Can I buy a stand alone version of Adobe Illustrator, or am I forced to pay the CC subscription fee?

[jamie_scott]

I really want to buy a copy of Illustrator becuase I have seen it to be an incredibly useful tool for work I do, however I want to buy a copy and own it forever, and not pay a CC subscription? I'm a student with a very limited income and so paying the subscription (even with student discounts) is not the path I want to take. Is there a way for me to do this? (Same applies with Photoshop and Premiere)

Thanks

[Jacob Bugge · Accepted solution]

Jamie,

You can buy the CS6 versions, and whole suites at student discounts:

http://helpx.adobe.com/x-productkb/policy-pricing/cs6-product-downloads.html

You may calculate the sums of prices of individual products and compare with suites, keeping in mind that  you get a completely different price when still a student.

This may make it worth really considering which applications you might wish to use in the future, or maybe rather which applications you are completely certain you will never wish to use (to the extent that is possible), as part of the comparison and decision.

[Monika Gause]

You can buy stand-alone versions, but as soon as you buy two stand-alones, the complete one is cheaper.

http://www.adobe.com/products/creativecloud/buying-guide.html

[Jacob Bugge]

Jamie,

If you want all of Illustrator, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro, it is cheaper to buy them in the Production Premium Suite with a number of other applications.

You may also consider the Master Collection Suite, which is somewhat more expensive but has more applications.

Strangely enough, none of them have Acrobat Pro, as have the Design Standard and the Design and Web Premium which do not have Premiere Pro.

There may be other strangenesses.

[Wade_Zimmerman1]

this is what you can actually buy at this time

https://www.adobe.com/products/catalog/cs6._sl_id-contentfilter_sl_catalog_sl_education_sl_creatives...

However if you look you might find it economicl to just go with the suite for 19.95 per month. $240 per year and get the whole suite. I do not believe there is a standalone student version of AI as it would be difficult to offer the application for less than 19.95 per month hiuch is what the standalone reail vrsion of Illustrator cost which is he sme price as thw whole cloud for student.

[glenm21479582]

I think what you are asking is what I am trying to find out.. and no one has answered it.. Can we buy the program .. out right.. no monthly payments just one time buy and have it for the rest of eternity.. The whole monthly fee thing is whack.. leads to increases and then you are always incurring an expense. If I buy CAD I don't pay them a fee every month.. I think this is why you have so many illegal downloads of your software..

Glen MacLean

[SJRiegel]

There are several links in this thread to the CS6 versions of the software, which are still available for perpetual license purchase (pay once; use as long as your hardware will support the programs).

[kangc67829336]

not anymore?

[Designerdeb17]

No. The only stand alones left are Lightroom and Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements. If you want to go Pro, and use current software, you have to buy the subscription.

[oraven]

finally someone got it, that's what I want to know I already have Photoshop that you were able to buy outright back then but things have really changed this monthly thing is really not cool

[deniseb1515418]

No it is not cool!!!

[Kathie29038428n422]

Adobe has totally out priced their customers.  I was a teacher teaching their software. Shouldn't be taught anymore in schools because after learning it, they can't afford it.  Way greedy company.  Sad!!!!!!!  I was willing to pay quite a high price for the program,but the monthly subscription isn't worth a crafter person to use.

[Bobby Henderson]

Adobe Creative Cloud applications such as Adobe Illustrator are not designed or priced for causal-hobbyist style use. They are professional applications primarily geared for people to use in creative businesses. Adobe applications such as Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop are industry standard for general graphic design and publishing purposes. Now, to be fair, I personally know photographers who mostly shoot landscapes, wildlife or other stuff mostly for their own enjoyment but have sank tens of thousands of dollars into their equipment. Camera bodies, computers, lights, various gadgets and more (including Adobe software). The cost of a Creative Cloud subscription is certainly not cheap (over $650 per year). But that's still less than what a lot of people pay for their cable, satellite or streaming TV services. If someone's art is really a high priority, paying close to $60 a month for access to a giant amount of professional creative software is not all that bad.

I work in the sign industry and most of the corporate brand assets I receive are generated using Adobe software. I would strongly advise any student wanting a career doing work in graphics, branding, page layout, etc to really skill up with Adobe software. They also need to put together a good portfolio of work too.

For people wanting to create vector art on a budget there are other alternatives out there. Inkscape is pretty good; it has a ton of features and is free/open source. But using it feels like going back in time to the mid 1990's (the user interface is very dated and clunky). Affinity Designer has a pretty slick looking user interface; the application is pretty affordable (usually $100 but sometimes discounted to $50), but it has a lot of limitations when measured against vector apps like Illustrator or CorelDRAW. I sometimes get CDR files from other sign industry people. I have Affinity Designer and experiment with it a good bit; I bought the application as a "just in case" measure in case I started receiving .afdesign art files from customers. I haven't received any such files yet. But I'm ready, just in case.

