Segments, purchase plans, licensing terms: an outline guide to navigating Adobe licensing and discovering the risks behind failure to manage.
Adobe is un a software giant known for its digital video and graphics products but especially for creating the PDF format. Its software, which spans several creative fields (Marketing, Advertising, Design, App Development, Business Productivity, Animation) is used worldwide by organizations of all sizes and by individuals.
With so many cloud programs, from the more “creative” Photoshop, Illustrator to e-commerce and analytics software such as Adobe Analytics, Marketo, and Adobe Acrobat, it can be difficult to determine the right license for business users' needs and to keep track of them over time to avoid purchasing or granting excessive licenses.
Pricing and purchase plans, with license terms and variables, discounts, and purchasable products, are tied to the type of segment the customer falls into. There are five segments for which Adobe provides specific offerings:
Adobe's purchasing programs keep in mind the customer segments they target. There are four of them:
VIP and VIP Marketplace purchase plans are programs reserved for the Education, Government and Enterprise segments. They provide subscription licenses (1-3 years) and volume discounts according to loyalty options (VIP Select). The types of licenses can be of three types: named (Named User) for all three segments, device-based (Device-Based) and shared-device-based (Shared-Device Based), the latter for educational buyers only.
Adobe has indicated that it will discontinue the VIP purchase program for the commercial market segment by the end of January 2025. This implies that by December 2, 2024, Adobe will no longer support the creation of new commercial VIP contracts, with all new deals being placed only in VIP Marketplace. As of February 1, 2025, all orders (new and renewal) from commercial segment customers will be handled through VIP Marketplace via Adobe partners and resellers. Here is the timeline, with Education and Government segments also soon to be involved.
One of the main features of VIP Marketplace, a centralized cloud platform, is automatic renewal (but with a manually modifiable option) at the end of the license agreement, so corporate customers will need to have full visibility into the expiration date and cancellation conditions in order to be able to notify the reseller of renewal and cancellation quantities in time, preventing unwanted subscriptions.
this is a customized three-year agreement for Enterprise and Government customers. It is paid on an annual basis on the date agreed upon in the contract (so they are term licenses). All Adobe products are available under this agreement, with quantity discounts that vary depending on negotiations, and 24/7 support is provided.
Distribution of licenses throughout the organization is simplified by having an Admin Console. Both user and device-based licenses can be granted with ETLA.
This is a licensing plan reserved for customers in the Education, Government and Enterprise segments that allows you to purchase perpetual licenses of Adobe products (most Adobe desktop products) for a period of two years.
After purchase, one can take advantage of the CLP points program and discounts calculated based on the amount of software purchased. In this program you can also exercise backward licensing (Backward Licensing, see p.16) of an earlier version if you already own or cross-platform licensing (Cross Platform Licensing, see p. 17on different devices as long as you do not exceed the total number of licenses ordered.
Regarding CLP for Government (see p. 6), special consideration is given to the need for Adobe products to be used behind a secure firewall or in areas with limited Internet access. To the latter, Adobe allows the purchase of the legacy version of Adobe Creative Cloud , and since these versions cannot be automatically upgraded due to the lack of internet Internet connectivity, limited support is also included in the plan..
In this purchase program we have per-device, perpetual licenses but only for desktop products.
This is a purchasing plan that offers attractive volume pricing, and does not require a minimum order size or membership in any segment. There are discounts based on the total point value of each license order (the more licenses you purchase in one transaction, the more opportunities there are to save on the entire order). To keep track of licenses and serial numbers, TLP provides access to the Adobe Licensing Web site (LWS). No term is provided and access to perpetual licenses is available.
TLP has the disadvantage that you cannot purchase certain applications, such as most Creative Cloud apps.
There are two important changes affecting CLP and TLP purchase programs:
Additionally, Adobe Experience Cloud, the main Marketing platform for enterprise-level users, which requires a separate license, but is made part of the ETLA agreement for business users.
