Why are UK prices nearly double US prices?

At the risk of sounding like an internet troll: this is just ridiculous.

There's absolutely no excuse. Instead of buying it here in the UK, I reckon I might fly to New York, have a nice little weekend away, buy CS4, and come home with change to spare!

And they wonder why people download their software illegally?!

I don't want to sound like a Sun reader, but Rip Off Britain strikes again...

I was actually tempted to buy CS3 a little while back when I had some spare cash. At US prices, I would have gone for it. At UK prices, not on your life.

I agree, It's very unfair. I feel at such a disadvantage because I cannot afford the UK version.

It's truly ridiculous! - Last year I bought a new Macbook Pro and Adobe CS3. The software cost me more money than the Macbook that I bought to run it on! The upgrade path to CS4 isn't much better being the best part of £700 I believe!

The problem is, now Adobe has bought up the Macromedia products (without adding much value as far as I can see) they have us over a barrel!!

Come on Adobe you can do better than that!

Absolutely disgusting

Waiting for an answer for Adobe then...

I've not upgraded for ages and would really like to be able to justify it. It's a hell of a lot of money for essentially small improvements. Make it the same price as US customers and I wouldn't need to think too hard about it!

Adobe would probably argue that the UK market is smaller, but in this global economy I think that's a poor excuse. I agree that Adobe can do much, much better.

Let's all spend a WE in NYC. This is crazy!

I'm still sitting on CS1 for this very reason.

I've migrated a lot of my expensive dev apps to indie software that's often a tenth of the price, and far leaner, faster and better integrated with my OS.

Can't wait to see what Adobe have to say...

Can't us UK folk get some nice US folk to buy us a boxed version and then ship it over (digitally or otherwise)?

Hi all, well I solved it by thinking sideways - I now use Adobe Elements 6 for mac & Coda. Saved me a fortune & I don't miss anything that Dreamweaver 8. & Adobe Photoshop 6 had (ok, I did miss Mask Layers - but thanks to a Free mod for PSE 6 I now have those back too. Seems like it's badge snobbery almost - its cool to have Photoshop CS whatever & Dreamweaver
too - but you don't need the most expensive tools to do the job. For instance : how come the cheapest car isn't the best selling one? - easy! Coz it's not the coolest or the one people want to be seen in. Keep thinking Sideways!

Very unimpressed... I won't be upgrading this year due to their ripping off of us folk in Europe!

I would like to add my voice to this. I find this is typical of a lot of US companies (yes I am looking at you Apple)

This is very very frustrating. I join the protest.

Ok, so "Nice Paul reported this problem 15 days ago", "17 people have this problem" and supposedly "9 Adobe employees are ready to listen and respond."

How come there's no response? Anyone get the feeling we're getting the cold shoulder here?

So Am I allowed by license to buy an american copy from amazon?

the very reason I'm not bothering with an upgrade to CS4... I'll make do with CS3 thanks.

Same for Poland. I was thinking about buying Lightroom and Audition but there's no way I'm going to pay that much penalty just for not living in the US. And that's even for a web download delivery method - oh come on, what's wrong with these people! If they don't want the same money as for US folks from me, they won't get any. Simple as that.

I live in Finland and I would understand higher price if I would buy localized boxed copy from a store, but don't get it how the basic digital english version can cost me more than an American.

As the dollar gains strength against the pound, it's even worse: in some cases, we're now paying more than double the price - pound for dollar - for the same software.

This has sucked for a long time Adobe - why not do something about it?

As a resident in the US I am annoyed too. Why should my fellow Adobians being treated so badly? If you want build brand loyality you do not price gouge.

They have 11 employees on here.. no one from Adobe is going to respond?

They're certainly not alone, but this seems like as good a place as any to start...

I suppose there's not much point in Adobe responding to this - since there's no justification, why would they want to open up the debate?
No... better to remain silent.

And they wonder why people are readily moving over to open source software. I'd like to hear what Adobe have to say about this. And I cannot believe they've ditched Homesite now too. I've moved over to Aptana Studio for HTML/CSS/JS dev, it's open source and less clunky than DW CS3.

I had to buy Photoshop because there isn't really an alternative for reliability handling big CMYK files. What particularly stung was buying it as a download where they have no local costs at all. There wasn't even a discount for download. However, like Rob Hanson above I've had great success with cheap alternatives to other parts of CS. Serif Page Plus (£80), WYSIWYG Web Builder (£30) and Kool Moves (£30) instead of Flash, have all proved easier to use and produce equally professional results. They won't answer these complaints because they know they are royally ripping us off. The only answer is shop elsewhere.

From what I have heard CS sales were not great and in part cause for the recent layoffs (600) at Adobe. I did not upgrade out of protest at this pricing differential and I suspect many other did not either.

