Why Creative Cloud for Europe is so expensive?

[YahorShumski]

Just curious why the price of Creative Cloud for Europe is 60% higer? Okay, maybe there are some taxes etc but World of Warcraft online game with the same business model charges pretty the same for subscription in US and Europe.

Looks like discrimination, yeah?

[gd2012]

Adobe products are great. This is a fact. It's also a fact that, unfortunately, in Europe one usually pays €100 for a software or hardware product that is sold at $100 in the US. This is already a 30% increase since €1 corresponds roughly to $1.3 US. I suppose one can consider this as "cost of doing business".

But Adobe goes way above and beyond the general 30% increase.

CS6 Design Standard sells for $1300 at the US Adobe Store. It sells for £1230 = $2000 in the UK. That's a 50% increase in price. It sells for €1738 = $2300  in the German Adobe Store. That's a 75% percent increase!!! And the prices are similar in the rest of Europe both in the Northern stronger economies and in the Southern weaker ones. Creative Cloud follows the same "cost of doing business" excuse.

Software prices have generally decreased with globalization. With some exceptions it is now affordable to buy an operating system, a Microsoft Office package, and thousands of other applications at reasonable prices. The same happened with songs and distribution methods like iTunes where the music industry evolved in the same direction. They figured it was better to sell millions of copies of a song at a cheap price than sell a few copies and have millions of others pirated. For the customers it is also great to be able to afford legitimate software at what is perceived as a fair sometimes even cheap price.

Adobe has not evolved like most other software companies. In fact it has become greedier by the day. It seems to think that it's "too big to fail". Eventually it will adapt. Or die. Because quite simply put, it's sailing against the wind.

Greed. That's all it is. Pure and simple greed from Adobe. And everyone knows it.

Who cries at a greedy man's funeral? Certainly not the Adobe customers who have to read these "cost of business" offensive excuses. I guess Adobe figures their customers to be pretty stupid. Maybe we are. But we are also the ones with the power to buy their products. Or not.

[NunoMCastro]

If the problem are the 2 different markets, then why the prices in the economic strong northen Europe is pretty much the same that in the Southern Europe?

A Dutch has a lot more consuming power than a Portuguese or Greek... Following that excuse, prices should be way differente within Europe...

[D-Signer]

That is the biggest chunk of BS I have read in ever so long. Does Dave honestly believe the BS he is feeding loyal, European customers with? Or does he think, because we are European, our IQ must be significantly lower than the average US customer...???

Bye bye Adobe...

[TralenAlencar]

They are charging 90% more to Brazilians. I guess they think we brazilians are 90% richer than americans and should be fine paying that price...

[rembo2013]

Dear Adobe

If you care so much about localisation of the prices for your online products. (i mean overpricing Creative Cloud in EU).

Adobe, Id like to bring for your attention that you can get in trouble in a EU country where im from.

Becouse such a "price localisation" where in advertising you give one price, but bill another, can be classified as an illegal and missleading commercial practice.

So, either you don't localise and sell by rulles and prices of USA.

Or you localise and play by rullles of our individual countries.

Kind ragards
R.

[PNLCG]

This is the same, tired response written years ago, and continually restated by Adobe. It is untrue for a product sold online.

If their support costs are significantly higher in other countries they should shut them down and run them elsewhere to drive down costs.

The key to this is there are few alternatives to using Adobe products, they own a monopoly, perhaps instead of going for price our respective governments would be more interested in pursuing anti monopoly and anti competitive behavior legislation

Kind regards

Paul

Sent from my iPhone

[niico1000]

This may have been somewhat defensible when you had a shrink wrapped product.

Your argument about 'meeting local staff' and 'attending local seminars' is absolutely ridiculous. I have never done that - and never want to - like 99.999999% of your prospective users. We don't need 'local sales people; it's 2014. We are talking about identical bits downloaded from a server at marginal cost.

When it's identical bits downloaded from a server - that might as well be in the US - the only difference would be VAT.

I have no requirement for ANY staff based in the UK/Europe - nor do you.

This also strongly encourages piracy - on principle.

You're charging more to rip people off - pure and simple.

Exactly because of this I have investigated independent programs like Acorn & Pixelmator - they cost as much to buy outright as a single product on CC costs for 1 month. They do much of what I need.

The more I investigate the easier it looks to totally replace Adobe products - in every field. Actually much of what you do is bloatware with awful legacy. Fireworks was great - but you killed it!

I am now working out how to totally move away from Adobe for all my needs - I am very close, it's surprisingly easy & I strongly recommend this to everyone.

If you treat customers like idiots; be prepared to lose customers. You do NOT have irreplaceable software.

If there's something people hate it is being ripped off. Take note - or you'll endup like Quark.

[shanewbrowne]

Sorry doesn't wash. in the past there was good reason for a price differentiation but no longer. to paraphrase the adobe response above "please note, your customers are free do decide at which price point we consider your pricing policy plain to simply be price gouging"

[marcus_j_potter___]

I genuinely hope ADOBE are re-avaluating this approach and listening to their users. Given the price in USD vs GPB equivalent this leaves a sour taste in users minds. I was about to renew my 12month full creative suite membership. Strongly re-considering now, as I just don't like Adobes customer approach anymore.

