Subscription fatigue is real, and 2026 will be the breaking point for artists

We've all been there. Hunched over the laptop at midnight, surrounded by cold tea and half-finished work, you check your inbox. Suddenly, the number of “your subscription is increasing” emails starts to feel overwhelming. Netflix wants more. Adobe wants more. Spotify wants more. Even the app that tracks how much water you drink wants £1.99 a month for “advanced hydration analytics”.

In short, your bank statement is starting to read less like a financial summary and more like a hostage letter. This is happened to a lot of creatives in 2025. And more and more of us are starting to snap.

The tide is turning

The clearest sign the tide is turning came recently, when Affinity announced that its entire suite would be free – editing, design, layout, the whole lot. No tiers, no catches, no “free for seven days and then we’ll silently charge you unless you decode our tiny grey opt-out button”. Just free.

Downloads exploded. Designers cheered. And software company executives everywhere experienced a sudden, collective shiver.

Of course, plenty of legacy tools have kept hiking their prices anyway, assuming we’d just keep nodding along. But with every increase comes a louder chorus of, “Hang on… do I actually need this?” And increasingly, the answer is a loud, confident "No"... because the alternatives have come on leaps and bounds.

Capable alternatives

Blender, once the slightly eccentric cousin of the 3D world, has evolved into a full-blown powerhouse used by studios and solo artists alike, despite being totally free. Krita, meanwhile, has grown into a capable painting tool without draining your wallet one iota.

Inkscape handles vector graphics without tantrums. DaVinci Resolve offers a professional video-editing setup for precisely zero pounds. And Procreate, now regarded amongst some of the best digital art software, became the darling of the iPad art world by doing something radical: charging a one-off fee of around £13 and then leaving people alone. (Read our Procreate tutorials to see what it can do.)

Even game engines haven't been immune to the chaos. Back in 2023, Unity’s infamous attempt at a “pay per install” model triggered a developer exodus. They backtracked, but the damage was done. People made it clear they were well and truly fed up with subscription creep disguised as innovation.

It's not that we're being entitled and expect the world to give us everything for free; it's more that subscriptions only make sense to us when companies provide ongoing, resource-heavy services: servers, cloud features, massive content libraries. Netflix? Fair enough. Spotify? Fine. But a local drawing app? A note-taking tool? A bit of 3D sculpting software that lives entirely on your machine? These days, fewer of us are buying into that logic.

Some have tried to keep up with subscription trends, so Maxon One offers great value if you want everything – ZBrush, Cinema 4D, the Red Giant suite – with regular content drops. Likewise, Adobe's Creative Cloud offers value if you need it all – Photoshop, Substance apps, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, and more.

Three-way split

But, do you need it all? The answer is often no. We've been voting with our wallets. We’re choosing one-off purchases or shifting to free software that’s now genuinely professional. And so the landscape is increasingly splitting into three clear camps.

Firstly, there are the genuinely free art apps such as GIMP, Blender and game engine Godot, with thriving communities behind them. Secondly, the one-off purchases like Procreate or Clip Studio Paint, which keep things refreshingly straightforward. And thirdly, there are the subscriptions that actually justify themselves through ongoing services. What those are, of course, will vary from person to person. But one thing I'm sure of, the idea that Adobe can continue to demand a king's ransom from people who only use one or two of the apps in the Creative Cloud is looking increasingly shaky.

Overall, it feels like the future is trending towards fairness. Towards fewer monthly bills, more choice, and a creative landscape that finally feels accessible again. And honestly? It's about time. By the end of 2026, here's hoping that students will no longer be hemorrhaging half their loan on software; hobbyists will be able to experiment without financial commitment; and studios will be picking tools that suit their workflow, not their accountants’ blood pressure.