As a point of reference, World of Warcraft offers about a 10% discount for their 6 month subscription plan compared to the month to month plan. Additionally, they have pretty consistently offered one free item from the store (which they choose) for players on the 6 month plan. The last such item was a mount which must otherwise be purchased for $25 (obviously the true value to 6 month subscribers is lower than $25 due to bundling and since subscribers don't get to choose which item they receive).
What should they do instead? Not have the annual payment option and screw over all the people who do want to pay for the entire year and are happy with the discount?
We also can't ignore the environment around subscription payments. If many other SaaS companies offered similar yearly but paid monthly plans, I think Adobe CC plans would be less problematic.
I'm definitely not against yearly plans, but this is unnecessarily confusing. If the advertising were honest, it would be more clear that this is a loan/lease agreement or they would advertise the real yearly cost/real monthly plans instead of this weird hybrid plan.
Take video editing as an example. The tech it involves (such tracking or object detection) usually improves pretty quickly and the improvement can be drastic . Not having to shell out hundreds of dollars outright every new CS version just to keep up with the tech is a pretty big benefit for a lot of people and makes the ecosystem more accessible. That's true for almost every other software included in the Adobe subscription.
Now, it's absolutely okay to still dislike subscription based business models (I do too) but in this case it's non sense to argue it's rent seeking.
If the updates and support were valuable to people, then Adobe could simply charge for them directly (e.g. by requiring users to periodically pay a fee to upgrade to the updated version). Instead they only allow people to buy a subscription.
After Effects has 3 tiers
1. Annual Plan paid monthly ($20.99 * 12 = $251.88)
2. Annual plan prepaid $239.88
3. Monthly Plan $31.49
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html?filter=video-...
For Photoshop they only offer 2 plans
1. Annual Plan paid monthly ($9.99 * 12 = $119.88)
2. Annual plan prepaid $119.88
So no discount. The wording might have been poor before because I remember when I first signed up i didn't know they only had yearly plans but at least now it's pretty clear
https://www.adobe.com/creativecloud/plans.html?filter=photo&...
It think it's deceptive, at best.
The word "annual" doesn't even appear on the first screen anywhere. It's even very easy to miss the word "annual" on the little dropdown on the checkout screen (2nd screenshot). If you are in a rush, it's VERY easy to see numerous line items for "$___/mo" and miss the single instance of the word "annual" in this entire checkout flow.
Where is the link to an agreement that the user has to read to even complete this purchase? Is it just on another step elsewhere in the process?
Apparently the early cancellation fee is 50% of your remaining subscription fees. In other words it's an improvement to the actual terms I signed up for when I agreed to be committed for 1 year. I dont see why Adobe needs to explicitely "warn" customers about an option that is actually beneficial to them (the users, not Adobe).
If fact, when I think about things I currently pay for, none of them work like Adobe's contract.
- I have a 1 year contract with my energy provider, the cancel fee is ~$45 and I must give them 20 days notice
- My phone has a 24 month plan, to cancel I pay any remaining phone/accessory payments and nothing for the plan, that's it
- My car insurance is paid annually in advance. If I cancel 6 months in they charge a $40 fee and refund me the pro-rata amount for the remaining six months
My point is Adobe could be upfront and clearer with the overall pricing, terms, renewals, and cancel fees — I don't think they are at all.
Edit: fixed some formatting issues
> In Australia it's quite common to have phone/power/gas/insurance plans that are 1/2 year contracts, but to cancel it you pay a small fee.
> - I have a 1 year contract with my energy provider, the cancel fee is ~$45 and I must give them 20 days notice.
Depending on how small the fee is it sounds as if this renders the concept of a half (or full) year contract worthless.
> My phone has a 24 month plan, to cancel I pay any remaining phone payments, that's it
Doesn't paying the remaining payments mean that you actually pay the full price as agreed to when you signed up? If so, how is Adobe's cancelation fee not an improvement? It is smaller than the remaining payments after all.
