Adobe Creative Suite 2, MacMall version: $1,119.99
– educational version: $389.95
Anyone from Adobe wanna step in and justify that? Just throwing this out there. With the amount of attention given to the movie industry and DVD piracy, or the recording industry with Napster and their spin-offs, no one mentions over-priced software.
I started back in the day with all the ‘borrowed’ software you can imagine, such as that industry fave Pagemaker 2.0! Mostly from studios I freelanced for, and some purchased on my own. As time passed, I figured when I got the money from my next project, I’d pony up and order the ‘full version’ of Adobe (insert product you use most).
Took a LONG time for that to happen. But eventually, it did. Wasn’t necessarily out of the goodness of my heart. More, it was the emptiness of my bank account. It’s too expensive for small shops and one-person studios to afford all the upgrades. And because of that, I suspect it’s still a very widespread problem.
Not that I’m trying to justify the copying of applications, but I think there needs to be some kind of price control put into effect to attract more legit buyers. You can’t tell me that in the software price example shown above that there isn’t a problem. And it happens with many titles.
That’s gouging worse than the oil companies get accused of. I don’t mind paying for an upgrade once a year, but not every three months at $200 a pop. No way.
There needs to be a program for students AND small studios to help get them on their feet. It’s not easy for a small shop to pass on the cost of software upgrades to their client. Do the developers just think we’re making money hand over fist and that an upgrade is no big deal for us? Most small shops don’t have a lot of room in their proposals to pass on the costs of the software releases and upgrades. They simply don’t. Maybe at a major agency – not everywhere else though.
So the local design grunt charging $500 for a logo will still have to rely on his ‘liberated’ version of Illustrator 8. I can hear Cupertino now, “Well, designers should just charge more then.” Oh, you mean like developers?
Good point. If I had to keep my software upgraded to match the rate at which developers release things, (and I don’t include the free downloadable minor upgrade releases in this discussion), I would easily spend $2,000 or more a year.
Factor in all other costs for an individual freelancer, and that’s a hefty sum.
I would favor a one-time larger fee that allowed you upgrades for life. Registered to your system or your personal info only. Final Draft does it with their constantly-changing software key and limited amount of installs it allows, so I know it can be done.
That, or a professional discount half as much as that given to students.
Thursday, February 2, 2006
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15 comments:
What is even worse in the "professional software" world is expensive software that requires yearly "maintenance" fees.
ESRI's ArcGIS software costs around $3000. Fine, it's a large professional product. Then you pay a yearly maintenance fee. OK, it's cheaper than buying new versions. But... if you don't buy the maintenence fee, the sofware stops working. It seems you don't buy the software at all, you just rent it and pay the fee to keep it working. Rental, AKA extortion.
Anonymous because I'm an ESRI business partner...
Yikes. Extortion. Piracy. Same thing, right? ;-p
The only time there was a 'work stoppage/threat' to the software I use was when Apple was migrating from its Classic operating environment to OS X.
Certain developers like Quark and Adobe stopped making versions that would run on Classic. You had no choice but to upgrade.
I think it's worth noting that you've completely missed the point of the educational price - the educational versions' user agreement states that you CANNOT use it to create work that you generate a profit off of. I think that pretty much sums it up.
"I think it's worth noting that you've completely missed the point of the educational price - the educational versions' user agreement states that you CANNOT use it to create work that you generate a profit off of. I think that pretty much sums it up."
Yes, but that's not the arguement though. What does the end use of the product have to specifically do with the fact that there are two prices?
Regardless, my arguement isn't just about educational use vs. pro. That was brought up because many people can’t afford pro versions, and so they go the education route.
My dissertation also covered the myriad number of upgrades seemingly created for no other reason than to only make developers MORE money, NOT improve the productivity of designers.
I view the education price as a loss leader or a free sample to hook as many users as possible while they're young to develop a lifelong addiction to your product. It works for drug dealers, why not for software companies?
True. I would also like to think software people would reward loyalty to those that have always used their product. (Not just a discount upgrade.)
