Apple quietly shifted the way it sells its creative tools this week. Creator Studio, a new all-in-one subscription that bundles Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro and other pro apps, is now live — and at the same time Apple has pulled at least one long-running discounted option for students.
The headline: Creator Studio costs $12.99 per month or $129 per year in the U.S., with a steeply discounted education tier priced at $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year. For that you get the latest Creator Studio versions of several apps across Mac and iPad, plus “premium” features in Keynote, Pages and Numbers and, later, Freeform.
What’s included — and who this helps
Creator Studio gives subscribers access to a suite of apps Apple has been polishing for years: Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, plus Motion, Compressor and MainStage on the Mac. Apple says the subscription unlocks AI-powered and other premium features (transcript and visual search in Final Cut, new producer packs for Logic, a revamped Pixelmator Pro on iPad, and a Content Hub for iWork apps).
Those built-in iWork upgrades are worth calling out: if you rely on Keynote, Pages or Numbers, a Creator Studio subscription flips on templates, generative features and a stock image library that the free versions will otherwise block behind prompts.
Apple is offering a one-month free trial for everyone and an extended three-month trial to customers who buy a qualifying Mac or iPad with certain chips. If you’re shopping for a new laptop to get the offer, check current MacBook deals — there are bargains right now. You can also buy a MacBook outright; the hardware itself is available through retailers (for example, the MacBook line is available on Amazon).
Standalones, coexistence and limits
This is not an absolute killshot to one-time purchases. On the Mac, Apple still offers standalone versions of Final Cut Pro ($299.99), Logic Pro ($199.99), Pixelmator Pro ($49.99), Motion ($49.99), Compressor ($49.99) and MainStage ($29.99). In most cases Apple says standalone apps will be updated in step with Creator Studio versions — but there are exceptions. Pixelmator Pro’s big new 4.0 release appears to require Creator Studio on some platforms while the older 3.x build remains available as a one-time purchase.
You can also keep both versions installed: Creator Studio apps and the traditional App Store apps can coexist on the same Mac and are visually distinguishable by their new “Liquid Glass” icons.
Family sharing and device counts matter if you plan to split costs. Apple allows the standard Creator Studio subscription to be shared with family members via Family Sharing (school and educator subscriptions can’t be shared), and accounts on an active subscription can install the apps on multiple devices — Apple sets the practical ceiling at up to 10 devices per account.
The AI angle, rules and numbers
Many of the new Creator Studio features lean on generative AI. Apple’s implementation uses OpenAI technology under the hood, but you won’t need a personal ChatGPT account to use those tools. Apple also gives usage guardrails: for example, at launch there are caps such as 50 generated images and 50 generated presentations of about 8–10 slides each, and a limit tied to generating presenter notes for a large number of slides (Apple mentioned an example limit in the hundreds). Apple says content you feed into those systems won’t be used to train underlying models.
A hit to some iPad users and education buyers
Where Creator Studio stings: Apple appears to have removed the option to buy smaller, per-app iPad subscriptions (the previous iPad subscriptions that let you pay per-app seem to be folded into the bundle). That makes Creator Studio expensive for anyone who only wanted Final Cut or Logic on an iPad.
Another change touched off frustration among students and educators: Apple quietly stopped selling the long-running $199 “Pro Apps Bundle for Education” as a standalone item. That bundle — a one-time purchase covering Final Cut, Logic, Motion, Compressor and MainStage at an educational discount — still exists as an add-on when you buy a Mac through Apple’s Education Store, but it’s no longer available as a separate sale. People who were planning to buy the perpetual-licence bundle without buying a new machine found themselves forced into the subscription or dependent on buying hardware to access the discount.
Apple also appears to be tightening enforcement around sharing app files; Mac users report that zipping and sharing installer app bundles no longer works the way it once did.
Price vs. practice: who benefits?
For creators who hop between Mac and iPad and who use several of the apps, Creator Studio is a strong value proposition: for $129 a year you get a lot of tools plus AI features and curated content. For single-app users, especially iPad-only editors and some students who relied on the education bundle’s one-time purchase, the math looks worse.
Critics are already calling it another nudging toward subscription fatigue — a trend that has reshaped pro software economics over the past decade. Supporters will point out that Apple is still keeping standalone Mac versions alive and that family sharing plus generous device counts can dilute the cost for small teams.
If you’re watching Apple’s hardware lineup because you want the extended Creator Studio trial, keep an eye on rumored lower-cost machines that could change upgrade timing — Apple’s ongoing talk about a budget MacBook is worth following if you’re timing a purchase to get a trial or education pricing (/news/apple-budget-macbook-j700).
Apple’s move is deliberate: the company is packaging creative features, AI services and content access into a single product that it can monetize continuously. For people who use multiple apps across devices it reads as convenience and value; for those who wanted low-cost, perpetual licenses — or cared only about one app on an iPad — it’s an unwelcome squeeze.
There’s no neat wrap-up here. Creator Studio is live; its impact will depend on how you work, what you own, and whether Apple updates the balance between subscriptions and one-time purchases in the months ahead.