Let’s say you want to use Photoshop CS5 but don’t want to shell out $999 to buy it. Would $69 or $49 sound better? If so, you’ll soon be able to rent titles from Adobe Creative Suite, like Photoshop, for those prices on a month-to-month basis.
The way it works is like any other month-to-month subscription plan. You sign-up. You download the software. Then every 30 days Adobe will ding your credit card for the monthly fee. If your card is declined for whatever reason (or if you cancel), the software stops working.
Adobe will offer both month-to-month plans and lower priced yearly plans, billed monthly. For example, the regular month-to-month plan with Photoshop will cost $69 a month. But on the yearly subscription, billed monthly, the cost would be $49 a month. You can rent all titles from Adobe Creative Suite this way…like After Effects, Premiere Pro, Dreamweaver…and each has their own individual pricing.
But it’s not a rent-to-own model. If you were to rent After Effects for 12-months (at a cost of $588/$49 a month) then decided you wanted to buy it, you’d still need to pay the $999 sticker price. And for 12-month plans you can’t prepay for the entire year…you must pay monthly.
For more details on all of the plans and pricing, click here.
This is a really hard call on whether it will be successful. I mean it does sound good because alot of us not yet professionals use these programs intermittently. Either way you are paying Abode whether it is for a yearly upgrade or a pay as you go plan.