> My point is Adobe could be upfront and clearer with the overall pricing, terms, renewals, and cancel fees — I don't think they are at all.
I still disagree. If I sign up for an annual subscription I have no expactation of getting out of it early. That's what the monthly subscription is for. If they offer a way to cancel early despite my annual commitment that's a bonus which can be advertised, but doesn't have to be (again, why should they? That's what the monthly subscription is for).
if you click the drop down, it shows you not only your other options but also the prices.
It seems that a lot of people in this thread don’t seem to know the fundamental principle of contracts: Pacta sunt servanda, i.e. contracts are supposed to be fulfilled.
The annual prepaid amount is different from the annual, paid monthly price.
They could be clear and upfront with it, but aren’t... can’t imagine why.
This right below the button you press to start your subscription.
By clicking "Agree and subscribe," you agree: You will be charged US$52.99 (plus tax) monthly and at the end of your one-year term, your subscription will automatically renew monthly until you cancel (price subject to change). No annual commitment required after the first year. Cancel anytime via Adobe Account or Customer Support. Cancel before Apr 26, 2021 to get a full refund and avoid a fee. You also agree to the Terms of Use and the Subscription and Cancellation Terms.
They made a mistake, adobe honored the subscription, and they should too, take it as a life lesson to pay more attention before obligating themselves.
People need to learn to treat transactions and contracts as a hostile situation and they can easily do themselves great harm by blindly ignoring the terms of a deal and some how thing it will be to their benefit.
> “ Your subscription will automatically renew annually without notice until you cancel. You authorize us to store your payment method(s) and to automatically charge your payment method(s) every month until you cancel. We will automatically charge you the then-current rate for your plan, plus applicable taxes (such as VAT or GST if the rate does not include it), every month of your annual contract until you cancel.”
Adobe will renew it for another year at whatever rate they choose without notice.
I agree people should be more responsible in general with contracts, but it should be standardised. Australia’s design for the critical information sheet is great, it clearly shows what your paying, for how long, and for what. It’s got a similar design across companies too.
I believe with any contract that involves money over time, the total amount (including any fees) should be clear. I don’t think Adobe has made them clear.
I do note that the contract terms differ country to country so this might be more/less applicable to some. The part you quoted seems more reasonable.
Nope, perfectly normal business practice and not even unethical.
Please learn and understand how contracts work. They are a legal _obligation_ and you cannot just unilaterally change the conditions after signing a contract without provoking a contract penalty.
It’s really just how contracts work, everywhere in the world.
The fact that you defend this practice shows where our ethics differ. I do not know how you can justify: A company signing you up for another year at a higher rate without telling you.
It was shown in screenshots in the Twitter thread that Adobe _actually_ does that.
> The fact that you defend this practice shows where our ethics differ. I do not know how you can justify: A company signing you up for another year at a higher rate without telling you.
So, you think it's justified to punish Adobe for the negligence of the customer?
Both Adobe _and_ the customer have the duty to study a mutual contract before signing it. Not reading what you are signing can also backfire for companies:
> https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/updated-russian-man-turns-ta...
Im no adobe apologist, but this entire thread is a witch hunt.
"adobe charges subscription cancellation fee" — Adobe do not tell you how much the fee is ahead of time. In the conditions of the Australian purchasing page, the monthly price isn't even written in them. They can also renew it for another year while increasing the price without telling you.
"adobe doesn't show the difference between monthly and annual", and "adobe doesn't display the annual total on the payment page" —
They don't show you total price that you are committing to, they don't show you minimum amount to you must pay if you cancel.
All of this could be solved by saying "You are agreeing to pay a total of $923.88 over 12 months at $76.99 per-month. If you cancel, the minimum cost to you is $461.94 (50% of the total Annual plan), this decreases evenly each month.
