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.

Why Captivate Isn’t Part of the Creative Cloud

This is the third time this week that someone has reached out to me with this question. When this happens I usually write a blog post to answer instead of writing the same email to multiple people explaining my thoughts about this controversial question. This way I can now refer people making similar inquiries to this post rather than repeating myself. Adobe has invited me to participate in things like conferences and training, but I think it’s important to say that I do not know Adobe’s plans for the marketing or selling of Adobe Captivate. When it comes right down to it, I’m just a user like all of you. Everything I say in this blog post is just my thoughts and opinion. There was a time when Adobe offered a product called the Adobe eLearning Suite. In fact, this is how I purchased my first personal copy of Adobe Captivate. The eLearning Suite included the following applications:

• Adobe Captivate

• Adobe Photoshop

• Adobe Dreamweaver

• Adobe Flash

• Adobe Audition

• Adobe Presenter

• Adobe Acrobat Professional

The last time Adobe offered this suite of products was with Adobe Captivate 6.

Since that time, the only other product where Adobe Captivate is bundled with other software from Adobe is in the Adobe Technical Communications Suite. The Adobe Technical Communications Suite includes the following pieces of software:

• Adobe Captivate

• Adobe FrameMaker

• Adobe RoboHelp

• Adobe Captivate (2019 release)

• Adobe Acrobat

• Adobe Presenter 11.1

Of course, many people are always hoping that Captivate will become part of the Creative Cloud. As a Captivate and Creative Cloud user, I completely understand this. For me, the greatest benefit of such a merger would be the ability to install all my Adobe apps from one Creative Cloud application. Imagine purchasing a new PC or Mac and simple logging into your Adobe Account and selecting the option to install all your Adobe software. I could go away and have lunch while everything I need to be creative that afternoon would magically appear on my new PC.

Of course, some of you are hoping for a reduced price. I understand that also. Captivate, and the Creative Cloud represents over $US 80 per month. I would gladly accept a bundled price of less than $80, but I don’t think everyone would agree. Imagine if you were not in the eLearning industry but were a Creative Cloud user. If Adobe asked you to suddenly pay $30 more for something you didn’t need or want, you would likely not accept that. I would imagine that many illustrators, designers, and graphic artists might start looking for alternatives to Creative Cloud.

And for those who think Adobe should absorb Captivate’s cost and include it in the Creative Cloud for free, I say no thanks. If Captivate became a bonus piece of software in the Creative Cloud, I would imagine that it would stop being the innovative software it is today. I’m fairly certain that Adobe would no longer offer new features like interactive video or 360° VR training. As free included software, Captivate would cease to be that innovative product it is today.