I don't see how you can complain about $2,000/year to pay for the tools of your trade. If you're making a living at this, you're easily making 20 times that amount using the software that you buy. Is 5% really too much overhead? Everyone else has to pay for their tools, too. Heck, even a pizza delivery driver spends more than $2,000/year maintaining the car required to do his job.
And if you want to complain about prices, do you have any idea how ridiculous the general public thinks it is that anyone would pay $500 for a logo to be designed? Maybe graphic artists would make a lot more money if they stopped charging outrageous $70/hour fees. They'd get a lot more work coming in, just like software developers, right?
I'm not really trying to say that graphic artists overcharge; I'm just making a comparison showing that quality work, in any field, is expensive. Adobe makes the best products that money can buy (in their field) and they're priced accordingly. That price really isn’t even that high, considering the tens of thousands of dollars most graphic artists will bring in every year through the use of Adobe’s products.
Tyler -
"I don't see how you can complain about $2,000/year to pay for the tools of your trade."
Lemmee try again then. If it was just $2,000 a year, then we're not having this discussion. I could handle that cost. Software is only part of my yearly expenses though.
It's a contradiction to say that $500 for a logo or $70 per hour is too much, then later say quality work is worth its money. It's all relative I guess based on your income and what industry you're working in.
But, regardless, those fees are really not out of line by any stretch of the imagination unless I'm living in Topeka in a trailer. (No offense to those folk either.)
If one understands the true value of a company's icon and what it stands for in the design/marketing biz as it relates to high-profile brands, that's dirt cheap for most brands. (For mom & pop places on smaller budgets, we often design stuff like logos or web pages in trade for some free meals, so we're not all sharks, ;-p.)
But judging by your blog, it looks you’re a developer, yes? Probably familiar with the IBM logo too? Paul Rand got about $75,000 to design it some 45+ years ago.
You may be assuming too much about freelancers clearing all their income as profit. There is a big difference between the economic dynamics of a sole freelancer as compared to a multi-person studio.
It's perception vs. reality. I wish I had all the dough everyone accuses freelancers of having. If I was working on a high-profile logo or animated sequence for MTV with a huge payday, then I have no problem with pricing.
But the day-to-day real-world designer isn't working on those type of projects. It's catalogs. Brochures. Small flash intros and stuff like that.
Again, I'm not an isolated case by any means and I'm also not crying 'poor pitiful me' here, but freelancers and other self-employeed people have more economic burdens than staff employees do, especially when it comes to medical benefits.
We get 40, 50, $60 an hour because that's what agencies will pay. Soemtimes they don't and tell you 'this is what I have - take it or leave it. We take it because we have no choice. The agencies hiring us bill our time out at two-three times that to clients, and can make far more back on the overall project. We don't see any of that beyond our hourly though.
And unless it's a rush, agencies rarely pay over $65. Copywriters though? They get $75 and higher far more regularly. (God complex or something, not sure why.) But that's the industry norm. And we get let go as soon as the gig is over, then hustle for more work.
Now, I may be assuming too much on your end of things, but I doubt there are many freelance software engineers/programmers out of work after only 1 week, (unless they suck).
I would also tend to think the projects they work on (if they are in fact temps), last quite a bit longer, going through the entire development-testing-launch phases lasting half a year or longer?
And I really would like to know how you can make more by charging less per hour. Adobe sure isn't charging less and their stock seems to be doing just fine.
;-p
That explains more about how things work in our biz. Still waiting for someone to explain specifically how software is priced though.
"That price really isn’t even that high, considering the tens of thousands of dollars most graphic artists will bring in every year through the use of Adobe’s products."
Sorry, forgot to add two more things about that.
1)Again, most designers aren't working on such expensive projects that they can easily absorb a software hit. Large studios can. If you factor in profit left after expenses as it relates to the cost of software, the ratio is not great at all.
