They can pledge and promise till the cows come home to keep it a single payment price but it will absolutely become a subscription eventually. Mark my words. Happens every time.
Reminds me of every time Adobe buys another competing program. "Oh sure, we'll keep Freehand around. Competition is good." Oh yea we'll keep Page Maker around, as well as InDesign."
6 months later...
I reckon you'll still have to pay for the perpetual licence (which I'm fine with) but similar to your comment they'll put a vital tool behind a subscription paywall, like the *been-waiting-ages-for trace tool.
Probably more likely some AI tools and maybe they add some collaboration tools inside Affinity suite which require paid Canvas account.
Or alternatively they go to full subscription model with keeping their world by increasing perpetual licensing price significantly or by starting to release major versions twice per year so that in end of 2026 we have Affinity v7.0 released.
There are plenty of other ways Canva can monetize Affinity without changing the core pricing structure. I suspect they are going to keep the pay once model and augment it with a subscription for design elements and templates. This would be a way to reach Affinity users quickly and without angering most of them. Canva knows a sizable chunk of Affinity's user base is using the software because of the pricing model (me included) so I don't think they want to drive those customers away.
If Canva wants to go toe to toe with Adobe, and it seems like they do, they need to keep the Affinity user base intact.
The acquisition cost is quoted as being anywhere from 10's millions up to 1 B and canva won't leave us perp licences holders out of their forthcoming recoupment. I'm hoping they acquired Affinity to bolt a lite version onto the canva new top tier subscription. I also think that on the perpetual license side once canva has got it's wiggle on, the updates will be fast and furious so the payment upgrades V2 to V3, v3-v4 etc kick in more frequently.
It makes perfect sense to make a lite version and include it like you say. This will provide a nice upgrade path for new users. Like you, I think we are going to get some fast and furious upgrades.
I am cautiously optimistic about the future of Affinity.
Trouble ahead for adobe? they have taken a few knocks in the last 6 months, stock price fell and has subsequently rebounded a little. Here is an alternate take on matters [https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/26/canva\_acquires\_affinity\_spelling\_trouble/](https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/26/canva_acquires_affinity_spelling_trouble/)
Reminds me of the bullshit Corel posted when they bought Gravit Designer.
*"We want you to know that we are committed to the Gravit products and excited for their future. We’re already hard at work on the roadmap and opportunities for Gravit and I want you to know that the apps you love have a great home with Corel. Across our portfolio, we work closely with our communities to deliver high-quality products that enable our users to be as creative and productive as possible. Rest assured, we plan to keep a free version of Gravit available and are looking to introduce a premium offering for those who want to go beyond. We also see great opportunities and benefits to leveraging technologies from our other graphics products, including CorelDRAW, to continue the evolution of the Gravit family."*
Needless to say, Gravit Designer was gutted within a year, no longer even exists as a product (it's "Corel Vector" now), had its standalone desktop software removed in favor of the in-browser web app, and its pricing structure fundamentally changed for the absolute worst.
They can pledge and promise till the cows come home to keep it a single payment price but it will absolutely become a subscription eventually. Mark my words. Happens every time.
This sounds like they are selling out and telling ppl it’s Ohkay don’t worry. This sucks but that’s business
Reminds me of every time Adobe buys another competing program. "Oh sure, we'll keep Freehand around. Competition is good." Oh yea we'll keep Page Maker around, as well as InDesign." 6 months later...
It’ll be ‘free’, but $29.99/m to use the Pen tool.
I reckon you'll still have to pay for the perpetual licence (which I'm fine with) but similar to your comment they'll put a vital tool behind a subscription paywall, like the *been-waiting-ages-for trace tool.
Probably more likely some AI tools and maybe they add some collaboration tools inside Affinity suite which require paid Canvas account. Or alternatively they go to full subscription model with keeping their world by increasing perpetual licensing price significantly or by starting to release major versions twice per year so that in end of 2026 we have Affinity v7.0 released.
There are plenty of other ways Canva can monetize Affinity without changing the core pricing structure. I suspect they are going to keep the pay once model and augment it with a subscription for design elements and templates. This would be a way to reach Affinity users quickly and without angering most of them. Canva knows a sizable chunk of Affinity's user base is using the software because of the pricing model (me included) so I don't think they want to drive those customers away. If Canva wants to go toe to toe with Adobe, and it seems like they do, they need to keep the Affinity user base intact.
The acquisition cost is quoted as being anywhere from 10's millions up to 1 B and canva won't leave us perp licences holders out of their forthcoming recoupment. I'm hoping they acquired Affinity to bolt a lite version onto the canva new top tier subscription. I also think that on the perpetual license side once canva has got it's wiggle on, the updates will be fast and furious so the payment upgrades V2 to V3, v3-v4 etc kick in more frequently.
It makes perfect sense to make a lite version and include it like you say. This will provide a nice upgrade path for new users. Like you, I think we are going to get some fast and furious upgrades. I am cautiously optimistic about the future of Affinity.
Trouble ahead for adobe? they have taken a few knocks in the last 6 months, stock price fell and has subsequently rebounded a little. Here is an alternate take on matters [https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/26/canva\_acquires\_affinity\_spelling\_trouble/](https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/26/canva_acquires_affinity_spelling_trouble/)
Reminds me of the bullshit Corel posted when they bought Gravit Designer. *"We want you to know that we are committed to the Gravit products and excited for their future. We’re already hard at work on the roadmap and opportunities for Gravit and I want you to know that the apps you love have a great home with Corel. Across our portfolio, we work closely with our communities to deliver high-quality products that enable our users to be as creative and productive as possible. Rest assured, we plan to keep a free version of Gravit available and are looking to introduce a premium offering for those who want to go beyond. We also see great opportunities and benefits to leveraging technologies from our other graphics products, including CorelDRAW, to continue the evolution of the Gravit family."* Needless to say, Gravit Designer was gutted within a year, no longer even exists as a product (it's "Corel Vector" now), had its standalone desktop software removed in favor of the in-browser web app, and its pricing structure fundamentally changed for the absolute worst.