[DanielBachmann]

Companies with billing addresses outside Switzerland will simply buy elsewhere. This only hits individual people like myself that got really passionate about Adobe CC over the weekend. I even wrote a blog post about it, that I now deleted again despite that the products resonated and on the web you could simply switch the currency slider to USD. However the minute you actually want to subscribe you get shocked by the massive uplift on CHF which is close to 50% including everything and stock. So enough moaning for now, since I dont think this will change, back to open source lessons again. To be honest Gimp II is not so bad after all, at least I don't get such a bad deal on price.

[antoniob12580173]

Hi I'm currently taking a class that need the creative cloud photoshop. However when I try to complete the purchase it says the software is not available to Germany. Why is this?

[amirm-joseph]

yes! you are free and entitled to decide the cost of your product to sell. But consider that firstly how unfairly expensive is your product esp in some foreign countries with weaker economy andc curriency secondly it bars a  lot eager people to use it which could bring profit to the compay even more if the price was right. unless that the social commitment and responsibility ethics is low in Adobe and doesn't care other than the net margin at lower effort and cost. Esp in the period of Corona Pandemic which the world has come to its knees I see no mercy from Adobe to a bit tender it regulations and lower the prices for stricken countries. Although first in the market the monopoly is at play and it is rather unethical!! 

[wdyp]

I just went on to order cloud but decided against it when I saw the price just made me feel like I was getting ripped off plain and simple.

[AntoineM_]

I was about to purchase a yearly Creative Cloud subscription when I figured out the huge difference in US and Europe pricing. I am sorry but such discrimination is not acceptable and I am putting my purchase off until Adobe reconsiders.

Thank you.

[Guest]

I used to love Adobe.. now it's such a ripoff..

discrimination is not cool

[Guest]

the truth is that there are good alternatives for the adobe products out there:

- I've bought Pixelmator because the creative cloud is too expensive in the UK and so far I'm very impressed with the software..

- flash is dead

- Eclipse for coding (excelent) and free

- Final Cut Pro

- Motion

- Quark Express

also GIMP is free (I dont like the UI but it has most of the functionalities)

It was cheaper than Adobe (UK) and some of the tools better 

[Billygunn111]

I agree, its unacceptable that UK customers have to pay $75.27 (£46.88) per month. This is an Internet based product which is the same for everyone globally and we are all purchasing directly with Adobe. No packaging, reseller fees or shipping.  This is a signicant rise in cost to the $49.99 fee that has been strongly marketed to entice people to buy this product.

[mbdrake]

It's worth noting that Mac User UK have noticed the pricing irregularities between the US and UK and have covered this in their review of the CS6 products in the latest edition - and especially given that Adobe charge 23% VAT on Creative Cloud (since they're HQed in Dublin which has a higher VAT rate) versus the 20% rate on the Creative Suite regular bundles.

[gregkeo]

Those who have seen the 'United You Broke My Guitar' video on Youtube will appreciate the pressure that can be applied on social media. United Airlines would surely be wishing they had looked after this customer. If you haven't seen it follow this link to an interview by the guy who was shabbily treated http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CtK2KWo-Vo . The original song has almost reached 12 million viewings.

I have neither the skill or creativity to aspire to a similar gig, however others may do.

Thanks Yahor Shumsky for the fb page (7 posts  pabove). Lets all get some comments up, including the price differences in your own countries and share the page with as many individuals, blog  and web sites as you can .............

[Spamhunter]

My company now has an office in the US, so I will be subscribing there & using it in Europe. That's only after years of debating whether Adobe deserve a penny from me for treating me like a plantation slave & refusing to acquiesce.

I'm sure that they could double their foreign revenue ovenight with fair pricing, but it may well require EU action like the multi-€bn MS one to get their a$s kicked into line.

[mbdrake]

To be fair, Adobe isn't the only company that do this.  Apple themselves are culprits.  Google too.  The long and short of it is that US companies do not want to do direct business on British soil if there are better and cheaper countries from which to base their European operations.

Yet we still buy the products and services nonethless!

Also Adobe isn't a charity - it's a profit-making business.  It can set whatever pricing it likes - nobody is strong-arming anybody into buying into anything they do.  It's a PITA if you've invested lots in time and money into an existing infrastructure based around a particular company's product only to find a massive hike in costs with new versions, etc. etc. - but that's capitalism for you.

[Guest]

please let us know the name of the facebook page. I'm gathering some documents that can be interesting for this.

[YahorShumski]

Guys,

here is the facebook page. I will make everybody admins so we can edit content etc.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Adobe-Price-Policy-The-Same-Price-For-Everybody-Campaign/365171083530...

We need a good content right now and a sort of promotion

[David.Thomson]

I was trying to find out if there was any way to force governement to intervene for a review of pricing policy like the Australian Government is doing

http://delimiter.com.au/2012/04/29/its-on-govt-sets-up-it-price-hike-inquiry/

Apple co founder is also slamming this practice

http://www.t3.com.au/2012/05/11/apple-co-founder-slams-australian-price-discrimination/

I'm sure that Adobe have done their homework on whether this is legal or not but if we get enough people interested Adobe might just take note.

I think that one way to drum up interest in the facebook page is to obviously put lots of content on it and try to get on lots of other forums and blogs letting people know what we are trying to achieve.

Adobe is basically a monopoly within the design industry and if we could persued the government that this is the case they could be pushed to look at it.

[ChristophvS]

I've choosen to subscribe because for the time being I need it and the pricing model suits me.

But I totaly agree that adobe has to feel incredibly powerfull to advertize theire products in $ and charge them with overpricing in other currencys.

So I surely look for alternatives bevor re-subscribing for the full price, when this will be due in year.