Don’t know if you’ve heard the news, but Adobe has made some price changes to their Photography Plan pricing, and I’m here today to help you navigate the new changes (and still keep paying the old price. What? Yup – I’ll show you how).
I put together a quick Q&A to explain the new pricing:
Q. Did Adobe increase the price for the photography bundle (the one with Lightroom and Photoshop, which has always been around $9.99 a month)?
A. Yes, but the price increase only applies to two groups:
(1) People who pay monthly (but I’ll explain a way around the price increase)
(2) New users who are not already on the photography plan (but there’s a way around that, too, as I’ll explain in a moment).
Q. But I don’t want to pay more.
A. Then switch to an annual plan, paid upfront, and you won’t have to.
Q. So, are you saying if I pay for my existing yearly plan upfront (rather than monthly), my price doesn’t go up?
A. That’s what I’m saying.
Q. Are you sure?
A. That’s straight from Adobe. Here’s a link to their blog post explaining the new pricing and the affected plans.
Q. Did all photography plans increase in price?
A. The price of the Photography plan that includes Lr & Ps with 1TB of cloud storage didn’t change.
Q. So, let me get this straight – I pay upfront for the year at the old price ($119.88 here in the US), and I don’t have to pay the higher price?
A. That is correct.
Q. What if I’m not subscribed to the Photography Plan? What will my price be next year?
A. If you sign up before January 15, 2025, you can lock in the old rate (which works out to $9.99 per month), but again – you have to pay the $119.88 upfront to get that rate.
Q. What if I miss the January 15th deadline? Will I have to pay $14.99 a month?
A. Don’t miss that deadline, or it gets worse. For photographers who sign up after January 15th, it’s $19.99 a month, but at least it includes one terabyte of cloud storage space, so there’s that.
Q. So, what would you recommend?
A. If I were you, I would pay $119.99 upfront to keep your photography plan the same as it always was—you do that, and really, nothing changes for you. If you’re one of those folks who never subscribed, I would definitely sign up before January 15th. Otherwise, you’ll be paying $19.99 a month if you decide to subscribe later.
Q. What about the plan that’s just Lightroom ‘Cloud’ (as I call it) with one terabyte of storage? Does that monthly subscription increase?
A. Yes – it goes from $9.99 a month to $11.99 a month unless you switch it to the yearly plan and pay the year upfront; then your price stays the same – no increase.
Well, there ya have it – that’s the price increase (and how to avoid it) in a nutshell. If you have any questions, pop ‘em in the comments.
Have a great holiday season Monday, everybody!
-Scott
P.S. Here’s a link to a pricing FAQ Adobe put together that’s very helpful.
Thanks! I changed to the yearly today. My question is they have resent me the apps. Do I need to uninstall or reinstall them?
I managed to make the change to a yearly payment but only with incredible hassle. The adobe manage plans option offers no apparent way to make this change so I used the online chat. This took about 45 minutes of decking several upselling offers and only then could I make the simple change from monthly to yearly payments. Not a friendly process for a long time customer.
I don’t even have the option as their website states. I only have the button to cancel! Wanted to show the screendump here but don’t see how.
Good to know! Thank you!
I tried to change my payment to yearly as well, and there was no place to do so. I chatted with a rep, and he offered me a $179.88 price, which of course is the new price.
I am a contributor to Adobe Stock and was currently on a “complimentary” Photography Plan for Lightroom and Photoshop. When I logged in to my account, it indicated that when my complimentary plan expired in July that I would revert to the monthly annual plan at the new price of $14.99. (I had previously been on the $9.99/month plan) I had no option available to me to change to the annual plan. When I contacted Adobe, they said they would have to cancel my current plan and sign me up for the annual plan to get the $119.88 price ($9.99/month). By doing that, I lost six months of my complimentary plan. If you ask me, that’s pretty crappy of them. I think they should have at least left my complimentary plan in place and just changed my plan to the annual option when I renew in July.
Great information, thanks for posting. After I read your post I found the Adobe blog with the same information, and I also found that I could swap my 20Gb Lightroom Classic & Photoshop plan for the 1TB Lightroom (Cloud) AND Lightroom Classic plan, for the same $119.88 annually in advance. That’s a new proposition apparently. Useful to know. The decision is between Lightroom Classic & Photoshop, or Lightroom Classic & Lightroom. For me that’s an easy one.
Scott, I tried doing as you suggested. I went to my Adobe Cloud account and put in to pay annually. I have been charged $9.99/month plus tax since 2013. When I tried to pay it annually, it changed my storage to 20 GB from 1TB. I called Adobe and they said that I never had a photography bundle, but I had a perpetual Lightroom plan and a photoshop plan of $9.99 which included 1Tb for the photoshop plan. I have received all of the updates Photoshop 26.1, LRC 14.1.1, and LR 8.1. I felt sure I had the photography bundle as you had suggested in one of the classes I attended years ago.
Thus I could pay the annual price of $118.99 but it only comes with 20 GB of storage. I spoke with 2 different representatives and they told me the same thing.
Have you heard from anyone else who has experienced this? Do you have any suggestions?
For those of us already on an annual plan that expires after January, I guess we’re just stuck with the new price at our next renewal?
The new price for the pre-paid annual plan is the same as the old price, so yes?
Thanks for this timely and helpful Q&A! I subscribe separately to Acrobat Pro, and just like for the Photography Plan (20GB), the current monthly rate can be effectively kept by moving to annual.
This is probably a record-setting week for Adobe’s cash flow. 😉
Thank you, Scott!
The annual subscription plan still remains a good deal, but….I still have three issues with Adobe’s software – it’s bloated, buggy and a resource pig. Just wish Adobe would address these three issues.
Is this just for 2025, and starting next (next) year 2026, it will need to be the $239?
Hmm, well I logged in to switch from the monthly photography plan to the annual, but cannot for the life of me find out how/where to make that change. It’s not an option given under the “Manage plan” link, nor is it offered through “Edit billing or payment”. Is Adobe hiding this somewhere else do you know?
as far as I can tell you cannot. I contacted tech support via their chat and they deleted the monthly plan and signed me up for the yearly payment plan. I got a few dollar refund for the rest of the month and the yearly is now paid. Easy enough.
Of course he tried to upsell me a corporate plan and same for Acrobat. I politely declined both.
I don’t see where on their site to do the pay once a year and retain the $9.99 *US* and drop monthly billing. I have LrC and PS (those are all I use, I don’t use the cloud type versions) and the 20GB storage is plenty.
Give me a link and I’d do it today.
Lyle
I can’t find where to switch to annual payments. Neither manage plan nor manage payment has a way to change from monthly to yearly that I can find. If you know how to switch, can you provide steps on how to do it?
Thanks Scott!
It’s worth noting that Amazon occasionally has sales on Adobe licences, such as Prime Day, Black Friday, Christmas etc. I bought a 12-month Photography Plan licence back in July for £71.99 down from £119.99