2) Adobe makes FAR more in gross sales than the majority of everyday designers bill out. Even 10,000 copies of Adobe's CS at $1,200 a pop puts them into the millions. They obviously making the $$$ because they'r e listed on the stock exchange.
Don't know too many designers who are besides possibly some fashion houses.
3) Bottom line is that software is also just a tool that's not used all the time. Client's pay for our experience and knowledge on other things besides what applications we use.
But as far as tools go, Adobe's sells a pretty expensive hammer.
;-p
Sorry, text doesn't really have the ability to convey sarcasm the way I wanted to. I only meant to imply that designers overcharge in a facetious manner. I was just trying to put you in the software developer's shoes, where someone is telling you that you're being overpaid, when he really doesn't fully understand the difficulty or value of your work.
In fact, I agree with you that good designers are worth the fees they charge. I'm just trying to say that you should try and see software companies from the same point of view. I looked up adobe's financial information. Over the last few years they've brought in an average of roughly $1.5 billion annually. They've made a net profit of roughly $300 million, on average. This means that 80% of their income is going to pay their staff and run their business. 20% is profit. So, I guess they could lower prices by about 20% and still stay in business. If they did that, Creative Suite would cost about $1000 instead of $1200. It's not that huge of a difference. They're not overcharging by ridiculous arbitrary amounts just because they can, they're covering the cost of developing a quality product.
The reason they offer student software so inexpensively is because they realize students don't have much money. The number of students who can pay for a $1200 software product is essentially 0, especially when they can get it for free relatively easily (not legally, but most college kids don't care). So they offer it at $389 because they figure they can at least get a few sales out of honest college kids who can afford to pay for a discount license.
If they started offering that pricing to everyone, they'd go out of business – they couldn't cover their expenses.
Software is very time-consuming to develop. It has a lot more steps than graphic design does. There is a VAST amount of effort put into testing every tiny aspect of every part of a software product. Most people don't understand how much effort goes into software testing. Every single time you see something apparently simple like a text box in a software application, someone had to test that box for a ton of possible problems. Let's use an example – pretend you have a “page setup” dialog box, and there's a field for “width”, in which you put some decimal number (say, 8.5” for the width of a page). Here's some of the things you have to test for?
What happens if someone enters a width that's less than 0?
What happens if someone enters a width that's not a number (they type out “eight and a half” in words or something)?
What happens if the number entered is wider than the paper in the printer?
What happens when the user presses “enter” or “tab” while this field is selected instead of clicking on “print” or clicking in the “height” field.
That's just off the top of my head, and that's only testing for a fairly simple control. There's a LOT of work that goes into good software. Adobe charges so much because they're paying hundreds of very highly-skilled people good money to make sure they release good products.
Software development consists of much more than being able to type code properly, just like graphic design consists of much more than being able to operate Photoshop. People don't seem to realize either one of these things if they've never tried them. The reason that Adobe can charge $1200 for CS is the same reason that someone else can charge $75,000 to draw a picture of the letters “IBM” - because a LOT more work went into both products than is immediately available just by looking at them.
Ahhh. Now I can sleep. Someone finally explained it to me. (jk)
But hey, I'll take that $200 difference. It won't affect larger shops at all, but it definitely would single users like me.
I can also tell you from experience that it's not just the vast majority of students not paying for the software either. Lot of agencies will have one program on multiple machines and just disconnect from their server so the program only thinks one version is open.
That way, an agency can buy one copy and get four in effect out of it, and thus lowering also in effect, it's price per copy to $300 for arguement's sake while mine might be that $1,200. But hey, I'm not bitter. ;-p
Seems to me that's a big problem in the software industry that hasn't been addressed yet, and that could be fixed by limiting the number of installs from a CD, or only allowing initial installations from the master CD.
Bitter is my middle name. ;-p
"...frustration of the over pricing situation."
Not that. It’s the either or pricing structure. You're either pro or you’re in school. Just who is Adobe’s audience that’s really buying their product? It's not just students in school nor is it just high-end design firms doing work for MTV who don't think twice about cost.
