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AI Businesses

Canva To Hike Subscription Prices Up To 300% Amid AI Push (acs.org.au) 32

Canva, a popular online design platform, plans to significantly increase prices for some of its business subscriptions next year, citing the addition of generative AI features. The company's Teams subscription, which supports multiple users, will see price hikes of up to 300% in some regions. From a report: Subscribers to Canva Teams, which is targeted at businesses with several users, were emailed late last week to notify them of the price increase, which amounts to a three-times jump. A spokesperson for Canva said the price rise was due in part to the introduction of a number of new features on the Canva platform, including many powered by AI and generative AI.
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Canva To Hike Subscription Prices Up To 300% Amid AI Push

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  • need AI? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nicubunu ( 242346 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2024 @08:01AM (#64758532) Homepage

    Did they ask paying users if they need those AI features? Or the price increase is just to cover their recent purchase of Affinity?

    • Re:need AI? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2024 @08:26AM (#64758602)

      Or the price increase is just to cover their recent purchase of Affinity?

      Companies don't raise prices to cover sunk costs. That makes no sense.

      Companies raise prices because they expect the increased unit revenue will compensate for the loss of customers.

      In this case, Canva is probably right. Even if they lose 75% of their customers, profits will increase.

      They'll likely lose far fewer than that. Many customers are not very price-sensitive.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        Companies don't raise prices to cover sunk costs. That makes no sense.

        Sony just bumped the price of playstations in Japan to cover concords flop.

        • Re:need AI? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2024 @01:55PM (#64759428)

          Sony just bumped the price of playstations in Japan to cover concords flop.

          No. Sony bumped the price because they think the profit will increase with a higher unit price.

          With or without the Concord, Sony sets prices to maximize profit. That's what companies do.

          Often, a lower price is more profitable, such as in a competitive price-sensitive market like groceries. Walmart has the lowest prices and the highest profit.

          Sometimes a higher price is more profitable, such as LVMH selling Giffen goods [wikipedia.org].

          But sunk costs are always irrelevant.

          • such as LVMH selling Giffen goods [wikipedia.org].

            Sorry. I meant Veblen goods [wikipedia.org].

          • by narcc ( 412956 )

            With or without the Concord, Sony sets prices to maximize profit. That's what companies do.

            Indeed. A simple fact too often intentionally overlooked.

            • Yeah but when they are suddenly in the hole on a 150 million 8 year project that was DoA and is being shut down already on sep 6th despite launching aug 23 then it's less about maximising profit and more about minimising losses.

              It literally lasted a fortnight, there's got to be some irony in that.
          • Yeah but when they are suddenly in the hole on a 150 million 8 year project that was DoA and is being shut down already on sep 6th despite launching aug 23 then it's less about maximising profit and more about minimising losses. It literally lasted a fortnight, there's got to be some irony in that.
            • it's less about maximising profit and more about minimising losses.

              Those are the same thing.

              Going from 1 to 2 is an increase.

              Going from -2 to -1 is also an increase.

              In either case, sunk costs are irrelevant.

        • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Sony just bumped the price of playstations in Japan to cover concords flop.

          No, they bumped the price in Japan because they could. Xbox is basically non-existent in Japan for many reasons. So it's Switch or PlayStation. I'm sure Sony jacking the price from $500 to $800 has nothing to do with the fact they can and the Japanese public will put up with it.

          Concord failing is just a symptom of the Sony not concentrating on games their customers are wanting to play. But given Sony is "winning" for the past couple

          • Sony isn't the be all and end all in Japan. Japan is very much Nintendo town with PlayStation being a distant second and Xbox barely a blip. That's why they only raising the price in Japan because the hit won't be as bad and won't sour their primary markets. It's only 150 million they are down. Not a massive about in the grand scheme of things but definitely a chunk of change they are rooting their own sofa for before looking elsewhere.
  • Yeah, we're "saving money" by firing all the people.
    Also, since you've invested your brain into our software, and you're a big dummy that couldn't think your way out of wet paper bag...we're raising prices by ... alot. It's great for shareholder value.

    Just make sure not to think for yourself.
    Doing things is hard. We're here to help.
  • by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2024 @08:05AM (#64758542) Homepage Journal
    I hope Canva doesn't try to squeeze "AI" into the Affinity tools which they bought....

    They said they'd not fsck with them....make the subscription, etc.....I hope they keep their word on this.

    The Affinity tools are the best alternative to Adobe products out there....please don't fuck with a good thing.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    If you don't want the AI stuff you just pay the old price, right?

  • Shit product (Score:4, Insightful)

    by necro81 ( 917438 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2024 @09:22AM (#64758722) Journal
    A local dance studio started using Canva to sent out info packets (schedules, closures, recital info, etc.). Then they'd send out a link via email and text. The content was like the shittiest e-zines of old: fake page turning animations, shadow borders, unsearchable/unselectable text. (No [blink] tags, but we're not far off.) Worse: it had automatic "playback" with mood music in the background. Couldn't download the slides/pages. Couldn't use Ctrl+F to actually find info I cared about.

    That shit should have just been a PDF! Hell, a plain text file would be preferable. But no, we had to slog through the "canva" (the studio had drunk the KoolAid and started using it as a noun!). For one particularly annoying one I took screenshots, bundled them as a PDF, ran OCR, and then looked it. I'm convinced that actually saved me time, and certainly aggravation.

    So, seriously, fuck those guys and their product. Maybe the price hike will convince their deluded userbase to switch to (free, simpler, established) products/solutions that actually work.
    • by HBI ( 10338492 )

      Most of this stuff is supposed to be a substitute for having an actual artist with actual talent. The interesting part is that they don't cost all that much - more talent out there than there is work for them.

  • by Baron_Yam ( 643147 ) on Tuesday September 03, 2024 @09:22AM (#64758724)

    So, AI let's them provide a service at much reduced expense, so they have to hike prices to compensate?

    Either gall was on sale in bulk or somebody flipped a sign doing the math.

    • Also, can we get a nice little AI for my phone that doesn't constantly add apostrophes and pluralizations I don't actually want?

    • by narcc ( 412956 )

      So, AI let's them provide a service at much reduced expense, so they have to hike prices to compensate?

      As funny as that is, companies don't "hike prices to compensate". Companies always set prices in such a way as to maximize profits. Sometimes that means raising prices. Sometimes that means lowering prices.

      Sure, they'll make all sorts of excuses for why they're raising prices, but that's just public relations. Canva determined that raising prices 300% would increase profits, the higher price more than making up for the lost sales. That's the only reason they're raising prices. Nothing else matters.

      The s

  • it's Starwars of course it's crap!
  • A 300% increase is a four-times jump. Just as a 100% increase is double.
  • Were these people sober when they made this decision? 300%... Tell me there is a nuance we're missing. There must be other options.

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