Apple is doing what many pro editors have expected for years: turning Final Cut, Logic, and friends into a bundle.
Starting January 28, the new Apple Creator Studio subscription will cost $13 a month or $130 a year in the US, with a one‑month free trial. A student plan drops that to $3 a month or $30 a year.
What you actually get
Creator Studio pulls together a long list of Apple’s own pro apps, plus the newly acquired Pixelmator:
Mac + (where available) iPad apps included:
- Final Cut Pro
- Logic Pro
- Pixelmator Pro
- Motion
- Compressor
- MainStage
On top of that, subscribers unlock extra features in Apple’s productivity suite across Mac, iPad, and iPhone:
- Keynote
- Pages
- Numbers
- Freeform
Those apps themselves stay free, but Creator Studio adds:
- Premium templates and themes
- A Content Hub with curated photos, graphics, and illustrations
- A handful of OpenAI‑powered tools, including:
- Image upscaling and transformations
- Image generation from text prompts
- A Keynote feature that builds a slide deck from a text outline
The bundle supports Family Sharing for up to six people, which will matter to small studios and families full of creators.
New features landing with the bundle
Apple is using the subscription launch to ship a wave of updates.
Final Cut Pro gets:
- Transcript Search – index dialogue so you can find moments by searching the text.
- Montage Maker – Apple says it will “analyze and edit together a dynamic video based on the best visual moments within the footage.”
Logic Pro is being nudged deeper into the creator‑tool lane:
- Apple says the update “helps creators deliver original music for their video content.”
- A new synth player joins the app’s lineup of AI Session Players.
Pixelmator Pro for iPad is the biggest structural change.
- When Apple announced it was acquiring Pixelmator in late 2024, the app was Mac‑only.
- The new version is built around the Apple Pencil and folds neatly into the Creator Studio bundle.
Together, the updates make the subscription feel less like a simple repackaging and more like a coordinated push: better search in video, faster music generation for those videos, and a modern image editor on the iPad side.
Another subscription, but not an Adobe clone
This is not a straight copy of Adobe’s business model.
First, Apple still sells the Mac apps as one‑time purchases on the App Store:
- Final Cut Pro
- Pixelmator Pro
- Logic Pro
- Motion
- Compressor
- MainStage
That’s a major difference from Adobe, which hasn’t sold perpetual licenses for Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, or its other flagship apps since 2013.
On the flip side, the iPad versions of these pro tools – including Pixelmator Pro for iPad – are subscription‑only. If your workflow leans heavily on the iPad, you’re in Creator Studio territory whether you like subscriptions or not.
Second, there are no cheaper single‑app tiers. Unlike Adobe, you can’t just subscribe to Final Cut or just Logic. You buy into the whole bundle or you don’t subscribe at all.
That means Creator Studio is clearly aimed at two groups:
- Creators who already span Mac + iPad/iPhone.
- People who touch more than one of Apple’s pro apps and want the lot.
If you only care about one or two tools and you’re happy on the Mac, the standalone licenses will still make more sense.
How it stacks up against Adobe
Apple’s pricing undercuts Adobe’s all‑you‑can‑eat plan by a wide margin, though the bundles don’t cover the same ground.
Ars Technica notes Adobe’s Creative Cloud all‑apps pricing at:
- $780 a year
- $105 a month
- Or $70 a month if you commit to a full year and pay monthly
Adobe’s portfolio still spans photo editing, web design, and more than Apple covers. But for video, audio, and a lot of image work, Creator Studio is aggressively priced – especially when you factor in Family Sharing.
The catch: Apple’s offering is tightly bound to its own platforms. There’s no Windows option here, no web‑based versions, and no Android story. If your studio is already Apple‑first, that’s fine. If not, Adobe’s cross‑platform reach will still win.
What it means for Apple’s creative ecosystem
The move answers a long‑standing question about Apple’s strategy for pro software.
For years, Final Cut and Logic sat in a strange place: powerful, relatively affordable, and updated steadily, but sold as traditional one‑off purchases while the rest of the industry moved to recurring revenue.
Creator Studio does three things at once:
- Introduces a subscription without killing the perpetual Mac licenses.
- Ties together Apple’s video, audio, and image tools with its productivity apps.
- Leans into AI‑assisted workflows, via OpenAI‑powered features in Keynote and image tools, and Apple’s own “AI Session Players” in Logic.
It’s also a clear signal that Apple sees creative pros as a multi‑device story. The best deal is now the one where you’re cutting video on a MacBook, tweaking storyboards on an iPad, and pitching the result from an iPhone.
The fine print
Apple says each app has its own system requirements, all spelled out in the footnotes of the official announcement. If you’re sitting on older Intel Macs or an iPad that’s been through a few battery cycles, it’s worth checking the list before banking on the bundle.
The bigger question is psychological, not technical: are editors and musicians ready to add one more subscription to the pile?
Apple’s answer is clear: if you’re already deep into its ecosystem and using multiple tools, Creator Studio is designed to make that decision feel like a bargain. If you’re not, Apple is at least doing something Adobe didn’t in 2013—leaving the door open for people who still want to pay once and be done.