Given that over 10,000 people signed this petition some time ago it does not look like Adobe has done much: http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/f...

Its ridiculous, Adobe is ripping EU customers off.
In sweden the price is twice the us even when they are selling the us version.
They say the support cost more, however why not let customers buy a version with no support or American support. I don't have to have any support.

My company did not upgrade because of the price.

There is no justification.

Still no reply on this? Shocking.

Nothing still... the silence is deafening. Do something Adobe.

This is why I only upgrade every two or three versions at most. Given the hoops they make you jump through to install the software (with the authorisation thing, which for CS1 never worked properly anyway) they really should be treating us as first-class Adobe citizens :-(

Looking forward to read your eventual reply, Adobe.

unacceptable behaviour from large company which appears not to care

Come on Adobe - what about some good customer care, rather than good wallet care for yourselves

*ahem* 10 Adobe employees are ready to listen and respond.

Really? Even the standard blah, blah pricing fluctuations, currency exchange, vat nonsense would have been better than 3 months of nothing.

This has been an issue for some time now. I can't believe no one from Adobe has even commented.

Yep I noticed this also, it's not really acceptable ripping people off like this. And why does the digital version no cost the same across the board?

I wonder if this is something that Trading Standards would be interested in?

Come on Adobe, at least give us a reason why you're ripping off the UK design population.

Well, difference between prices for Adobe software in Europe and the USA is something I have pondered upon, too. I think I even tried to ask this question to Adobe once, but received no answer.

The situation is almost the same across all of Europe, it's not only UK-related. Let's see, just a couple of examples - all prices taken from official Adobe.com store:

Adobe Fireworks CS4 - US price: $ 299
Adobe Fireworks CS4 - UK price: £235 (VAT incl: £270.25 = USD 405.48)
Adobe Fireworks CS4 - Eastern Europe price: € 299 (VAT incl.: € 363.28 = USD 490.28)

Adobe Design Premium CS4 - US price: $1,799
Adobe Design Premium CS4 - UK price: £1,249 (VAT incl: £1,436.35 = USD 2,155.09)
Adobe Design Premium CS4 - Eastern Europe price: € 1,999 (VAT incl.: € 2,428.78 = USD 3,277.88)

Now, notice the amazing difference in price for the Design Premium CS4:

USA: ~ USD 1'800
UK: ~ USD 2'155
Eastern Europe: ~ USD 3'275 (!)

All Adobe products are priced similarly. You may ask, why Design Premium CS4 costs 1800 USD in the US and twice the price in Eastern Europe (almost 3'300 USD)? I don't know the answer. I wonder if Adobe knows the answer, too...

You should also take into account that, generally speaking, people's income in Eastern Europe is much lower than in the US and UK. And thus, the question becomes even more strange and un-answerable...

:-(

I agree, It's very unfair.

Still no comment from Adobe :(

Another Belgian here :)
Please solve this problem, Adobe, nobody likes to be ripped off!

It's been like that for years. I would very much like to understand the pricing difference.

What does Adobe do to customers who buy the US version and use it elsewhere. Will Adobe support your product? Will you be able to get updates? How about upgrades to new versions?

i wish i could afford CS4 :(

Why for the downloads, let us pay in Dollars and we'll at least get the exchange rate our credit card companies want to sting us for.

Adobe will never comment on this one.

I just paid £2,500 for the Master Collection ... I never thought to go to New York for weekend and buy it there ... could have bought my MacBook too I guess ... DOH!

Anyway, if EVERYONE on this thread makes it a habit of posting a 'Why are we waiting?' message to Adobe then they'll have to respond sooner or later.

Also, may I suggest a Tweet to #adobe once an hour with the URL to this thread?

@leeprobert @lyraspace

it makes little sense...

And while I'm here (7 months on, still awaiting a reply)... why is the download version of your software more expensive than shipping a boxed product to me?! Madness.

I live in France and here it's the same. All my software is in english, why should I pay twice the amount americans pay for EXACTLY the same package????????

And now this... http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/ne...

Adobe have shot their bolt since the extortionate pricing of CS2 and their lacklustre handling of the Macromedia products. Now a price hike when the world is in recession? And the absolute nerve to say that they want to harmonise prices all over Europe? So if that was the case why are they RAISING the price in the UK!

Given the applications Adobe makes, the word color appears many times. Every time the word colour needs to be changed from color in an Adobe application, Adobe adds $5 to the price.

(Seriously, I'd just buy the American version and call it a day.)

Adobe will never comment on this one.

There might be some reasons, e.g. different warranty and other government regulations, but in general I'd say prices differ because they can.

Just order from the US. There are online shops out there that do deliver worldwide and ignore any geographic sales restrictions, should there be one.