What You'll Learn
- Adobe Express and Adobe Creative Cloud both offer essential creative tools to nonprofits.
- Adobe Express is generally more approachable for the average user, while Adobe Creative Cloud provides more sophisticated tools for creative professionals
- Both are available to nonprofits at significant savings.
The Creative Cloud Pro plan is Adobe's collection of desktop applications, mobile apps, and services for designing and publishing graphics, videos, audio, and printed content. It's packed with industry-standard solutions for those with experience working in these creative mediums.
In December 2021, Adobe launched Adobe Express. Adobe Express is a quick and easy-to-use app that requires much less expertise than many other Adobe solutions. It's available on its own, but it's also included with an Adobe Creative Cloud Pro plan. Adobe Express produces professional-looking, branded visuals that are ready to share in digital and print, bringing the basic features of Photoshop, After Effects, and Acrobat Pro to a beginner-friendly, all-in-one app.
Here, we'll lay out the key defining features of each solution, helping you to decide whether to take the plunge with the Creative Cloud Pro plan or go with the nimble and user-friendly Express app.
What's the Difference Between Adobe Express and Adobe Creative Cloud?
Adobe Express is a standalone application, and it is included in the Creative Cloud Pro plan. You can use it to create and edit graphics, PDFs, photos, videos, and more. It includes plenty of templates, access to Adobe Stock photos, and easy-to-use editing tools. It is the perfect solution for teams that are low on time and expertise but still want to create professional-looking graphics that are in line with their brand.
It's available as both a mobile app and as a web app that you can use from any computer.
Adobe Creative Cloud is a collection of creative design applications. Adobe's Creative Cloud Pro plan includes Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, After Effects, and more, and you can harness all of these tools to bring to life pretty much any creative vision. From video and audio content to social media graphics, booklets, and other printed materials, Creative Cloud has powerful, professional tools to help you create practically anything that you can imagine.
In a hurry? Jump straight to the comparison chart.
What Do I Get with Adobe Express?
Adobe Express is available as a standalone product, but it's also included in the Creative Cloud Pro plan. If you're short on time and budget, or don't have an expert on your team who can really make the most of the more complex Creative Cloud tools, Adobe Express is likely the right choice for you. It's a great stepping stone that can produce brilliant graphics and outreach collateral without the need for intricate knowledge.
All the Basic Tools
Adobe Express provides the core features that you need to create images and graphics for print and the web. Use it to create newsletters, make photos and videos for social media posts (including Instagram and TikTok), assemble reports and presentations, and more.
Templates Galore
If the blank page overwhelms you, then the templates available through Express can help you to push through that initial creative block and help you to get to the end product more quickly. You can also export your designs in whatever format you choose or schedule them to publish on your social media accounts straight from the app.
Easy Sharing
Adobe Express includes collaborative features that allow you to share designs with your team, comment on them, and edit them collaboratively. This is also a time-saving element that allows you to have everyone weigh in without downloading and sharing the current design with everyone each time you make a change.
Cost-Effective for Small Nonprofits
Adobe Express is also the more affordable option, since nonprofits can get access to the Premium version for free. So if you lack the budget to invest in Creative Cloud, or the expertise to really make the most of it, but still want to produce eye-catching graphics, Adobe Express is likely the right choice.
Which Features Are Exclusive to Adobe Creative Cloud?
If you have in-house expertise in the Creative Cloud apps, and the need and capacity to create sophisticated marketing materials from scratch, then you might benefit from investing in Creative Cloud.
(Remember, the Creative Cloud Pro plan also includes Adobe Express, so you'll also get access to all of the benefits we mentioned above.)
Professional-Grade Creative Tools
The Creative Cloud Pro plan bundles the industry standard software for photo editing, graphic design and illustration, video and audio editing, and more. It's used by professionals in all creative industries. You get apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, After Effects, Acrobat, and Dreamweaver, all in one package.
Creative Cloud Pro also includes specialized apps like Adobe Lightroom, which lets you manage and organize photos, and Character Animator, which helps you to use your own expressions to animate characters in a video.
