After Canva’s acquisition of Affinity design software program sparked concern concerning the way forward for its one-time buy pricing mannequin, each corporations at the moment are promising that customers gained’t be pressured into subscribing to the service — ever.
On Wednesday, Canva and Affinity published a joint pledge promising to maintain Affinity software program “truthful, clear, and reasonably priced,” together with “the perpetual licenses which have made Affinity particular.”
Affinity’s design software program suite is taken into account to be one of many few viable options to Adobe’s subscription-based Artistic Cloud software program like Photoshop and Illustrator. When the Canva acquisition was announced on Tuesday, Affinity customers locked in on some vague FAQ wording that mentioned the Affinity pricing mannequin wouldn’t be affected “at the moment,” elevating questions if it could someday undertake Canva’s month-to-month subscription mannequin.
“If we do supply a subscription, it is going to solely ever be as an possibility alongside the perpetual mannequin, for individuals who desire it”
Now, the businesses are promising to maintain offering perpetual licenses for future Affinity releases, clarifying that any subscriptions “will solely ever be as an possibility alongside the perpetual mannequin, for individuals who desire it.” The pledge additionally says that Affinity will proceed to be supported as a standalone product suite, even when some options do get built-in into Canva’s design platform.
“We’re trying ahead to accelerating the rollout of extremely requested options resembling variable font assist, mix and width instruments, auto object choice, multi-page spreads, ePub export, and far more,” reads the pledge announcement. “These additions will additional cement Affinity as the most effective superior design suite available on the market and shall be launched over the approaching 12 months as free updates to V2.”
The pledge doesn’t instantly deal with another issues — like if Affinity will undertake a few of Canva’s generative AI tech, as an example — however the groups are encouraging Affinity customers to get in contact with suggestions and have requests to assist form the way forward for the software program. The Affinity staff has beforehand mentioned it wouldn’t be developing its own generative AI tech, however we’ll should see if something adjustments now that Canva is on the helm.