As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases, including if you buy Office Home 2024 through the one Amazon link below. Microsoft’s own site, Adobe, Apple, Affinity, Blackmagic Design, Literature & Latte, Ulysses, Cultured Code and Todoist pay us nothing, and those links are plain. Every price here was read from the company’s own site, not from an Amazon listing. See our methodology.
Photoshop costs $275.88 a year. Pixelmator Pro costs $49.99, once. Both figures were read from the companies’ own pages on 30 October 2026, and the second costs less than three months of the first.
Not every subscription has a buy-once twin, and the twins are not identical products. But in five common categories — office apps, photo editing, video editing, writing and to-do lists — you can still pay once and own a licence. The question for each is the same: how many months of renting does the one-time price equal, and will you still be using the software after that?
The one calculation that decides it
Break-even in months = one-time price ÷ monthly cost of the subscription.
Use the monthly cost you actually pay. If you’re billed yearly, divide the annual price by 12 first. Then compare the answer to how long you expect to use the software. If you’ll use it for longer than the break-even, buying is cheaper. If you won’t, rent.
Example, with Office: Office Home 2024 is $179.99. Microsoft 365 Personal is $99.99 a year, or $8.33 a month. $179.99 ÷ $8.33 = 21.6 months. Keep Office past month 22 and the one-time copy is cheaper; keep it five years and it’s $319.96 cheaper.
Five rentals, five purchases
| You rent | Rent per year | 5 years renting | You could buy | Once | Break-even |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft 365 Personal | $99.99 | $499.95 | Office Home 2024 | $179.99 | ~22 months |
| Photoshop (single app) | $275.88 | $1,379.40 | Pixelmator Pro (Mac) | $49.99 | ~2 months |
| Premiere (single app) | $275.88 | $1,379.40 | DaVinci Resolve Studio | $236 (sale) | ~10 months |
| Ulysses | $39.99 | $199.95 | Scrivener | $59.99 | 18 months |
| Todoist Pro | $60 | $300 | Things (Mac + iPhone) | $59.98 | 12 months |
Adobe’s single apps are $22.99 a month on an annual plan billed monthly, so $275.88 a year. Every break-even above uses the cheapest way to rent; pay monthly with no annual commitment and each one arrives sooner — which is the point we make at length in annual vs monthly billing.
Office: buy it if you use one computer
Microsoft’s comparison page lists Office Home 2024 at $179.99 as a “one-time purchase for PC or Mac”, next to Microsoft 365 Personal at $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. Amazon also sells Office Home 2024 as an instant download.
What you give up is everything that isn’t the four desktop apps: the 1TB of cloud storage, Outlook, and use across several devices. That’s why the answer splits. One laptop and files kept on it: buy. A household with phones, tablets and shared files: Microsoft 365 Family at $129.99 for up to six people is the better deal, and we ran that arithmetic in is Microsoft 365 worth it.
Photo editing: the fastest break-even on the list
Adobe’s plans page prices Photoshop at $22.99 a month, annual plan, billed monthly. Pixelmator Pro is $49.99 as a one-time purchase on Apple’s own page. $49.99 ÷ $22.99 = 2.2 months.
It’s Mac-only. On Windows, or if you’d rather pay nothing, Affinity says on its own site that it is “free for individuals”, and it combines photo, vector and layout work in one app. Free beats a 2.2-month break-even, but it also means the business model is someone else’s decision — Canva owns Affinity, and we covered what Canva charges for in is Canva Pro worth it.
If you need Photoshop specifically — client files, a studio workflow, plug-ins — none of this applies. Our Creative Cloud breakdown covers who that is.
Video editing: two ways to own it
Premiere is also $22.99 a month on Adobe’s page. Against it:
- DaVinci Resolve Studio is $236 on Blackmagic Design’s page today, labelled “Save 20%” — so a sale, and the list price that implies is $295. At $236 it breaks even in 10.3 months; at $295, 12.8. The free version of Resolve is a full editor on its own, on Mac, Windows and Linux.
- Final Cut Pro is $299.99 once on Apple’s page. Break-even: 13 months. Mac only. Apple’s page also says existing owners “will continue” to get updates.
Apple now rents the same apps
Apple also sells Apple Creator Studio at $12.99 a month or $129 a year: Final Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor and MainStage, plus extra templates and AI features in Keynote, Pages and Numbers. Apple still sells the apps individually, so this is the cleanest rent-or-buy test on the list — same company, same software.
- All three main apps outright: $299.99 + $199.99 + $49.99 = $549.97. At $129 a year, renting takes 4 years and 3 months to cost the same.
- Only Logic Pro ($199.99): renting overtakes buying at 19 months.
- Only Pixelmator Pro ($49.99): buy it. Four months of the subscription ($51.96) already cost more.
Apple’s FAQ adds that some premium content is available only to subscribers, so the bundle isn’t purely a payment plan. But if you use one app, you’re renting five you don’t open.
Writing and to-do lists: smaller numbers, same logic
Ulysses is $39.99 a year or $5.99 a month ($71.88 a year), across Mac, iPad and iPhone. Scrivener is $59.99 once for Mac or Windows, plus $23.99 for the iOS version. Desktop only, Scrivener breaks even against yearly Ulysses in 18 months; desktop plus iPhone ($83.98), in about 25. They are different tools — Scrivener is built for long manuscripts — so the price is a tiebreaker, not the reason.
Todoist Pro is $60 a year billed yearly, or $7 a month. Things is $49.99 for Mac and $9.99 for iPhone — $59.98 for both, which is one year of Todoist. Add the iPad version ($19.99) and it’s $79.97, or 16 months. Things is Apple-only; Todoist runs everywhere and has a free tier that’s enough for plenty of people.
The catch with “buy once”
A one-time licence buys a version, not every future version. Some vendors keep updating old licences, and some charge for major upgrades every few years. We didn’t confirm upgrade terms for anything except Final Cut Pro, so check before you buy. A rule of thumb that survives most upgrade policies: if the break-even is under a third of the time you expect to use the app, buy. Pixelmator Pro, Things and Resolve Studio clear that easily. Office and Scrivener need you to be sure.
Verdict
Buy once if you use one computer, you’ve used the same app for more than two years, and you don’t need to swap live files with other people. For a Mac user who edits photos, Pixelmator Pro against Photoshop is the clearest saving on this list: $49.99 against $1,379.40 over five years.
Keep renting if you work across Mac and Windows, collaborate on shared files, or rely on cloud storage that’s bundled into the subscription — Microsoft 365 Family being the obvious case.
Don’t buy if:
- You’ll use it for less than the break-even. Buying Final Cut Pro for one wedding video is $299.99 for something free Resolve or iMovie would do.
- You’re on Windows and the answer is an Apple app. Final Cut, Logic, Pixelmator Pro and Things don’t run there.
- You’d buy Apple’s apps one by one and only use one. Then buy the one; don’t rent Creator Studio.
- You’re buying to avoid a subscription you barely use. If you open Photoshop twice a year, the answer isn’t a better purchase — it’s Affinity at $0, or nothing.
Microsoft, Adobe, Apple, Blackmagic Design, Affinity, Literature & Latte, Ulysses, Cultured Code and Todoist prices verified on each company’s own pages on 30 October 2026. DaVinci Resolve Studio’s $236 is a sale price shown on Blackmagic’s page that day. Upgrade policies for one-time licences were not verified except where stated. We analyse published pricing and terms — we don’t test these apps hands-on.