Adobe confirms Creative Cloud pricing

Adobe today confirmed the pricing of its upcoming Creative Cloud offering.

Revealed at its MAX conference in early October, Creative Cloud will allow users to access hosted Adobe applications, such as Photoshop and InDesign, by paying a monthly fee rather than an outright licensing cost.

Individuals will have to pay $49.99 each month, with businesses being charged $69.99 per user. We asked for the UK pricing from the Adobe press office but it had not returned our request at the time of publication (we will update the story as soon as they have).      

“Our move to this membership model allows us to keep our customers up to date with the latest Adobe innovations in our tools and related services,” wrote David Wadhwani, senior vice president and general manager of the digital media business unit at Adobe, on the company’s blog.

“Creative Cloud will provide maximum flexibility, offer lower cost of entry and add cutting-edge innovation on an on-going basis to keep our customers ahead of the changing technology and device landscape.”

Along with the established creativity suite, customers will have the opportunity to try out its new Touch Apps – also announced during MAX – for developers to create applications for tablet devices.

An extra addition is the collaboration tools Creative Cloud brings to the table, with users being able to share their ideas and designs within the community to get instant feedback.

“There is a tremendous shift happening around content creation, distribution and monetisation,” added Wadhwani.

“The Adobe Creative Cloud initiative has the potential to transform creativity as designers and developers look to create the best experiences across devices and platforms, while integrating tablet devices and cloud-based services into their workflows.”

Adobe was keen to stress customers would not be forced to use the cloud model and individual pricing for its software products would still be available.

However, it has adjusted its upgrade structure, meaning users can only get the usual discounts for perpetual licence upgrades if they are running the most up-to-date version. To encourage users to take the leap, Adobe is offering a 20 per cent discount on the software until the end of the year, but the attractive cloud pricing is likely to tempt some away from the traditional route.

Adobe Creative Cloud is set for release in the first half of 2012.