Many in the Lightroom community are now asking what’s going on with Lightroom Classic and Photography Plan pricing. The subscription plan that most Lightroom Classic users subscribe to, the Creative Cloud Photography plan, has been $9.99 for years. The plan includes Lightroom Classic, Photoshop, the newer cloud-based Lightroom application (AKA Lightroom CC), and a minimal 20 GB of storage. However, Petapixel and some customers (including me) are finding that right now the minimum price now available on Adobe.com is $19.99/month. This $19.99 plan does include 1 TB of storage instead of 20 GB, but this storage isn’t of much use to most unless you’re a user of the cloud-based Lightroom. What’s going on – has the minimum price for Lightroom Classic (and Photoshop) users doubled?
Here’s the scoop: Right now some customers are seeing the $9.99 plan and others are seeing only the $19.99 plan on Adobe.com because Adobe Marketing is doing A/B testing – presenting different minimum prices to different customers to the impact on sales of available options, presumably to determine what pricing policy to adapt in the future.
Here’s the official Adobe response:
Q: I see Creative Cloud Photography Plan (20GB) is not available on Adobe.com. What is happening?
From time to time, we run tests on Adobe.com which cover a range of items, including plan options that may or may not be presented to all visitors to Adobe.com. We are currently running a number of tests on Adobe.com.
Q: Is this plan still available for purchase?
Yes, the plan is still available for purchase from Adobe during this test.
Q: How does one buy this plan at $9.99?
The plan can be purchased at http://www.adobe.com/go/photo18sptst, via phone at 1-800-585-0774 or via major retailers.
Q: Does this mean that Lightroom Classic, Photoshop and/or [the cloud-based] Lightroom are no longer available?
This test has no impact on the availability of any desktop application. Lightroom Classic, Lightroom, and Photoshop desktop apps all continue to be available.
Q: Will Creative Cloud Photography Plan (20GB) be available into the future?
We don’t comment on future products or plans.
While this is only a test, I personally don’t think it was wise for Adobe to disrupt and confuse the Lightroom market/community this way and to force some unsuspecting customers to pay twice as much as others to purchase the plan. I also find it disconcerting that Adobe is considering doubling the minimum price of the plan – but given that it’s a test at this point, it’s probably not worth wasting energy on it at this point other than to let Adobe know on their feedback site how you feel about the possibility of paying double.
Petapixel points out that if you want to lock in the $9.99/month price for as long as possible, you can buy 1-year subscriptions from authorized resellers (Adorama, Amazon, B&H, etc.), and then add a maximum of three years to your account now.
This would be a step too far. Adobe charges far too much for its on-line storage and I’d cancel my subscription rather than pay double for 1Tb that I don’t need. Backblaze is far cheaper for on-line storage!
I’m not sure if Adobe lost many users when they first went to the subscription plan, but at that time there were really no viable alternatives. Today there are quite a number of very usable products from other sources such as onOne, DxO, Skylum, Topaz, etc. I believe Adobe is quite aware of the competition and realizes that even a slight increase in price on the Photography Plan would be suicidal.
Adobe will are probably making a mistake by attempting to hike up the cost of their software and my guess is that a large percentage of those using the monthly plan will choose to move elsewhere, I have already done so! Laura has been very
helpful in this blog, by explaining all of the details. Thank you Laura!
You’re welcome, Ronnie!
I have been using Lightroom since it was V4. I currently pay for the $9.99 subscription annually and have no need for the meager 20 GB they offer me. Even a TB would not be enough, and I have no use for the cloud based Lightroom. If Adobe pushes a doubling of the current subscription, they are putting themselves in a position for users to leave Adobe and go to the alternative products currently on the market being sold as Adobe alternatives that are getting better at replacing Lightroom. I am currently using 2 of those products now as a way to enhance my workflow, and if I was forced to loose Lightroom, I would be in a better position to continue my craft, and only feel jaded by Adobe for messing with their base of photographers that have relied on their software
I could do without Lightroom because I don’t do much photography now, although I wouldn’t want to, but I have to have Photoshop for my digital art and collage. I sure hope it doesn’t go up!