By Afi Sruggs
When it comes to Cricut, Tamara Chapman-Harris is all in.
“I bought my first Cricut probably 15 years ago,” she said. “I have the Cricut Explore Air and Maker… I use them for paper crafting. I sew, so I use them to cut out sewing projects that need to be really precise. I also have their heat presses, so I can make T-shirts and bags. I have a Cuttlebug (embosser) so I can make custom cards.”
The Cleveland Ohio-based hobbyist estimates she’s sunk between $3,000 and $5,000 into Cricut products. But she’s not a satisfied customer when it comes to the company’s app, Design Space.
“The hardware itself is the best. But where they fall short is with the software. It was only last year that they gave us a decent offline option; so you have to have Internet (to use the machines.)”
That’s why the recent debacle over cloud storage in Design Space further soured Chapman-Harris’ view of the company.
The announcement
Design Space is required to use Cricut products. On March 12, Cricut tried to limit free use of the app to 20 uploads a month; to get more users had to subscribe. The switch ignited such a firestorm, company CEO Ashish Arora announced a change less than a week later. Users would have unlimited uploads until Dec. 31, 2021 while the company continued to explore “affordable ways for our future users… to allow an unlimited number of … uploads.”
Instead of dousing the fire, the change fed it. Customers pointed out access is tied to the machine, not the user. Buying a new machine in 2022 meant current users would have to subscribe to get more than 20 uploads.
By March 18, the company had completely backpedaled. Users would have an unfettered ability to upload designs.
“One of our core values is community — we’re listening, and we took your feedback to heart,” Arora wrote on the company’s blog. “It is clear that, in this instance, we did not understand the full impact of our recent decision on our current members and their machines. We apologize.”
But the end of the policy isn’t the end of the story. Users like Chapman-Harris cast a jaded eye at a company whose products, in many cases, contribute to their livelihood.
Speaking out
Logan Culwell-Block organized an email campaign protesting the original shift. He posted a form letter in a Cricut group on Reddit.
“But you don’t even need to worry about damaging trust and/or hurting your customers’ feelings—conducting business this way will make each and every up-to-now loyal Cricut user think twice before spending money on additional or new Cricut machines now that they know the terms of using said machines can be fundamentally changed at any time,” his letter read.
Despite the shift on free uploads, Culwell-Block, a hobby user from suburban New York, remains disenchanted. He creates designs in third-party software that don’t always render correctly when he sends them to Design Space.
“All the time, I’ve added my own vector files to find out because of some quirk of how I made it in (Adobe) Illustrator, (Design Space) is rendering it incorrectly. So I have to go back to Illustrator to fix it.”
Culwell-Block also pointed out the now-discarded policy could have crashed makers whose businesses depend on Cricut.
“There are a lot of people who have Etsy businesses and you can imagine, when you’re using it on that scale, how quickly 20 uploads would go away.”
Cricut did not provide a spokesperson to comment for this story.
The shift to subscriptions
Ironically, the company already has a subscription plan. Users who pay $120 annually can use 100,000 images, hundreds of fonts, as well as getting discounts on products, free shipping and shorter wait times for customer service.
Chapman-Harris is a premium subscriber. But she said the free option would be a fallback if she couldn’t afford fees.
“When we think about this economy, our livelihoods are uncertain. What if I’m in a position where I couldn’t afford the monthly or yearly fee, but I still want to use these products I’ve paid a lot of money for?”
Culwell-Block speculated Cricut instituted a lower-end subscription to sweeten its position before its stock went public on March 25. The initial price was $20 per share, according to a press release.
And he noted that more and more tech companies are using subscriptions to make money.
“(Tech companies) have changed the business model; they want more money in smaller transactions,” Culwell-Block said. “When I was in college you bought Microsoft Office for $150. Now you subscribe to Microsoft Office.”
But he said Cricut’s tactic differed because Design Space isn’t a new product. Instead, customers have to pay for content they’ve created and to use machines they’ve already bought.
“You have a customer who already bought your machine after you advertised being able to use it a certain way. And then you’re changing it on them.“
Culwell-Block said the company could have taken another tack: improve the Design Space app so more customers would pay for Design Access.
“You need more people to subscribe to Design Access, but you can’t do that by making it better. Instead, you’re doing it by tricking your customers. And that’s supposed to make me want to subscribe?” Culwell-Block said.
