence is only available if you are enrolled in an accredited school.

It seems to me Adobe is missing a huge potential segment of the market. So many people would buy Photoshop and other creative tools for casual home use if they could afford it. Instead probably a lot of people just download cracked copies.

Wow, $699.00 for a piece of software. That is highway robbery. The disc should be scratch proof.

I agree the pricing structure is too complex. I also get annoyed that it costs so much more in the UK than the US - but I believe that's down to our government and its import taxes, not Adobe. (If it is Adobe though, it should be addressed).

I do think the software offers good value though. Yes, it hurts when you have to pay for it yourself, but then all artists and professionals have to pay for their tools. A violinist pays a fortune for a violin! A career mechanic needs to buy expensive spanners, but if it's just for DIY you buy cheaper tools and it doesn't hurt as much. I suspect that on the whole we expect to pay for tangible goods, but most people aren't aware of what it costs to develop and distribute slightly intangible stuff like software.

PS Elements is amazing for the price, but if you're a pro and need a more sophisticated package, bite the bullet and put it against tax. The Cloud subscription option looks like decent value to me - h**l, the monthly cost is cheaper than my mobile phone, works a whole lot better and doesn't deliver any nasty financial surprises at the end of the month. It worked out cheaper to subscribe to the entire suite than just upgrading the 3 apps in CS Standard, and you get a whole lot of extra stuff on top. Plus it's all tax deductible. The only thing that would make it better would be if I could suspend the subscription when I'm on holiday (but telecoms companies don't let you stop payments while you're on holiday either).

Software IS expensive, because it costs a lot to develop it! No I don't work for Adobe, but I've spent decades working with companies who develop digital imaging software for other markets that cost around £10,000 per license (it was double that in the 90's). Why? Because it costs a fortune to hire the kind of brains and the manpower required to make such products. Photoshop offers a great deal of functionality for less than a tenth of the price - which is only possible because its market is so huge. If Adobe were forced to bring the price down, there would undoubtedly be a negative effect on future upgrades, not to mention the next product. (Yes, there will one day be a new product - it's probably happened already a few times. Software has a life-cycle and eventually has to be re-written from the ground up - and that ongoing development can't happen without massive investment.

(*The 2 e's are missing from the middle of this word because the site considers the word for the opposite of heaven to be a profanity. Sigh...)

»there are really young people who use it but can't afford it. do you honestly think that's fair?«
Have you thought this through?
Do you consider fairness a requirement in capitalism?

If things exist that people want to use is it unfair to deny them those things?
With basic necessities like food, shelter, medical care etc. I appreciate the argument, but when talking about professional tools I think it gets pretty difficult to argue that a corporation has an obligation to provide its customers with those goods at a price of the customers’ choosing.
A certain relationship between a company’s production, development and infrastructural costs and the selling price could, I guess, be required to avoid price gauging, but where would that leave the purveyors of brand name luxury goods?

But back to the example at hand: What is the price of an educational license? Because when you talk about »young people« I assume some of those might qualify.

Cloud for Photoshop is too expensive. Piracy will continue.

Traditionally I pay $200 about every 20 months to upgrade to the newest version of photoshop. This comes to $10 a month. The new Cloud rate is double that for a single program.

The benefit of immediate access to new features is not worth that price hike.
Also, structuring it this way de-incentivies Adobe from needing to pursue new ways to expand its products capabilities and value to encourage its users to upgrade. Since they now must pay to even use the program, Adobe no longer will feel any pressure to truly push its product further.

Piracy is wrong. But based on these things, I believe Adobe will continue to lose the war against it.
However, people will stop pirating something if the price point is good. Please consider lowering the price to $10 a month. Even if it is $10 a month only if you sign a 1-year plan or something. Just lower the price.