Adobe Creative Cloud price plans, free trial, student discount & more

Where once you could buy Adobe’s software on CD, Creative Cloud brings Adobe’s well-known programs – like Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Lightroom, InDesign, Illustrator, Acrobat and more – to the cloud.

Whether you’re a student, professional, business, or educator, here’s everything you need to know about Adobe CC including pricing plans, trials, student and educational discounts and where to download it.

Pricing and plans: How much does Adobe Creative Cloud cost?

There’s isn’t a one-size-fits-all way of buying Creative Cloud so it depends on your needs. Adobe knows that different people will use it in different ways and some might just want to have a single app, like Photoshop or Premiere Pro, rather than the entire suite.

For this reason, Adobe lets you subscribe to single apps or get the whole ‘All Apps’ suite depending on what you prefer. An Adobe CC subscription can be paid monthly or for an entire year in one go. We will break these down below.

Adobe CC also offers a major education discount price with 65% off. We will go into these discounts below – including details on the the current Back to School deal that offers UK students a free month and US students a higher 70% discount.

Adobe often discounts 40% off the Creative Cloud All Apps annual plans. This includes discounts on the All Apps and Adobe Stock bundle, and the Student and Teacher annual plans.

Adobe Creative Cloud pricing (Individuals)

Adobe has a range of pricing options depending on the program you want and how you want to pay. Within the options for Individuals, there’s the Photography Plan, Single App Plan and All Apps plan. Check out the pricing tables below to see which option works best for you.

*$ pricing is in US Dollars

Photography plan and prices for Individuals

There are two Photography Plans. Both include Photoshop CC, Lightroom CC (for web and mobile), and Lightroom Classic CC (for desktop).

The only difference is the amount of cloud storage you get, which is either 20GB or 1TB.

Alternatively, you can just pay for Lightroom CC on its own, which comes with a 1TB storage option (£9.98/mo).

See the price breakdown in our table below:

Single app plans for Individuals

You can pay different monthly rates for specific programs.

Popular programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, Premiere Pro, Animate (Flash) and Dreamweaver are at a higher price bracket of £19.97/$20.99 a month, though you can get InCopy for as low as £4.98/$4.99.

As well as your chosen app, you get an Adobe Portfolio website via myportfolio.com, social media graphics creator (Adobe Spark), Adobe Fonts, and 100GB of cloud storage space.

View all plans on the Adobe website.

See all plans on the Adobe website.

Creative Cloud All Apps

Opting for the All Apps complete package gives you an all-access pass to Creative Cloud, that is 20+ desktop apps and all mobile apps including Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere Pro and Acrobat Pro.

You can download and use any app from the portfolio (see the list below). You’ll also get an Adobe Portfolio website, Adobe Stock account (to create social media graphics), Typekit desktop and web fonts, and up to 10TB of cloud storage space.

Here’s what’s included in Creative Cloud All Apps: Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, InDesign, XD, Acrobat Pro DC,After Effects, Audition, Animate, Dreamweaver, Fresco, Premiere Pro, Premiere Rush, Character Animator, Bridge, Dimension, Prelude, InCopy, Media Encoder, Spark, Substance and Fuse (Beta)

Creative Cloud for Businesses

Adobe offers specialized pricing plans for businesses as well. A business plan allows the ease of cloud-based collaboration on video editing and a shared Adobe Stock access.

24/7 technical support, one-on-one sessions with design experts and support to help familiarize new users are also included in a business plan. See Adobe CC’s Business pricing here.

View all plans on Adobe’s website

Adobe Creative Cloud for Students and Teachers – Back to school offer

Typically, Adobe’s student and teacher discount on Creative Cloud slashes 65% off in the UK, and 60% in the US. 

As a part of Adobe’s Back to School offer in the UK, students and teachers can get a month of Creative Cloud for free when paying for the annual subscription upfront (£196.30), until 2 September. This is on top of the usual 65% discount, which drops UK rates to £16.24 per month (or £179.94 per year).

While students in the US don’t get a free month they do get a higher discount of 70% – up from the usual 60% – until 3 September. This reduces the subscription price to $15.99 per month or $191.88 for the year (compared to US$19.99 per month or $239.88 for the first year)

After the promotional period, the price goes up to £24.96/$29.99 per month or £301.90/US$359.88 for a year – which is still lower than the £49.94/$52.99 per month you would pay on the pricing plan for Individuals without a student discount. See Adobe CC plans here.

Keep in mind, again, it requires an institutional affiliation.

See our full guide to Adobe student pricing.

Here’s the full break down:

View all plans on Adobe’s website.

Creative Cloud for Schools and Universities

Schools and universities can benefit from two pricing plans. The Per Named-user License plan grants licenses for specific users and is paid on a monthly basis. Adobe recommends this option for small workgroups and departments.

Alternatively, the Per Shared License aimed at larger groups like classrooms and labs is available under yearly fee payments only (see table below).

Keep in mind you will need to provide proof of institutional affiliation for the Per Named-user License. There are limitations on what qualifies as an institute, though Adobe-approved home schools are eligible.

See more details on Adobe CC institutional pricing here.

Adobe Creative Cloud free trial download

If you’re not sure whether Creative Cloud is the right software for you, Adobe offers a free trial as well.

You can test drive any app from the Creative Cloud suite for free over a period of 7 days (which used to be 30 days until 2016). Simply head to this page on Adobe’s website, choose the app and download to start your free trial.

The Creative Cloud free membership includes free tutorials, 100GB of cloud storage space, a portfolio website and access to premium fonts via Adobe Typekit.

Creative Cloud Upgrades

Adobe has released Creative Cloud 2021 towards the end of 2020. By subscribing to Creative Cloud, members get continuous upgrades to any of the software included in the package for free as soon as they become available.

With automatic updates, you won’t end up using an old version – unless your computer hasn’t been connected to the internet for a while.

Do I need an internet connection for Adobe Creative Cloud?

Although Creative Cloud is an online digital service, you don’t need an internet connection to use the desktop apps.

Adobe does point out that you’ll need a connection the first time you install and license your apps.

Desktop apps will attempt to validate your software licenses every 30 days, so you will need to reconnect then. Annual members can use apps for up to 99 days in offline mode. Monthly members can use the software for up to 30 days in offline mode and annual members can get up to 99 days of offline use. See here for more details on grace periods and offline use.

How many computers can install Adobe CC at once?

A Creative Cloud membership allows you to install and activate desktop applications on two computers – regardless of whether it’s a PC or Mac – for use by the individual associated with the membership. You can’t use both at the same time, however.

Adobe Creative Cloud system requirements

Creative Cloud works in-browser with Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer. In terms of platform, system requirements for individual apps vary. You can see them all here.

Typically, you can expect compatibility with Windows 7 up to Windows 10 on PC. For Mac, you’ll typically need Mac OS 10.12 (Sierra) or later.