Creative Software Users Turn Against Adobe Over AI and Subscription Costs

Adobe’s hold on design and video software is still formidable, but the pressure is shifting from theory to the wallet. Creative Cloud Pro now costs US$69.99 a month for individuals on annual billing, while the new Creative Cloud Standard plan trims back generative AI access and removes premium web and mobile access. For many designers and freelancers, that is no longer a premium package so much as a reminder that Adobe’s flagship tools now arrive with higher recurring costs and tighter feature gates.

The company remains heavily dependent on that subscription machine. In fiscal fourth quarter 2025, Adobe reported $4.25 billion in Creative & Marketing Professionals subscription revenue and $1.72 billion from Business Professionals & Consumers, for total customer-group subscription revenue of $5.96 billion. Adobe also said it generated record operating cash flows of more than $10 billion in fiscal 2025. Those numbers show a business that is still immense, but also one whose growth depends on persuading users to keep paying every month.

That model has become harder to defend as Adobe pushes generative AI deeper into its products. Adobe unveiled Firefly in March 2023 and released it commercially in September 2023, then tied it into Creative Cloud and Adobe Express. The company says Content Credentials are automatically applied to content generated on Firefly and APIs, a technical response to concerns about how AI-made material is labeled and tracked. Yet for users already frustrated by subscriptions, the AI shift has not looked like added value so much as another layer of cost and complexity.

The competitive threat is no longer abstract. The UK Competition and Markets Authority said on Nov. 28, 2023 that it had provisionally found competition concerns in Adobe’s proposed acquisition of Figma, and the European Commission opened an in-depth investigation into whether the deal could harm competition in interactive product design, vector editing and raster editing software. The CMA called Adobe the industry standard across tools such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro and After Effects, a reminder of how dominant the company still is, even as regulators treated Figma as a meaningful check on that power. Adobe and Figma ultimately abandoned the merger, leaving Figma independent and free to press the advantage.

Cheaper alternatives are also making the market more fluid. Canva announced the acquisition of Affinity in March 2024, and Affinity applications were still available as one-off purchases at the time, a direct contrast with Adobe’s subscription-first model. That matters because the new rivals are not just cheaper; they are simpler to buy, easier to test and less tied to the long billing relationships that have defined Adobe’s business for years.

Adobe still has deep advantages in enterprise adoption, compatibility across old projects and the inertia of creative workflows. But the moat is cracking where it hurts most: price, control and the growing appeal of AI-native tools that promise faster work without a monthly toll.