[Monika Gause]

Adobe has totally out priced their customers.  I was a teacher teaching their software. Shouldn't be taught anymore in schools because after learning it, they can't afford it.  Way greedy company.  Sad!!!!!!!  I was willing to pay quite a high price for the program,but the monthly subscription isn't worth a crafter person to use.

By @Kathie29038428n422

So basically you are saying that after finishing school students can afford "quite a high price for the program", but they cannot afford a monthly subscription of 20 bucks for the single app?

Doesn't sound very logical. Back when I started my business applications had quite a hefty price tag - like 800 bucks upwards about 30 years ago. And that was just one of those apps. So when starting your business you had to invest about 4000 bucks right after leaving design school. There weren't a lot of people who could afford that right out of the pocket.

[Bobby Henderson]

Some of the industry specific software we have to use in my workplace is quite a bit more expensive than Adobe's software. We have applications that control routing tables, large format printers and vinyl cutters/plotters. The industry specific hardware is in a whole other price category.

[frayedknots]

Bobby, your point here being?   That other companies who are specific to CAD, Timing and Routing concerns, some Nuclear COntrol and rocketry programs might all cost far, FAR more than Illustrator, I'll give you, but that's NOIT what the question was aimed at.  I used Illustrator to do signage and other atristic files back when it was still Adobe 3 and it WAS a standalone.  That Adobe decfided that "If you wants it, youse is gwine pay fo' it thru de nose" is the only possible interpretation for the company's conduct.  No doubt, the current business philosophy (expressed succinctly in  the previous sentence) is super-great for the corporate coffers, but not ALL users of Illustrator are 'professionals', many of us are LEGACY users and we are the ones getting shafted by the current philosophy.

We all thank  you for the suggestion s as to othere "vector" drawing programs, but what I am looking for is a stand-alone copy of Adobe Illustrator so I can either rescue or continue to work with some 1,600 -odd files and pictures I created since 2006 which are at present un-obtainable to me.

I could care about all the modern conveniences of the CS-series Illustrator, all I want is the old standalone Illustrator 9 which will allow me to use the files I'v e already created and perhaps modify same.

Now,  any joy on THAT question?   Adobe 9 (and CS2) were available if you had a good REG number, but in (I think) 2014, Adobe kiled the programs needed to register a program with an old REG number, which left me out on a limb.

Sorry to wax so grumpy, but it really hurts when I can't get to work I made.

[frayedknots]

Apologies for the spleeing irrerz.  80 and bad eyesight.

[Monika Gause]

---

@frayedknots  schrieb:

Now,  any joy on THAT question?   Adobe 9 (and CS2) were available if you had a good REG number, but in (I think) 2014, Adobe kiled the programs needed to register a program with an old REG number, which left me out on a limb.

---

So you once had it installed?

Had you kept the old hardware with Illustrator on it, you could still run it.

I still have a machine with CS 3, 4, 5 and 6. Can't run CS2 on it, because the system is too new for that. Expecting that all the apps are still running on systems invented 20 years after the software has been introduced, is just too much. 

[Bobby Henderson]

Frayedknots, my "point here being" is what I said earlier in this thread (literally a year ago). Adobe's creative software is for commercial, professional use. It never has been sold and priced as affordable, hobbyist software.

If you had Adobe Illustrator 9 what did you do with your original product CD-ROM? A working vintage PC could probably run it. A newer PC with an old version of Windows running in a virtual machine could probably do so as well.

Like nearly all other software companies, Adobe ends support on old versions of software after a certain number of years. They're not going to offer technical support, much less even bother to sell old versions of software. Illustrator 9 pre-dates the Creative Suite era. Adobe has turned off the activation servers for Creative Suite versions 1 thru 4. Heck, it wouldn't surprise me if CS5 and CS5.5 activation servers are "dead" by now.

I've been using Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for a long time. I have a lot of old installers on CD-ROM and even 3.5" floppy disc. I spent a bunch of money out of my own pocket on most of it (my workplace didn't get vested in Adobe software until the large format printing revolution happened in the late 2000's). Those old discs, boxes and printed manuals are just interesting collectors items now. The apps will only run on ancient PC hardware. Life goes on and work continues. And I have to get that work done using the new stuff.

[deniseb1515418]

Agree exactly!!!