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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Rethinking Adobe Pricing Model

Steve Sherrick

Steve Sherrick

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I know, this topic has been beaten to death. However, I've been doing a lot of thinking about what tools I own, what I want to use in the future, etc. And when re-examining the Adobe subscription plan, I think they can do better. In fact, I would say Avid has probably handled pricing options better. Not that Avid has always done a great job in rolling out their plans and policies, but at the end of the day I feel they give you the most options. I own the software and I pay a service contract yearly if I want to stay current with updates and support. It costs me $295 year, less than one billable edit session. If I decide to end support, I own the last version I was current with support on, in my case if I stopped paying yearly support I would end on V8 of Media Composer. I could also opt to do the subscription method, which I am currently taking advantage of with another editor I have working on a project. I will pay the subscription for the duration of the project and she can edit away on another Avid system.

Of course, neither Avid or Adobe can compete on price with FCP X or Resolve 12 Lite. But I don't know they could survive at that pricing anyway since they don't sell the amount of hardware that Apple and Blackmagic do. So, I would like to see Adobe consider offering a similar option that Avid does. An option to buy it and then get future updates with a service contract. That way you can stop at a version you are comfortable with if need be. With Avid, there is a caveat which is if you let your support contract expire then you have to repurchase the program again at full retail price.

Anyway, I think Adobe is fully committed to this pricing plan, so not sure much chance we'll see them change it unless they see their numbers drop below a comfortable level. But curious what others are thinking now that they have had CC for a while now. Are you okay with the pricing and the pay to play method or would you like an option to buy it outright? And if Adobe needs the continuous money stream they can charge a yearly service contract fee for updates.

Sorry again for beating a dead horse. Just curious.
 
I agree. I much prefer Avid's pricing plan and I really don't like Adobe's. If I were editing full time, it'd be OK but I shoot and edit and sometimes I'm not editing for weeks. I'm editing a client project right now on Premiere CC but I'm looking to another solution before my first year discount runs out, or as soon as I can. I have CS6 I could use for photoshop but that's it as it does not support Dragon. The only problem I see is missing After Effects. I don't use anything besides PP, Ps and Ae. I use ProTools for audio and am learning DaVinci Resolve for grading mostly because I don't want to invest any more time in learning Adobe's tools even though SpeedGrade is supposed to be good.
 
Well I don't edit enough to upgrade to CC. I'm still on CS6. I grew up using Adobe since high school so I can figure out work-arounds and don't need the latest and greatest. I had a freakout last week when I upgraded to Windows 10 and for some reason it deleted Premiere and After Effects. (I thought for a moment that they weren't compatible). I felt I would have been forced to finally subscribe to CC. Well luckily all I had to do was reinstall CS6 and they came back. At the moment I am still working on MX footage so I don't need CC. Sure it's better as everyone says so but no thanks Adobe... I will hold out until I actually have a dragon sensor and need to in order to edit natively.
 
Personally I think its a pretty good deal. Well of course Final Cut Pro X is a steal.
For me I think a bigger problem is that I just do not like Premiere for editing. I find it very frustrating. Many thinings that I'm so used to be able to do in FCPX does not seem to be possible. Some example (maybe some can be done):
- Edit the font for all your text in the video. So far I have to click every one and change.
- I have 2 clips next to each other with a transition. I want to reduce the lengths of clip 1 and then everything slides and the transition is still there. Can you do this? Super easy in FPCX.

Also I just find previewing clips is very poor compared to FCPX.

I think After Effects is great though. Very good and useful program.
I do not understand those running on CS6, there are so many improvements to all these programs, its been about 5 generations of these programs?

Myself I do most of my editing in Davinci which is really nice and they improve it quickly as well. And I love its color grading. My plan is to switch over to Avid for editing.
/Andreas
 
The only real difference is having a version you are left with should you decide to buy a perpetual license. Subscription only is the same for Avid and Adobe. Price wise, Avid perpetual + 1 year (2 years total) is the same as 6.6 years of Premiere Pro (just the NLE) price wise before any specials or offers from either company. Arguably you can run two versions of Premiere Pro depending on how you define a work system or home system and doesn't seem to be something Adobe really cracks down on.

