Why Creative Cloud for Europe is so expensive?

What peeves me off is that I only bought CS6 in June 2012 yet I must pay the same upgrade fee as someone who, for example, bought CS4 a few years ago! I would have been happy to pay the $19.99 equivalent in the UK - even with some add on for the greedy middle-men.

At least in the US there is a different price for the complete version for those with CS3 to CS5 ($29.99) than those with CS6 ($19.99).

My wife uses Corel Draw X6 and it pretty does much of what I need.

At £27.34 a month I would rather pay someone in say, South Africa, to do the work. CS6 is more a toy for me to do a straw man of what I need to support my business (and to keep me from being idle when I have spare time) - and is not a core product in revenue generation - and therefore at the UK price it is very EXPENSIVE!

Hi Nigma2k,

I agree fully. It is the same for us. We would have upgraded all our clients to the subscription, now we just purchased one as it was really needed,
all others still have older versions. Summing up the total, Adobe earned less with us this way. I hoped Adobe would recodnize this, as they mentioned
some time back in a press release, that Cloud doesn't sell as good as expected in Europe. Well guess why... I am still in faith and hope they change as
in Australia, but probably it needs a hammer from the EU.

Patrick

@ rembo2013.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Sounds like you're blaming India and Indians for the problem.

All big and even some small companies outsource work to other countries to save money by using cheaper labour. That's why we have so many goods that are 'Made in China'. Outsourcing is not a bad thing, providing people are not exploited. And the people doing the outsourced work are just trying to make a living.

The Adobe pricing model for different countries is completely separate to outsourcing. The reason people are angry is because an online service, which should not cost any more for delivery to anywhere in the world, is being charged more some markets over others.

It's about time I chimed back in again.  Here's my experience with Creative Cloud after 7 months of usage;

I won't waste time explaining how awesome the software is.  You all already know.

Cost-Effectiveness...Here's 2 figures for you;

Total spent on Creative Cloud to date: £328.16

Total earnt to date as a direct result of Creative Cloud programs: £7976.64 (Gross)

As you can see, the ~£7 difference in price (Because don't forget we have VAT at 20%!) between the UK and US versions doesn't amount to much when you see how much money I've earnt off Creative Cloud.  Just with InDesign, Illustrator and Photoshop (Illustrator being my main use program).  And don't think I'm some pro here, 90% of my work are things like letterheads and invoice designs for small to medium sized businesses.

I am an independent small time freelancer, I have secured no loans to purchase this software and it is my only regular overhead relating to my work.

Now, having seen the price differences for our Australian and Brazilian friends there is a problem.  But in th UK?  Where things like petrol are astronomically high compared to their US counterparts?  I get confused by people like esm-uk here, who from what I can see, is pretty much the same person in terms of career as I am.  That is a small, independent designer.  So the question is, if I'm able to afford to do this easily, why can't others?  It begs the question "Do you have a strong enough client base to warrant purchasing this software?"  Granted the majority of my work has come in after I got creative cloud but that's mostly down to the fact I needed the software before canvassing people for jobs.

Basically it boils down to this for me, I have made nearly £8000 gross profit from this software in 7 months, I know it's not a huge amount by any means, but its a clear profit over the cost of the software.  I've now reached a point where I'm genuinely considering shelling out another £12/month signing up to lynda.com so I can get the hang of all this other software I have but don't use (like speedgrade etc), in a shameless effort to diversify to get more customers and more money.

I know this is probably going to get a huge backlash from other members.  I'm just posting this to let other small time users know that it's not as bad as it seems (in the UK at least) providing you have the motivation to go out and earn the money back.  If you just want the software to play with like an expensive toy then you really need to reconsider your options. BUT if you are a serious designer, looking for top industry-level software, the question is how long are you going to convince yourself you don't need Creative Cloud?

Let me put it this way actually, how much money per month do you spend on your contract phone?  I know a great many people spend £35/month or more to get the latest iPhone.  Why not downgrade your phone plan, and spend that released cash on something that isn't just a toy?  You know, because it's easy to blame Adobe for charging us UK users ~£7 a month more, but we don't look at ourselves and say "Why am I spending £35+/month on a phone that doesn't earn me any money, when I can spend £20/month on a good phone (£21.50 for me actually) and use that extra £15 to put towards getting Creative Cloud, which will earn me money?"

Because at the end of the day, I hear you all saying you need this software and that you're a serious designer, but don't want to pay.

Here's a site for my UK friends still weighing up the decisions, she's a personal friend of mine, and an amazing Illustrator/Animator, and guess what?  Yep you guessed it!  She's a Creative Cloud user!

http://www.mairperkins.co.uk/

Wow, doesn't seem like the extra £7 is doing her any harm does it?

Yes, the issue does need to be addressed about pricing strategies overseas.  But are you really going to wait for what could be years just to save <£100 a year?  Really?

Ah now the joy of watching my emails telling me people have replied, but not bothering to read them for another 7 months...

a price like the 50% off offer for the first year here in germany would be nice if it will be always that price. so more people would use it. more people who didn't earn money with the suite will rent the suite too.

Many thanks for the information. 

I have raised a petition with the European Parliament.  I will let you guys know if and when the petition is accepted and becomes active.

This is more a matter of principal than anything else.  We should not be charged more here in Europe.

For people (such as myself) who run startups, price hikes of 40% make all the difference, for representatives of established companies speaking on here, it may seem like a small amount, but for many others, it is a barrier.  Everyone has to start somewhere!

Here is some news:
Adobe drops price of Creative Cloud in Australia ahead of government inquiry
http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/12/3979690/adobe-reduces-price-of-creative-cloud-in-australia-ahead-of-inquiry