There are big changes coming to Creative Cloud. Based on all the information Adobe has shared online, Ill summarize it here and include some links to more info. Watch the video for a more in depth explanation.
Starting June 17, 2025, creative cloud will change to users in the United States. It won’t roll out to the rest of the world until at least next year.
Creative Cloud all apps, will become creative cloud pro.
It will include everything in the plan currently, all the apps, mobile apps, fonts etc.
Starting June 17th, Generative Credit limits will be enforced worldwide. (explained in a moment).
Creative Cloud Pro will include unlimited Standard ai usage (Gen Fill in PS etc) and 4,000 Generative credits to be used with Premium ai tasks (Generating 4k video etc).
The price will increase from $59.99 to $69.99 per month.
If existing users decide they don’t want Pro, they can change to Standard.
Standard will include all the desktop apps, but won’t include premium Mobile apps and will only receive 25 Generative Credits per month to be used on standard ai features like Gen fill. No access to Premium ai.
Standard will cost $54.99 ($5 per month less than now).
Starting right now, all US users of all apps will have the Features of Pro. (The name will change on June 17th.) The price will remain the same until your annual renewal date. At that point you should get an email a month before your renewal giving you the option to continue with pro and accept the price increase on your next billing date, or downgrade to Standard. Adobe says you will be able to do it all through the app. Also they say you will be able to change between Pro and standard as many times as you like.
Creative Cloud Photography Plan will not change for existing users. You will receive the same tools and Generative Credits each moth as well as the same price. New users, will only receive 25 credits per month on signups after June 17th.
Student and teacher will get the Pro version.
There are the Mobile apps included with Pro and not with Standard, standard will get the free tier of these apps. . (Everyone will get Acrobat).
Each month you are allocated an amount of generative credits. Each time you do a task like generative Fill or text to image, it will use one credit.
Now they have 2 tires of Generative Features. Standard are the features in Photoshop like Generative Fill, Generative Expand etc. (Note legacy ai features and non firefly ai like Remove in Photoshop Lightroom and ACR, won’t consume credits.
Premium Generate Features will consume a higher amount of credits as they are more processor intensive. These include thinks like text to 4k video, generative extend in Premere pro, as well as 3rd part ai engines include Open ai, google, flux and more. For example the 4,000 credits with Pro will allow you to generate up to 40 5-second videos per month.
The features are shown below.
When you use up all your credits, you will see a paywall, where you can purchase a plan that has more credits, or you can wait for your credits to renew each month. You won’t be billed without your knowledge, you will have to confirm and buy the plan. Each month they will reset on your renewal date. Credits don’t roll over.
In your creative Cloud app, click on your account in the top right and you can see how many credits you have left.
You can purchase a firefly plan that will include unlimited standard ai use and a certain amount of credits to be used with Premium features according to your needs.
If you are a working pro and use a lot of ai, the unlimited standard generations will be a welcome addition. If you don’t use ai much and don’t use the web apps the small price decrease may be appealing. For everyone else, you will have to evaluate your needs and plan accordingly. This will be good for some people, bad for some and change nothing for others.
Here are links to more information at Adobe
Adobe Help Center Creative Cloud Plans FAQ:
Adobe Help Center Firefly/Generative Credits FAQ:
Adobe Generative AI Principles:
Let me know your thoughts on this in the comments and feel free to ask questions
See you at the CAFE
Colin
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I have the single app Photography plan, but I use a lot of Generative Fill & Expand. What will happen when I run out of my 100 monthly credits? Will generation slow down or will I have to pay for additional credits? I have been somewhat frustrated by the random arbitrary “violated guidelines” errors (I don’t do any kind of pornographic or violent imagery) & if I’m going to start being charged for credits over 100/month without any fixes for that, that will likely lead me to cancel my Adobe subscription & find a competing app that works more reliably.
Unfortunately It sounds like you will have to buy credits. From what I understand you’ll get unlimited Gen Fill for an extra $10 a month.
Wow, I just can’t afford Adobe anymore. I also don’t want to spend the time learning a different program, like Affinity. BUT I am going to have to! From what I have heard Affinity is very comparable to Photoshop. Is that true?
Hmmm, kind of.. but there are a lot of things missing that are in Photoshop. Also remember affinity were bought by Canva, While they may not charge a subscription now, that doesn’t mean they won’t later. I’d say do you homework and use what makes sense for you.
So, where does this leave users of the Photograper’s Plan ($9.99/mo for Ps & LRC?
AI is an excuse for a money grab, Limiting/Removing mobile apps is an insult. Adobe is working hard to get me to finally commit full on to Resolve. Greedy, greedy, greedy.
“For its fiscal year ending Nov. 29, Adobe reported revenue of $21.505 billion. That’s an 11% increase from $19.409 billion in 2023. Net income for the year also rose to $5.560 billion, compared to $5.428 billion in the previous year.
The fourth quarter was particularly strong for Adobe, with revenue reaching $5.606 billion. That’s also an 11% year-over-year increase from $5.048 billion in Q4 2023. Its quarterly net income climbed to $1.683 billion in Q4, from $1.483 billion in the same period last year.”
If you subscribe to the photo plan, how many gen. credits a month do you get before the paywall clicks in?
I don’t see any mention of Photoshop Express in your review. It is currently free and I and my students use it a good deal. Will agree Main free or will there be a charge?
Having gone from a purchase situation to a subscription model which was universally hated, they now seem to be limiting even further what we can and can’t do in order to rape our wallets even further. So the current Photographer Plan looks set to triple or quadruple in price? And Adobe wonder why so many people turn to illegal download sites! For those of us who are hobbyists there is no way to recoup these extra charges
They aren’t changing the price of the Photography plan if you switch to annual billing.
When I renewed my Photographer’s Plan subscription, I found deep in the small print that If I changed to an annual payment, instead of monthly, I could keep it at the same cost overall, whereas the monthly subscription was significantly increasing. I therefore was able to change to the annual payment just a couple of months or so ago. Is this going to change, or will the photographers’ plan continue on a similar rate to present?
Hi Colin,
Come October I will be buying a new computer with Windows 11, which will render my Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 useless and I will have to upgrade to the subscription version. I do some graphics and a newsletter for my church and I really only require Acrobat, Photoshop, and InDesign. Is there pricing for a nonprofit like a church?
I’m not sure, I think there is non profit pricing, but Im not sure. You will have to look on Adobe’s site.