It's a whole new way of looking at things and is the way the industry is moving in general.


Michael
 
I don't think they will change their pricing model anytime soon.
This is quite interesting in that regard: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/11/adobe_q4_fy2015_results/

I like premiere, but the new versions becoming very buggy with RED files. So I am considering switching to DaVinci. But I don't want to come out with $1000 every year a new version is released.
 
I used to have the full Adobe CC, but I switched to the $10/month Photography plan. Resolve's editing and (highly underrated) chroma keying ability is enough for me.

Alberto Guglielmi said:
I like premiere, but the new versions becoming very buggy with RED files. So I am considering switching to DaVinci. But I don't want to come out with $1000 every year a new version is released.
Click to expand...

I've had the same Resolve USB dongle since version 9 that came with my BMCC. Blackmagic hasn't charged fees for upgrades since then and we're at version 12 now.
 
I'm wandering what people think to expect to get if they pay a monthly subscription of 60 EUR. One cannot expect more than a mainstream product that fits the average needs of everybody. But I must say I'm pretty impressed how well Adobe delivers. Specialized software packages, however, with an extended feature set, perhaps innovative and market leading cannot be priced in this league. You won't get an Alexa or Dragon for the costs of a 5d.

This said I'm more than happy that Adobe took the lead and made software subscription a successful business model that others now copy. I used to own a Smoke but now run a Flame on Linux on the best available hardware. Without the new subscription model Autodesk Flame would be still out of reach, at least if I wear my economical money man hat.

IMHO, the subscription model is the best plan for the industry ever. For the individual the over-all costs are less, if staying current is of any interest. For most professional users this is the case. For the developing companies the subscription model makes a constant cash-flow happen that allows to budget R&D, sales etc... much better.

How BM is able to take care of Resolve's future with their current business model is beyond my understanding. But somehow the hardware revenues seem to be sufficient. Same seems to be the case for Apple's FCP-X.

I'm sure that there will be refinements we don't know yet that will make subscription even more flexible and less error prone. Ownership of software will be soon buried in oblivion and we all won't miss it.

But I must admit, when I cancelled Adobe's CS subscription and bought Affinity to substitute Photoshop in my Autodesk-only ecosystem I had a warm vintage feeling of a secure ownership experience. IMHO, this safeness psychology has no meaningful economical basis in the postproduction industry of today.


Hans
 
MichaelP said:
The only real difference is having a version you are left with should you decide to buy a perpetual license. Subscription only is the same for Avid and Adobe. Price wise, Avid perpetual + 1 year (2 years total) is the same as 6.6 years of Premiere Pro (just the NLE) price wise before any specials or offers from either company. Arguably you can run two versions of Premiere Pro depending on how you define a work system or home system and doesn't seem to be something Adobe really cracks down on.

It's a whole new way of looking at things and is the way the industry is moving in general.


Michael
Click to expand...
That one difference is kind of big in my opinion, but I agree that it's the way it's going. I just like the idea that I always own a version so if all hell breaks loose I can still work. It's really not the actual price that I'm wrestling with. $50/month if you're running a small, but busy shop is not a big deal, but being reliant on a subscription in order for the software to work could be. I know there are grace periods and it's not like they shut you down the day after you don't pay but I think I just like the other model.

One other thing that concerns me is the tentacles into the editing systems. I feel like the Adobe stuff is very active with its under the hood systems. Also i like aligning specific versions/revs of software with specific OS, drivers. I feel like that's not as easy with CC.
 
