Blew my mind finding out Pantone costs $15 a year for the app now

I was updating my brand guide for a client in Austin last week and went to check a spot color, only to realize my old Pantone swatch book from 2019 is way out of date. Apparently their Connect app subscription is $15 a month or $90 a year, and the old physical chip books cost like $200 plus now. Has anyone else just switched to using CMYK approximations instead of paying for Pantone access?

2 comments

2 Comments

rayc833d ago

Yeah that's rough, the pricing is crazy now. I went through the same thing last year when I was working on a rebrand for a small cafe chain and realized my old Pantone deck was basically useless. What I ended up doing was just using CMYK approximations from the web and honestly it's been fine for most projects. Unless you're doing something super specific like packaging for a global brand where color matching is critical, the approximations are more than good enough. I pulled up a free CMYK conversion chart online and saved a bookmark, saved me a ton of money. The only time I had to break down and buy a physical chip was for a client who insisted on exact spot colors for their merch, but that was like one time in three years. So yeah, ditch the subscription and save the cash.

evand653d ago

Honestly yeah, I read that's the whole reason Adobe is doing it. Greedy.