Adobe's Crazy CS6 Upgrade Pricing

June 4, 2012 — by Per Christensson

The sales team at Adobe is a bit crazy. They offered a free CS6 upgrade to all users who purchased CS5.5 between March 26 and May 6, 2012. The "Upgrade Assurance Promotion" applied to purchases of both upgrades and full versions of CS5.5. Combined with the 10% off "Spring Savings" promotion, I was able to upgrade from CS5 to CS5.5 for $359.10 ($385.22 after tax) and get CS6 for free.

Based on my lackluster experience with CS5, I was hesitant to upgrade to CS5.5. But the free upgrade to CS6 was too good to pass up. Plus, Dreamweaver CS5 had so many bugs, that I felt I needed to upgrade in order to keep using the program. (Requiring users to pay for software upgrades has become Adobe's standard way of dealing with bugs.)

I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find that Dreamweaver CS5.5 had just as many bugs as CS5. Even the file icons in the Files window were still missing. CS5.5 crashed just as much as the previous version too. Oh well, I really bought CS5.5 for the free upgrade to CS6. It turns out that was a good decision.

If I had waited until now to upgrade from CS5 to CS6, it would cost me $749.00 (before tax). That is more than twice what I paid. To reiterate, on April 9, I paid $359.10 for same upgrade that would cost me $749.00 today. I suppose it's nice of Adobe to reward the loyalty of customers who pre-ordered the upgrade, but that price discrepancy is ridiculous. I certainly wouldn't be feeling too happy if I had waited to upgrade until now. For $749, I may not have upgraded at all.

The "Upgrade Assurance Promotion" stated that I would receive a notification to download my free software within a week after CS6 was released. I received the notification email eight days after the release. Fortunately, the upgrade process went pretty smoothly.

As an additional benefit, Adobe has combined the Design and Web Creative Suites, which means I now have InDesign CS6. That's a nice unexpected bonus.

Now that I've used CS6 for a few weeks, I plan on posting a review soon. Since reviewing all the Creative Suite apps would be a bit overwhelming, I may just post a review of Dreamweaver. Spoiler alert: It's not good.