Chapman-Harris agreed. She said Cricut could have simply improved its app and charged. She says she’ll stay with Cricut, instead of moving to its competitors like Brother and Silhouette because she’s so deeply embedded in Cricut’s ecosystem.
But she’s not satisfied with the company’s flip over free access to Design Space.
“(The reversion) is not good enough. And it’s not good enough because they haven’t addressed the other issues that we continue to have with their product and their service.”
Afi Scruggs
Afi Scruggs is a freelancer and knitter who lives in Cleveland.
I have a Cricut Maker. I use it to cut vinyl for T-shirt designs and to cut fabric for some sewing projects. When it comes time to replace this machine, I will have to carefully look at Silhouette instead of Cricut. Design Space is flaky, however it is way better than Brother’s design program (which is why I sold my Scan n Cut). Because Cricut ties the use of the machine to Design Space, instead of allowing third parties to access their drivers like professional grade vinyl cutters do, they have a captive audience. It is unfair to charge customers for something that is required to run their machines.
What they need to do is to really fix the problems with Design Space, allow Cricut machine owners free use of their own designs, and create a subscription to premium content (think Adobe) and to charge non-machine owners a subscription if they want to use the software. If they still want to charge everyone, then make the machine drivers available to third parties (like professional grade vinyl cutters do) so that I can send a cut file from somewhere other than Design Space.
“When we think about this economy, our livelihoods are uncertain. What if I’m in a position where I couldn’t afford the monthly or yearly fee, but I still want to use these products I’ve paid a lot of money for?”
This is exactly what I said–and still say–as a graphic designer and long-time user of Adobe’s products when they went to subscription-only. Used to be, I could skip an upgrade or two before upgrading rather than buying “new” was no longer an option. So, I’d use what I had until I’d have to buy new the next time, and upgrade at the last possible minute.
It worked for me. I always had access to the software I used on a daily basis (whether earning from it or not), and as long as I had a computer that ran it and electricity, I could work.
Now, I have to be able to cough up and maintain the subscription fee just to have access to the software–software I must have spent thousands on when I first invested and then upgraded several times since the mid-90s. (At the moment, I’m a student again, so I get the student discount, but what happens after I graduate?)
I’ve been screaming for years how the Adobe subscription-only model hurts freelancers and small design businesses who cannot afford monthly fees. Freelancers, especially, are in a bind, as the work volume ebbs and flows. If I hadn’t had an old copy of the software on my computer and had had to pay for a subscription when I was going through an EXTREME rough patch in 2008, I would not have had money for food. The money made from freelancing barely kept me afloat.
So I get it. And I think that for SOME, subscription is FINE. I say, have the OPTION. But DO NOT MAKE IT MANDATORY, EVER, unless you want to lose more customers than you gain, and drive people away from your products. If I ever can’t afford Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign on sub, I have my eye on Procreate. As do many of my peers in graphic and textile/tech design. (You listening, Adobe and Cricut?)
I’ve heard that you can get a deal on Creative Suite on Black Friday, and/or if you threaten to cancel (like one does with one’s cable company). I wouldn’t know; I’m still running CS6 and am not upgrading my operating system because I’m afraid that CS6 won’t work anymore if I do.
I’ve heard good things about the Affinity suite of products, and I looked into them for a bit when I lost my ultra-cheap educational subscription to Creative Cloud (and before I realized CS6 still worked), but there’s definitely a learning curve coming from CS and there were a few key features that they didn’t seem to have. I’m probably at the point where I can just suck up the subscription, but it’s still infuriating. I’d so much rather just pay for my software up front.
I recently have been having all sorts of problems with Design Space. Every time I am on with support they toss me around like a rag just trying to get me to shut up. They want to make money as a company but If they keep alienating their base of devoted customers, then they deserve all the fallout they get. To date I have invested over $9500.00 in equipment and supplies. And now I am being charged just to get the machine to even make the cut. All the files that I purchased outside of Cricut Access will not work all of a sudden. Their support is worthless and their agents have no idea what they are even talking about. Good luck not having to spend 3 hours just to get on the phone with a real person. Absolutely worthless!!!!! It’s no wonder that their competitors are starting to look more and more welcoming. Their software is a joke already without the problems it’s having now. Their quality of supplies are way too expensive for what you get. And half the time their vinyl doesn’t cut right. They are making a mockery of customer service because we are just part of the bottom line for them and their employees. I’d love to see someone try to come screw with their livelihood and see how they would respond!