After experimenting with subscription plans last year, Adobe is revamping its pricing strategy with the launch of Adobe Creative Cloud and the CS6 software suite.
Creative Cloud—priced at $50 per month on a yearly subscription, or $75 month-to-month—offers unfettered access to all 14 of Adobe's new CS6 applications. The idea is that customers who may only need access to Creative Suite products on a temporary basis—beyond each product's 30-day trial period—can subscribe for only as long as needed.
Adobe first experimented with subscription pricing last year when it offered CS5.5 versions of its Design Premium and Master Collection suites for $95 and $129, respectively, with a yearly commitment. Now, however, the company has opted against tiered pricing, and is offering the entire CS6 suite for more than half the price. Some individual apps, however, such as Photoshop and Premiere Pro, can still be licensed for $19.99 per month on a one-year contract.
A version for small business users, called Creative Cloud Team, will be available for $70 a month in the second half of the year.
True to its name, Creative Cloud also offers subscribers 20GB of cloud storage, where files can be stored, synced and shared with other users, and previewed online using Adobe's Web-based viewer. Free users of Creative Cloud are granted 2GB of storage and 30-day trials of all CS6 applications.
CS6, meanwhile, includes a number of enhancements to Adobe's line of creative products, including a revamped graphics engine for its Photoshop, After Effects, and Premiere Pro software, and a new application called Muse, "a radical tool that enables designers to create and publish HTML5 web sites without writing code."
