The $200 Coffee You Did Not Order
I remember the panic. It was a Tuesday in 2021, and I was staring at a 'Payment Failed' email from a creative suite while a client was waiting for a brand deck. I was paying for twenty apps and using exactly three. It felt like I was renting my own creativity. Fast forward to 2025, and we are in the middle of the 'Great Correction.' If you are still paying a massive monthly tax for tools you only half-use, you are not a pro; you are a mark. Look, I get it. We all jumped on the cloud-subscription bandwagon because it was easy. But now, with Figma's Pro seats hitting $20 a month and Canva making the Affinity Suite free to disrupt the market, the game has changed. It is time to stop clicking 'Subscribe' and start thinking about sovereignty.
Stop Renting Your Brain
For years, we accepted the 'Software Tax' as the cost of doing business. In 2025, that is a loser's mindset. The new Affinity Suite (v3.0) has fundamentally changed the math. Since Canva moved the core desktop apps—Designer, Photo, and Publisher—to a free professional model, the barrier to entry for high-end multidisciplinary work has vanished.
Stop paying Adobe $60 a month just to export a print-ready PDF. Affinity's 'Unified Persona' allows you to jump from RAW photo editing to vector logo creation in the same window. It is local, it is fast, and most importantly, you own the files. If the internet goes down or a company decides to triple their prices, you can still work. That is professional sovereignty.
The Soul Lesson: Your tools should be assets, not liabilities. If you do not own the software, you do not own your workflow.
Figma is a Factory, Not a Sketchbook
Do not get me wrong—I still use Figma. But I stopped trying to make it do everything. In 2025, Figma has evolved into a 'Product OS.' With the launch of Figma Sites and Figma Draw, it is trying to replace your entire stack. If you are building high-velocity SaaS products or working in a massive team, the $20 subscription is worth it for the 'design-to-code' AI features alone.
However, stop using Figma for branding. Stop using it for 100-page brand guides. It still lacks the CMYK depth and PDF/X-4 export reliability of Affinity Publisher. Use Figma for what it is: a collaborative factory for building digital interfaces. For everything else, get back to the precision of local-first tools.
The Fix: Use Figma for the 'handoff' and Affinity for the 'craft.' This hybrid approach keeps your costs down and your output quality high.
The Multidisciplinary Edge
You are told you need to pick a side. You do not. The most successful designers I know in 2025 are using a 'best-of-breed' stack that costs almost nothing.
- Affinity Suite: Your powerhouse for branding, print, and photo. It is free, powerful, and professional.
- Penpot: If you hate Figma's pricing but love the collaboration, use Penpot. It is open-source, uses SVG natively, and keeps your data under your control.
- Sketch: If you are a Mac purist who wants a zen, offline UI tool, Sketch is still the gold standard for native performance.
- Linearity Curve: For my iPad-first folks, this is how you bridge the gap between sketching and vector production without the Adobe bloat.
- Kittl: When you need high-end typography and textures fast without the steep learning curve of a full suite, Kittl is the shortcut.
Reclaim Your Profit
Stop letting software companies eat your margins. The 'Great Correction' of 2025 is your chance to rebuild a workflow that serves you, not a shareholder. Download the Affinity core suite today. Move your collaborative UI work to Penpot if you are tired of the Figma tax.
Go open those old projects, export them to formats you actually control, and stop paying for the privilege of accessing your own work. The industry is moving toward sovereignty. Do not be the last one left paying for a subscription you do not need. Go build something today that you actually own.