Cricut is changing its recently announced plan to require a subscription to get full use of its craft machines to cut paper and other materials accurately. Following the reaction of artisans and fans who depend on their machines, Cricut’s CEO, Ashish Arora, apologized for the decision and announced that the company will postpone the subscription requirement and provide unlimited uploads for all users with a purchased Cricut device purchased before December 31, 2021 – during the life of your machine.
Without an upload limit, artisans will be able to use Cricut and its mandatory Design Space app as usual. They can create in-app designs or third-party software like Procreate and then format them to be cut into materials such as paper, fabric, vinyl and even wood using a Cricut machine.
Prior to this change, Cricut planned to require a $ 9.99 per month / $ 95.88 per year Cricut Access Standard plan or $ 118.88 per year Premium plan to maintain unlimited uploads. Non-paying owners would be limited to 20 uploads per month, which many creators, who are often in favor of starting Cricut projects in other applications and uploading them to Design Space, feared the device would become unusable.
Arora says people who buy a resold Cricut machine can also get unlimited lifetime uploads, as long as the new owner creates a Cricut account and connects his machine before the end of 2021. Arora says the company is also considering options for space configurations educational or creative that can burn 20 uploads quickly, but had no specs to share other than the general promise that nothing will change before the end of the year.
While in an ideal world, a machine that can cost up to $ 399 would never need a subscription, Cricut at least listened to the concerns of its current customers and offered them what appears to be a good compromise.