Recent news that Adobe just quietly upped the cost of Lightroom and Photoshop – one plan by a whopping 52% – is the latest bout of controversy to hit the best photo editing software developer. Add to that the US government's lawsuit regarding customer protection laws. That AI policy. The fact that Photoshop Elements is no longer yours for life. And the recent fall in stocks.
Adobe and controversy have gone together like mashed potatoes and gravy in 2024.
So, what’s going on?
Well, it certainly hasn’t been all bad news for the titan of post-production software. Revenue is actually up. Despite explaining that stocks are down 15%, Forbes details an 11% year-on-year increase in revenue during Q4, with 13% and 17% year-on-year growth in Q4 for media segment sales and document cloud sales respectively, with the news outlet stating: “The company is benefiting from the migration of customers to high-priced subscription variants, driving the average revenue per customer higher.”
This I found particularly interesting because it made me look at the new photography plan prices in a different way. Firstly, none of the yearly lump sum prices have changed, only the monthly payment plans, which have changed as follows…
- Lightroom (1TB) plan has gone up by $2/£2.01 to $11.99/£11.99 – although it now includes Adobe Lightroom Classic which is a plus point.
- Photography (20GB) plan has gone up by a huge $5/5.01 to $14.99/£14.99, which includes Adobe Photoshop CC, Adobe Lightroom, and Adobe Lightroom Classic. And this will now only be available to existing customers.
- Photography (1TB) plan remains the same, $19.99/£19.97.
I find it extremely interesting that the Photography (1TB) plan remains unchanged, while the 20GB plan has been hit by a huge 52% price hike for existing users (and won't be available in future to new customers). Once the ire of those affected by the price increases has moved on, you’re left with a 1TB plan that’s temptingly close to the 20GB plan. You might as well go for it! Clever, eh?
So what do I think about all this? Well, I recently wrote an article detailing how I thought Adobe Creative Cloud was better value than the old Creative Suite and came to the conclusion that cumulative monthly payments meant it wasn’t during long-term usage.
However, I ended that article with a neat Wikipedia fact: "When Photoshop 1.0 was released, digital retouching on dedicated high-end systems (...) cost around $300 an hour for basic photo retouching. The list price of Photoshop 1.0 for Macintosh in 1990 was $895." Puts things into perspective, right?
The problem is that Adobe’s pricing has always been controversial. People moan about Creative Cloud now, but can you remember how much it cost to buy the software outright during the Creative Suite days? There’s a reason I’d never purchased any Adobe software prior to the Creative Cloud subscription model.
And yet, the Photography (20GB) plan has risen exponentially… I mean, come on, 52% is one heck of a price increase. Let me put that into perspective, the current pricing right now for annual monthly payments totals $119.88/£119.76 and after the price hike on January 15 2025 that’ll be $179.88/£179.88.
But what really got my goat was this statement on the Adobe Blog where the pricing changes were detailed. “For more than a decade, we’ve brought photographers hundreds of innovative features in Lightroom and Photoshop without changing the price of our photography plans. Today we’re announcing an update to these plans to better reflect the value that the apps deliver.”
I mean, on the one hand, kudos to Adobe for not changing the photography plans’ pricing, but maybe save the back-patting if you’re going to increase one of the plans by 52%!
So where has this aggressive price hike come from? Well, I’m only throwing in my two cents here, but despite revenue figures looking very good, it seems as though Adobe’s investment in AI could be the reason for the notable drop in shares. Financial news outlet Finimize put this into perspective: “Investors are uneasy about Adobe’s significant investments in artificial intelligence (...) analysts are uneasy about the unclear path to monetization.”
So, there you have it. If you’re unhappy about your Creative Cloud Photography Plan going up, AI could inadvertently be the culprit.
If you want to avoid these price hikes as best you can, my colleague and US Editor, Hillary K Grigonis, explains how in her report on how Adobe just quietly upped the cost of Lightroom and Photoshop.
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