I agree it can be a big difference - to me it is no longer really about competitive products, but a war of seats. By that I mean once a manufacturer has a "seat" they can sell other offerings and services - the NLE in this case can almost be considered loss leader. Avid's whole Marketplace strategy and revenue based on that is very dependent on having the number of seats attached to make that a viable revenue stream. It works well for Pro Tools as it is the dominant platform in music and audio post, and it's plug-in architecture is actually the better one (number of platforms aside). For Media Composer, AVX is not the better plug-in architecture and third parties need to budget for development and QA for what is most likely the smallest of seat counts compared to Adobe and Apple. It's an interesting Catch 22 for third party developers. And the Avid Marketplace does not really exist yet despite mention of it since NAB 2014. I suspect it will come with the release of Media Composer|First.

There is also a potential penalty for not renewing your MC support on a yearly basis - while you can choose to not update because you are good - should you want to get back onto the plan you are paying for a new perpetual license or you go on the monthly plan. Your previous perpetual license will still work as long as it can, but you now have two licenses; one old, one new. And if you are a dongle kind of user, of which many are, that dongle is also frozen in time. If you want to keep using a dongle, that is an additional $500 for a new one.

And from the seat strategy side, Adobe really wants to get everyone on the everything CC rather than just a single product. They do have the photo package bundle since the vast majority of their user base is from graphics and design which feeds all their back end web analytic business. But they have all the tools to connect the video world into that every shifting OTT world for content owners. But on the video side, many of us use/need Photoshop and After Effects, and once you get to any three monthly subscriptions it is cheaper to just get it all. I know I have used Illustrator and Indesign for creating Sell Sheets, web design to promote video productions, clean up audio with Audition etc. Independent production is not just editorial as you know. And that is their sweet spot market. After all these years Avid still cannot field a MC/Pro Tools combo price. They can't even be launched at the same time, and install order matters.

Brave new world. I edit with MC, dailies and finish with Resolve, but use a bunch of Adobe tools as well as mentioned. Both Adobe and Avid are fine with users having both. But if it came down to only either one, that is a different discussion depending on market being served, budget, etc.


Michael
 
We've definitely entered the Jack-of-all-trades era. So, Adobe certainly has the most complete tool set if you want to do it all. And I don't think the subscription pricing is too high. It's actually very affordable all things considered. I think my only complaints are no options for perpetual licence and the extent to which the Manager software seems to operate in the background.

I agree with you about Avid and Pro Tools. I'm shocked there is no bundle there and that there are still issues with co-existence. Those 2 should be soul mates living in perfect harmony at this point. I also think the effects side of Avid can be improved upon. I'll certainly be keeping the 3 A's running simultaneusly for a while. Photoshop is the one I feel like I have a decent replacement for but AE, not yet.
 
I can pay the monthly fee with less than an hour's billable work. That seems to be a good deal to me for basically every piece of software they make. Even if I don't use 60% of it. It would be nice to make a "Video Production Bundle" like they did in the past for less with the main video/graphics apps, but there is so much crossover nowadays they will always get someone complaining about this or that app not being included. So, they said "here! take 'em all, dammit!"

still, all adobe apps = >1 hour edit time. for what I make on them, I think its fair.
 
not complaining about price as indicated earlier.
 
Our whole shop switched to ADOBE (Mainly cause Erik Espera works there now) Erik was pretty instrumental in bringing the RED Community together in the Sacramento / San Francisco Bay Area. Erik currently and has been working for ADOBE Corporation for some time now.
 
Call me old-fashioned, but I believe in owning my assets - not renting them. Especially the assets I need to use on regular basis (in this case daily). As Steve said - it is not about the price. Indeed - I have spent much more per year when I consider I have always purchased the Master Collection outright with every new release (OK, I admit on skipping the 5.5). But I own it. And I know I can keep using it whenever and wherever I need / want. I am still on CS6 for that very reason...

:sifone: Peter
 
Is there a way to outright buy the Adobe programs? onlyone we dont have are the CS4 versions (which i will never update) and everything else is on subscription. Except Adobe Captivate (which is software for training and it makes tests for our native language program, alot of our new filming is filming our Native Languages at the tribe.
 
I don't have an issue with the prices, just the quality of the updates and the amount of bugs. They need to up their game quickly or they will lose subscribers.
 
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