And presumably this must be on primary pricing page, not below the fold, have different options for with and without vat, and they must display this for the up-front annual sub, pay-monthly annual sub, and monthly sub with no commitment? The monthly sub needs to be clear that you're actually not signing up for 12 months, because you may only want/need it for 6 months rather than 12, so the other options need a monthly equivalent breakdown for comparison? FWIW, I did a super quick inline edit of Adobe's HTML to show what that looks like [0].
Also, the $461.94 is actually the _maximum_ cost, not the minimum.
> Adobe do not tell you how much the fee is ahead of time.
Yes, they do. [1] clearly says " If you cancel within 14 days of your initial order, you’ll be fully refunded. Should you cancel after 14 days, you’ll be charged a lump sum amount of 50% of your remaining contract obligation and your service will continue until the end of that month’s billing period.". There is so much detail in that page, it would be impossible to put all of that on the purchase page without being accused of burying it in the fine print.
> They can also renew it for another year while increasing the price without telling
This is exactly what I'm talking about - you're moving the goalposts here. We're talking about adobe's cancellation fees, not their renewal policy. I'm not defending their renewal policy, it's awful, but it's off topic.
> They don't show you total price that you are committing to, they don't show you minimum amount to you must pay if you cancel. You're right, they should show it. They _do_ have it linked at [2]/[3] where they clearly show the annual cost, and the option to pay it monthly.
> they don't show you minimum amount to you must pay if you cancel. Lets assume they _did_ show that amount. Reading this thread, are you telling me that people wouldn't find another axe to grind? e.g. "They don't make it clear that they can autorenew at a higher price". So now they need to add _every_ detail to the purchasing pages, where they're now accused of burying it in the fine print. But the reason they don't is because the amount is "50% of your remaining obligation", which is a minimum of 1/24th of the annual sum, which is misleading to display. What they _do_ do is clearly show you how much they'll charge you to cancel before you actually do so.
[0] https://imgur.com/a/C2fnRvg [1] https://www.adobe.com/uk/legal/subscription-terms.html [2] https://www.adobe.com/uk/plans-fragments/modals/individual/a... [3] https://imgur.com/a/YRwoaB6
It just has to be before you commit to the contract.
> Yes, they do. [1] clearly says
No, that page shows no prices whatsoever. Your minimum commitments should be shown before you agree to the contract.
People keep making it out like it's some huge imposition on companies to tell customer how much money they'll pay. Here's an example of a more complicated flow from an Australian phone carrier Telstra, purchasing a phone over 24 months: https://imgur.com/a/XycFkyP — it's possible, Adobe are lazy and this is a dark pattern.
But then the other half [0] of this thread that claim putting the dropdown on the second page isn't enough.
> No, that page shows no prices whatsoever.
It states you can cancel and will be charged 50% of the remaining balance. That number depends on when you cancel, so it's not possible to give an actual figure to it. Could that flow be improved? Sure, you could have a page per product, but I do'nt think it's deceitful to have a clear link to the cancellation terms of the contract from both the marketing page _and_ the purchase page.
> Your minimum commitments should be shown before you agree to the contract.
One click on the purchase page shows this [1] which shows three options, one for prepaid, one for annual for paid monthly, and one for monthly. How much clearer do you want it?
> Here's an example of a more complicated flow from an Australian phone carrier Telstra,
That flow is almost identical to Adobe's - it doesn't show you the actual cost to the customer, it shows you the cost of the device, and separately the cost of the subscription. On the cancellation terms page, it also tells you you will be due "the full amount" - not what the amount is. (Unrelated, that's a nice recording).
This stuff is _hard_, yes adobe could do better, but at a certain point, you have to accept that the user understands the terms of what they're agreeing to. An "Annual Plan, paid monthly" couldn't really be any clearer.
There were screenshots in the Twitter thread that showed that this is actually the case.
Adobe would be outright crazy not to present the total costs upfront as it would be super easy for any customer to sue them over deception for that.