prepared remarks, questions and answers on pricing and pricing models - Adobe Summit 2026 - The Digital Experience Conference

Based on the provided transcript from the Adobe Summit 2026, here is a summary of the discussions regarding pricing and pricing models, separated into the prepared remarks and the Q&A session:

Prepared Remarks on Pricing and Pricing Models

• Diversification Beyond Subscriptions: Shantanu Narayen highlighted that Adobe's business models are expanding. In addition to core subscription-based pricing, the company is actively rolling out consumption-based pricing (using credits or tokens), freemium models, and outcome-based pricing.
• Unified Pricing ("Pangea"): Anil Chakravarthy discussed the success of their unified pricing model, internally known as Pangea. This model is being used for virtually all of their largest deals and allows enterprise customers to swap one Adobe product for another without additional paperwork, ensuring they don't face capacity issues if their demand forecasts change.
• Credit and Token Consumption: David Wadhwani noted that the introduction of conversational interfaces and AI agents drives higher tool utilization. This increased usage directly drives token and generative credit consumption, alongside growth in Firefly add-on packs.
• Outcome-Based Pricing: David and Anil both emphasized the shift toward outcome-based models for enterprise clients. For example, with Firefly Creative Production, Adobe can automate tasks like resizing and translating videos for social media. Adobe charges based on the outcome, taking a fraction of what the customer would have spent doing the work manually.

Questions and Answers on Pricing and Pricing Models

• Implementation and Avoiding Friction: Brad Zelnick asked how outcome-based pricing is implemented without causing friction. Anil explained that customers want risk-sharing and predictable costs. Adobe achieves this by defining specific business outcomes (e.g., number of campaigns or content produced) and mapping them to subscription costs. They often start at a lower base level, and the subscription cost goes up in a "stairstep" fashion as those outcomes are met.
• Financial Model Risks and Upside: In response to the financial impact of this shift, Dan Durn acknowledged that augmenting pure subscriptions with consumption or outcome-based models introduces some revenue variability. However, he views it as a major upside; because Adobe can capture a fraction of the massive economic savings they provide to customers, it creates a "ton of value headroom" for pricing.
• Impact on Margins: Stefan Slowinski asked if the long-term gross or operating margins look different with these new models. Dan Durn stated that he actually views the shift as a growth accelerant due to the productivity benefits provided to customers. To protect margins, Adobe remains hyper-focused on driving down the unit cost of compute and inferencing over time, expecting to also benefit from structural cost reductions in the semiconductor industry.