Is Adobe Premiere Pro worth the price?

Adobe Premiere on Surface Laptop
Adobe Premiere on Surface Laptop (Image credit: Windows Central)

Is Adobe Premiere Pro worth the price?

Best answer: Adobe software is really expensive, especially if you don't subscribe to an annual payment plan, but if you find yourself using it often it can become worth the price.For beginners: Adobe Premiere Elements 2019 ($99 at Amazon)For professionals: Adobe Premiere Pro (From $21/mo. at Adobe)

Pricing out the competition

Adobe has done a solid job at getting rid of any serious competition surrounding its Premiere Pro suite. Even on macOS, Adobe Premiere Pro is still selected as the best set of tools for enthusiasts and professionals. The only drawback for consumers is, while you get a fantastic piece of kit for the price, it's a serious financial commitment.

If you sign up for a yearly subscription, you'll be paying at least $21/mo.. If you only want to try it out for say five months, you'll be looking at a monthly fee of around $31, and no that's not a typo. This is the cost for just one app, which may seem like a good deal for those who know all about Premiere Pro and video editing, but incredibly expensive for beginners and folk who are just starting out.

The Creative Cloud suite has numerous plans available, depending on what you need. While a single app like Premiere Pro will set you back at least $21 each month, you do unlock additional benefits, including 100GB of cloud storage, and access to Adobe Portfolio, Adobe Fonts, and Adobe Spark with premium features.

For $52 a month, you can unlock access to all Adobe Creative Cloud apps, including Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, and many more. The major factor with Creative Cloud is the frequency of use — just how often will you be firing up Premiere Pro (or all purchased apps) to work some visual magic?

Incredibly powerful features

I've written about just how good Premiere Pro is already and it truly is a fantastic set of features. Whether you need to do a little light editing for a new YouTube video with some additional visual effects, wish to create a movie for an upcoming wedding or create your own feature-length movie, it's easy to get things done once you've mastered the basics.

And once you've started the subscription payments, the software is fully unlocked. You simply download, install and get started. Adobe releases regular updates to Premiere Pro, which is where the subscription can make a little more sense — you'll never be running old and outdated software, so long as you download the latest release every now and then.

Rich Edmonds
Senior Editor, PC Build

Rich Edmonds was formerly a Senior Editor of PC hardware at Windows Central, covering everything related to PC components and NAS. He's been involved in technology for more than a decade and knows a thing or two about the magic inside a PC chassis. You can follow him on Twitter at @RichEdmonds.