Therefore, It is importanto pay attention to both the general terms of the ETLA agreement and the product-specific licensing terms to delve into how each product interacts with the broader licensing structure (e.g., how you use it may accidentally violate the IP established in the general terms).
For ease of comparison, we have summarized the main features of the programs in the following table.
Adobe also has specific plans for individual users, students, and small teams for the Creative Cloud suite. Subscriptions for individuals and teams have recently come under the eye of the storm from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) which has announced a lawsuit against Adobe and two of its executives alleging deceptive and complex terms related to the cancellation of software subscriptions.
Specifically in the crosshairs is the “annual, paid monthly” (APM) purchase option, a default option presented to individuals purchasing Creative Cloud. It offers a $30 discount from the monthly commitment, although the annual upfront payment is still cheaper.
The FTC argues that the terms for the APM are not clearly stated prior to enrollment and that this violates the ROSCA (Restore Online Shoppers Confidence Act): in particular, the size of the cancellation fee (which is 50 percent of the remaining subscription cost) is not clearly stated, and there are no options to avoid auto-renewing subscriptions.
There are two elements to keep in mind:
In both cases these are major disincentives to cancellation.
These standard terms for private users, students, and small SME teams do not apply to commercial users with licenses purchased through VIP, VIP Marketplace, or ETLA: the latter can either pay the full amount up front for the year (with no discounts) or pay the same amount monthly pro-rata. The difference is related to the fact that organizations need to manage cash flow.
Most software and SaaS vendors offer discounts based on the number of licenses purchased, and Adobe is not exempt from this trend. Keeping track of purchases with each vendor and negotiating accordingly is easier with a centralized IT department that buys all software...but these days with SaaS purchases such as the Adobe Creative Cloud suite things rarely work that way, as business units and individual employees make purchasing decisions often independent of IT departments.
This, in fact, is the downside of the ease of cloud software activation. Lack of visibility into activated subscription plans leads to a failure to optimize purchasesTake for example the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. The latter comes in two main bundles (All Apps e Single App). If an employee uses at least three apps, it is generally advisable to purchase the All Apps bundle because the cost difference between the two bundles is about $50.
Further complicating matters, administrators must determine which Adobe licensing model (All Apps or Single App) is most cost-effective for each user. Without data to understand what is being used, Adobe Creative Cloud--according to Flexera--can add up to 30 percent of SaaS costs being wasted each year.
What's more, rumors of Figma's possible merger with Adobe (later the deal fell through in December 2023), make us wonder - given the turmoil in the M&A strategies of the major software vendors - also about possible future rationalizations on which apps to use where there is replication of functionality (antitrust deems Figma a direct competitor to Adobe XD).
Therefore, it is important to have detailed usage statistics: it is not enough to know the number of licenses purchased (which can be easily obtained from the Admin Console) to understand how many are actually used. Knowing in real time how many subscriptions are unused and what type of subscription is most appropriate for each user makes it easier to understand how many subscriptions are needed at renewal time..
At WEGG we are experienced Software Asset Management (SAM) consultants and we set up processes to track and audit the usage of Adobe Creative Cloud licenses , and to do this we rely on Snow Software by Flexera technology, which allows it to integrate directly with Adobe's Admin Console. These analyses follow four steps:
The automatic discovery capabilities of Adobe license usage offered by the technology allow us to create in-depth reports on application usage, by which groups or users, type of licenses and associated costs.
This granular usage data allows us to to identify inactive accounts, duplicate users and set up automatic reassignment flows, and also identify the appropriate license type (All App/Single App) for purchase/renewal/deletion decisions.
Having real-time visibility into assignments and usage enables the creation of approval workflows on licenses under the IT control on the one hand, the flexibility of the users who request them is preserved, and on the other hand, approval is automated with precise rules and guidance specific to that user.
With SAM technology from Snow by Flexera it is possible to manage cloud licenses but also have control of on-premise, all in one platform. This facilitates risk management in case uses turn out to be non-compliant with contractual requirements, specifically in the audit clauses: for example, if there are pirated versions, the business entity could face heavy civil and legal penalties for copyright violations.
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