There’s a question which keeps popping up on the Adobe Forums:
- Is it possible to suspend a subscription?
- How to ‘freeze’ my Creative Cloud membership?
- Can I stop payment for Photoshop and resume it later?
- How do I pause my Creative Cloud subscription plan?
So customers want to know if it’s possible to put a subscription on hold and then continue it later… Maybe you won’t be needing to use the software for a while, are working on another project, or will be away on vacation and want to save some money.
Well, is it possible to take a break? The answer is yes and no – it depends on which type of plan you have from Adobe.
Annual plans
If you have an Annual (Yearly) plan, then pausing a subscription is not something that either the company or the customer has the ability to do… In other words, there is not an option to freeze a 12-month Creative Cloud membership; only to cancel (or change) it.
But canceling an Annual subscription early can incur a termination fee if you’re not in the final month of your plan. One alternative to canceling is to change to a different plan, which is usually no charge. The new plan could be for different tools, and could cost more or less than your current plan. If you switch to a different plan, a new 12-month term will begin with the new product.
See the following guide for what to know before changing or canceling, which should help you find the best solution and possibly save some time or money:
What You Should Know Before Canceling Your Creative Cloud Subscription
With an Annual subscription, it’s not possible to withhold payment as a strategy to freeze a subscription because the payments you owe to Adobe will continue to mount up under the contract you agreed to when you signed up.
Note: The Creative Cloud Student & Teacher Edition is always an Annual plan. The same goes for the Photography and Lightroom plans.
Monthly plans
If instead you have a Monthly (month-to-month) plan, then you can suspend your membership at any time with no fee, and your subscription will continue to the end of your current month. Then it will stop, but you can restart at any point in the future, should you need full access to Creative Cloud again.
After canceling, your account will revert to the free level of Creative Cloud membership. Importantly, your available cloud and online storage will be reduced to 2 GB. See this page for more details on what happens to your cloud storage and files after canceling any CC subscription plan.
If you later renew or reactivate your plan down the road, your paid membership will return with full access to all your Creative Cloud apps and services.
So customers who need an on-and-off type of membership – or want the ability to pause or reinstate their usage at any time – find that the Monthly plans work best for that type of flexibility, although they do cost more per month.
Learn more about the pros and cons of Annual vs. Monthly plans here, including the breakeven point on which one to get:
Creative Cloud Annual or Monthly Subscription: Which Is Better for You?
How about turning off auto-renewal?
If you want to stop the auto-renewal of any plan, then you should know that currently, the only way to stop your plan from renewing automatically is to cancel your membership.
As noted above, Monthly plans have no term commitment can be canceled at any time with no fee. After cancellation, the plan will not auto-renew.
To turn off auto-renewal on Yearly plans, you need cancel in the last (12th) month of your one-year commitment, and then your plan will not auto-renew. Adobe will notify you via your account email address when your 12-month renewal date is approaching.
In both cases, you can restart your plan at any time and restore full access to your Creative Cloud tools and services.
If you wish to contact Adobe Customer Care, then visit this page for live online chat, which is the primary way to get in touch. Or to reach them by phone, see the comprehensive list of phone numbers by geography, including hours and languages.
Do you have any questions about the tips in this article or how Adobe’s plans work? Just ask them below and we’ll get you answers fast!
See Also
- Free Adobe Stock! Download 1,000,000+ top images
- How to save 60% with the Student & Teacher Editions
- Download free Adobe books (choose over 30 titles)
- Don’t need full Cloud? Get PS + LR for $9.99/month
- How to join Adobe’s Creative Cloud for free
- Free! Watch 200+ new courses from Adobe MAX
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If you have the full plan and want to save some $ you can revert it to the photography plan with no penalty. They told me the penalties incur if you outright cancel, but you can change plans at anytime without penalty. Does that sound true?
We have heard that you can change a Yearly plan instead of canceling it, with no fee. Customers who want to explore this option can follow the process described on this page, and you’ll see your options presented to you.
This topic is covered in more detail in our guide here:
What You Should Know Before Canceling Your Adobe Subscription
PS – One important note to keep in mind: If you change your Annual plan to a different product, a new 12-month term will begin with the new plan. So, it’s really shifting (and renewing) a subscription, rather than pausing it.
Yes, that sounds like what they told me.
Can I link two subscriptions? I now have a free student plan linked to my university and would like to use all items in my personal plan through my student plan.
Hi Peter, for personal plans like individual subscriptions or a student plan, you cannot link or combine the plans under a single email address.
In other words, Adobe won’t allow overlapping plans under the same email address. The Student & Teacher Edition is All Apps, so your personal plan must be via a different email address.
Your only option in this case is to sign out of one plan and sign into the other when you want to switch.
You can however share files and folders between the two plans using Creative Cloud’s collaboration features.