Adobe has said that the Figma free tier will remain available if the company’s planned acquisition of the collaborative design platform is approved by shareholders and antitrust regulators.
The company has also offered some additional reassurances …
Adobe announced its agreement to purchase Figma earlier this month. The deal is worth an incredible $20B, in a mix of cash and shares, dwarfing Apple’s $3B purchase of Beats back in 2014. It’s the largest-ever buyout of a private software company.
Those using Figma for free were understandably concerned, fearing that Adobe would force them to buy a subscription for the app – perhaps a Creative Cloud one. But the company has told Bloomberg that the freemium model will remain as-is.
Additionally, Figma cofounder and chief executive officer Dylan Field pledged that the app will remain free for educational users.
Figma’s pricing model will remain “freemium,” Adobe Chief Product Officer Scott Belsky said — meaning that a basic tier will always be accessible without cost. “We don’t want to fix something that’s working really well.”
File sharing without additional licensing costs helped fuel Figma’s rapid adoption, and Belsky said this dynamic won’t be changed. Users won’t need to have a Creative Cloud subscription to work on a document, he said.
Other users expressed fears that Adobe might mess up the simple user interface of the app, turning it into bloatware. The company pointed to similar fears over its earlier acquisition of Behance.
He echoed Belsky that there are no price increases planned, that Figma will always be fully free for education and that he is “very committed” to maintaining a free tier, which fuels adoption.
Figma users might take some comfort from the source of those comments: Belsky was the cofounder of Behance.
Negative Twitter posts about that deal mirror what’s being said about Adobe buying Figma now, Belsky said.
“I understand why customers are always afraid of change,” Belsky said. “But when you have the right people that are really aligned with the same principles and recognize the value of what’s being brought in, sometimes it really turns out magnificently.” He added that Behance’s user base is 30 times the size it was when bought by Adobe.
The pace of innovation will remain unchanged, or even be accelerated, said Figma’s CEO Dylan Field.
Photo: Theme Photos/Unsplash
Field said he recognizes that users fear innovation will slow down after an acquisition, but he hopes the company can actually accelerate improvements to the platform with new technology and expertise at Adobe. “I think it’s good for the community,” he said in an interview. “That’s what I intend to prove” […]
Field said he will continue to focus his attention on Figma after the deal is completed, although he’ll provide advice to Adobe. InDesign is one product he thinks would particularly benefit from more-collaborative workflows.
Belsky said the rest of Adobe’s portfolio will take cues from Figma on collaborative updates. Its multiplayer web platform may be adopted for Adobe’s other creative offerings, and its FigJam whiteboarding and presentation capabilities may be integrated into Adobe Express and Acrobat, Belsky said.
