Today the plan pricing pages have been updated, and the current plan, priced at $9.99/month and which includes both Photoshop and Lightroom along with 20GB of online storage is again available.
The new plans which appeared yesterday are now being offered in addition to the original plan, rather than replacing it. Both increase the online storage component to 1TB. With that storage capacity, users can select a plan that includes both Lightroom and Photoshop for $19.99/month or Lightroom only for $9.99/month.
That the original plan pricing has returned will relieve many photographers who don’t use Adobe’s online storage solution. Though the additional $10/month that Adobe is asking for 1TB of storage is competitive with other online storage options and is integrated into the Creative Cloud apps, the prospect of being forced into the arrangement wouldn’t make for best customer experience, especially for those who only reluctantly became Creative Cloud software subscribers in the first place.
We inquired with Adobe for comment and will update this post if we receive a response. Adobe typically does not comment on future plans, so there’s no way to know how long these price tiers will remain. If you’re looking to lock in current pricing, the prepaid Annual Plan is your best option.
Update: Adobe provided the following statement in response to our inquiry: “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. Tests on Adobe.com run for limited times. In this case, the test was concluded.”
They ran a test to see how many customers they could anger? And from time to time they will run additional tests to anger different demographics that they missed in earlier tests? And the test was planned for less than 24 hours? Never mind that I have no recollection of any earlier tests. Unless of course it would be customer service that lies and can’t understand anything. That test is ongoing.
When they first started “renting,” Photoshop and Lightroom were $20, several months later, they reduced it to $10. I guess they decided they’d make more money at $10.