And based on a random survey of people from designers and creative directors I've worked with, the smaller places can't afford the constant updrgrades and highter prices.
You can't say 'charge more' and the problem magically goes away. Software isn't the only expense this demo (freelancers, small shops) have to cover. If you think I'm making it up, look at any market and the smaller shops. Chances are, they have not upgraded yet to current versions of software and more than likely, have Macs that are a generation older or even more.
(Hard working on their Photoshop 7 files when what you need is CS.)
I think it's unrealistic for Adobe, (and look, this isn't just them), but Adobe and the industry to stop releasing a major upgrades every six months just because they decide they need a blip in sales for the quarter.
Upgrades by the way which don't offer any meaningful advances, which may have removed better functionality from previous versions and which incorporate requested features from a very small percentage of their users. And the updates in-between are more often than not a series of fixes for the last release they rushed out.
"Why the undeserved sarcasm?"
It's not sarcasm directed at anyone, hence the "(jk)" so that nobody might misunderstand the nature of the comment. Apparently I failed.
I really am saying someone was finally able to explain how and why they perceive Adobe's pricing strucure to be the way it is. Hence, I can now put this long thread to bed.
As for Microsoft I can't agree more. Gates knows he has the standard in word processing apps, people have to buy it, they have no choice. He stands there and collects his money.
Would be nice if Adobe worked on a simple corss-platform word processing program that imported Works and Word docs to maybe have a go at the Devil.
Funny, all those years people in offices typing away on their Smith-Coronas who didn’t really need a proprietary program to type - they just typed.
Bitter is my middle name. ;-p
"...frustration of the over pricing situation."
Not that. It’s the either or pricing structure. You're either pro or you’re in school. Just who is Adobe’s audience that’s really buying their product? It's not just students in school nor is it just high-end design firms doing work for MTV who don't think twice about cost.
And based on a random survey of people from designers and creative directors I've worked with, the smaller places can't afford the constant updrgrades and highter prices.
You can't say 'charge more' and the problem magically goes away. Software isn't the only expense this demo (freelancers, small shops) have to cover. If you think I'm making it up, look at any market and the smaller shops. Chances are, they have not upgraded yet to current versions of software and more than likely, have Macs that are a generation older or even more.
(Hard working on their Photoshop 7 files when what you need is CS.)
I think it's unrealistic for Adobe, (and look, this isn't just them), but Adobe and the industry to stop releasing a major upgrades every six months just because they decide they need a blip in sales for the quarter.
Upgrades by the way which don't offer any meaningful advances, which may have removed better functionality from previous versions and which incorporate requested features from a very small percentage of their users. And the updates in-between are more often than not a series of fixes for the last release they rushed out.
"Why the undeserved sarcasm?"
It's not sarcasm directed at anyone, hence the "(jk)" so that nobody might misunderstand the nature of the comment. Apparently I failed.
I really am saying someone was finally able to explain how and why they perceive Adobe's pricing strucure to be the way it is. Hence, I can now put this long thread to bed.
As for Microsoft I can't agree more. Gates knows he has the standard in word processing apps that people have to buy it – they have no choice. He just stands there and collects his money.
Would be nice if Adobe worked on a simple cross-platform word processing program that imported Works and Word docs to maybe have a go at the Devil.
Funny, all those years people in offices typed away on their Smith-Coronas without really needing a proprietary program to do it - they simply just typed.
i agree i was a student who purchased the educational version. First off, it took forever to come in .. months ! and when i finally recieved it, it wasn't long before our programs at school were upgraded and that version was outdated. now that i am out in the working world i want to purchase the entire upgraded, newest version there is..but once i put out the thousand dollars i know that it wont be long till that is outdated .. so because of that i have started researching other options. i came across xara programs that are reasonably priced and apparently have been around much longer than adobe and did things 10 years ago that adobe has just done. is this better software, i have heard both sides, but at a couple hundred compared to a couple thousand, maybe it's worth looking into...
I'll have to check out xara, thanks.
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