Business, News, SME

Adobe launches free version of Creative Cloud, but it’s not very feature rich

Brendyn Lotz

14th December 2021

With prices starting at $91.99 (~R1 475) per month per license, Adobe Creative Cloud isn’t really suited for small businesses which is why the firm has launched a cheaper version of the software.

Adobe Creative Cloud Express is billed as software for mobile and the web that makes it easier to create and share multimedia content. This Express offering features a free tier but it is severely limited in terms of its functionality. The Premium tier however, is affordable at $9.99 (~R160) per month and it seems rather good for small businesses just trying to make content.

Below is a breakdown of everything you get from the free and Premium tiers of Adobe Creative Cloud Express.

Adobe Creative Cloud Express Free Tier includes:

Thousands of unique templates, design assets, and Adobe Fonts.
A limited collection of royalty-free Adobe Stock free collection photos.
Basic editing and photo effects including remove background and animate.
Create on both web and mobile.
2GB of storage.

Adobe Creative Cloud Express Premium includes:

All premium templates and design assets.
Entire collection of over 160 million royalty-free Adobe Stock collection photos.
Over 20,000 licensed Adobe Fonts, curved type, grids, and font pairs.
Premium features like refine cutout, resize, and graphic groups.
Add your branding, logo, colors, and fonts in one tap.
Convert & export to and from PDFs and other file types.
Create, manage, and share your templates and assets with Creative Cloud Libraries.
Create on both web and mobile.
100GB of storage.

The new product is said to make use of Adobe Sensei, Adobe’s artificial intelligence and machine learning framework that drives its applications such as Photoshop and Premiere.

The free version of Creative Cloud Express is available via the Microsoft Store, Google Play and the Apple App Store. While we don’t think it’s going to be useful to businesses, students and content creators may find it useful. It is free however so you don’t stand to lose anything by giving it a test run.

“Everyone has a story to tell and it’s our mission to empower everyone to express their ideas,” chief product officer and executive vice president of Creative Cloud at Adobe, Scott Belsky.

“In this unique time, where millions of people are building a personal and professional brand, we’re excited to launch Creative Cloud Express as a simple, template-based tool that unifies the creation, collaboration and sharing process so anyone can create with ease,” says Belsky.

If anything, Creative Cloud Express could help more businesses improve their visual identity and given you can start doing that for free, it’s hard to look this gift horse in the mouth.

About Author

Brendyn Lotz

Brendyn Lotz writes news, reviews, and opinion pieces for Hypertext. His interests include SMEs, innovation on the African continent, cybersecurity, blockchain, games, geek culture and YouTube.