Adobe Captivate Moving to Subscription License Model in 2022

Perpetual licenses are a traditional way of buying software. Over the years, I have purchased many perpetual licenses for software dating back to the 90s when I would buy MS-DOS or Windows from my local computer shop. Just thinking about Adobe Captivate, I have personally purchased Captivate 5, 5.5, 7, 8, and 9. In theory, I could install these programs on my computer today. But in all seriousness, why would I at this point? Calling these licenses perpetual might be overstating it. Full disclosure, I haven’t paid for Adobe Captivate 2017 or 2019 at all. More on that at the end of this article.

The hope with SaaS is that you see the benefit of having a lower cost of entry into that software, and you get more capabilities introduced over time. You are also automatically enrolled into the next major release of the software without incurring any additional expenses. 

When Adobe Captivate 2019 came out, you could purchase it using either the monthly fee or the perpetual license model. For argument’s sake, let’s say that you started using Adobe Captivate when Adobe released it in August 2018. To buy the perpetual license, you would have paid $1399. However, if one were to sign up back in August of 2018 for Adobe Captivate 2019 monthly, they would merely pay $34 per month. If you add up all those $34 payments until the end of this year, that would be 41 months, times $34 which works out to $1394.

Of course, starting in January, your monthly expense would exceed the cost you would have paid for the perpetual license. But here is where the monthly plan works in your favour. At some point in 2022, we know that the next major release of Adobe Captivate will get released. So the people who are presently paying $34 per month will get to update their copy of Adobe Captivate to that new version for no additional fee. The last time I purchased an upgrade license for Adobe Captivate, it cost me $449. At $34 per month, that $449 would last me for thirteen months. So when you factor in the extra time, I might have to pay a monthly fee versus the cost of upgrading when the time comes; it’s actually about the same.

Now I did mention that I haven’t paid for Captivate 2017 or 2019 at all. Adobe has given me this software for free, which anyone can take advantage of. I and many others participate in the Adobe eLearning Community website (https://elearning.adobe.com). I accumulate points for that participation. Once per quarter, you can “cash in” those points for complimentary benefits from Adobe. If you earn just 150 points per quarter, you can get a 3-month complimentary license of Adobe Captivate. Showcasing your work, writing a blog post, or posting a video tutorial will earn you 100 points. If you wrote just one blog post (like this one) about Adobe Captivate per month, you would easily earn enough points for free Adobe Captivate. Learn more about this program here: https://elearning.adobe.com/levels/

I challenge you to turn this into an opportunity. Write just one article per month until the next major release of Adobe Captivate and see if you can avoid all the fees associated with Adobe Captivate.