Cross-App Integration
Creative Cloud Pro's apps work seamlessly with one another, which is an advantage if you're building coordinated campaigns across social media, videos, web pages, and printed materials.
For example, Illustrator is a graphics editor for professional artists and designers. You can create design elements and dial in your branding in Illustrator and then use those designs across your campaigns. Drop illustrations straight into InDesign if you're designing posters, e-books or printed items, or into After Effects to make them into motion graphics for your videos.
What AI Features Come with Adobe Express and Creative Cloud?
Both Adobe Express and Creative Cloud provide access to Adobe Firefly generative AI. In both cases, you can use Firefly to generate images and text effects. However, Adobe Express's access is much more limited: You get 250 monthly credits for these AI features compared to the unlimited monthly credits that you get with an Adobe Creative Cloud Pro plan.
In addition, Creative Cloud Pro includes 4,000 monthly credits for AI features for video and audio. Creative Cloud Pro also lets you use AI models from other vendors, including Google and OpenAI.
SIDE NOTE: It's a good idea to have a generative AI use policy for your nonprofit. To learn how, see our guide.
What Else Comes with Both Adobe Express and Creative Cloud?
Cloud Storage
Both Adobe Express and Creative Cloud Pro provide 100 GB of cloud storage for each user account.
Access to Fonts and Stock Content
Adobe Express and Adobe Creative Cloud both include access to Adobe Fonts — Adobe's vast collection of typefaces for use in your projects — as well as the Adobe Stock repository of stock photos and videos. Certain kinds of premium Adobe Stock content, as well as Stock content licensed for editorial use, require a separate Adobe Stock membership.
Comparison Chart: Adobe Express vs. Adobe Creative Cloud
| Adobe Express | Adobe Creative Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Create visual, audio, and video content | X | X |
| Collaborate with colleagues in-app | X | X |
| Use templates, design elements, and stock photos to build designs | X | X |
| Incorporate your organization's branding, logo, and colors | X | X |
| Remove backgrounds on photos | X | X |
| Animate text | X | X |
| Generate images and text effects using Adobe Firefly AI | X | X |
| Access AI tools for video and audio | X | |
| Use the specialized capabilities of different apps | X | |
| Use Lightroom's presets and granular adjustments to edit photos | X | |
| Design and publish books, magazines, and interactive PDFs, incorporating elements from other Creative Cloud apps | X | |
| Design visual elements from scratch | X | |
| Create virtually signable PDFs | X | |
| Create motion graphics, original animations, and expressive animated characters | X | |
| Make use of industry-standard video editing tools, suitable for social media posts all the way up to feature-length films | X | |
| Create and mix sound effects for videos or podcasts | X | |
| Design websites, games, and apps | X |
How Much Do Adobe Express and Creative Cloud Cost?
The free version of Adobe Express is free to all consumers. The premium version, which is the one described in this post, is available to nonprofits as a donation directly through Adobe.
You can see how the various Adobe Express plans compare on Adobe's website.
Nonprofits can request discounted Adobe Creative Cloud Pro plans through TechSoup. With an Adobe Creative Cloud Pro plan, you'll get at least 49 percent off the market rate. When you request this offer from TechSoup, you pay a one-time up-front administrative fee of $5. This small fee helps cover the costs of our programs
Choose Your Solution
Adobe Express and Creative Cloud will both produce high-quality results that can be shared across platforms in order to promote campaigns, educate supporters, or create a better user experience on your website. Which one you choose will depend on the level of expertise in your team, as well as what you need the tools for.
Additional Resources
- Get started with Adobe Express with these 5 tips.
- See a webinar on What Is Adobe Creative Cloud and How Nonprofits Can Use It.
- Get questions answered in the Adobe for Nonprofits FAQ.
Adobe is a TechSoup partner; we work together to provide discounted Adobe Creative Cloud Pro licenses to 501(c)(3) nonprofits and public libraries.
Top photo: Shutterstock
Originally published: October 4, 2022. Last updated: October 7, 2026.
