Adobe After Effects 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
Integrations
User Reviews

Overview

Adobe After Effects

4.7

(441)

Pricing

Starting at $19.99 per month

About Adobe After Effects

Adobe After Effects is a motion graphics platform that helps businesses design animated videos and streamline visual effects (VFX) processes. It enables graphic designers to store digital content in a centralized repository, share files with internal and external stakeholders and remove objects from photos as well as videos.

The application lets professionals configure keyframes, add audio files in videos and handle keying and compositing operations. Features of Adobe After Effects include digital asset management, a content library, data import/export, video rendering and more.

Pricing is available on a monthly subscription and support is extended via email, videos, documentation and other online measures.

Adobe After Effects Screenshots

Adobe After Effects Pricing and Plans

Starting price: $19.99 per month

Free Trial

Free Version

Adobe After Effects

$31.49

flat rate, per month

Plan includes:

100 GB Storage
Access to Latest Features and Updates
Adobe Fonts
Adobe Portfolio

Creative Cloud All Apps - Individuals

$52.99

flat rate, per month

Plan includes:

100 GB Storage
20+ Creative Cloud Apps
Access to Latest Features and Updates
Adobe Fonts
Adobe Portfolio

Creative Cloud All Apps - Students and Teachers

$19.99

flat rate, per month

Plan includes:

100 GB Storage
20+ Creative Cloud Apps
Access to Latest Features and Updates
Adobe Fonts
Adobe Portfolio
Free Templates
Step-by-Step Tutorials

Business

Pricing available upon request

Plan includes:

100 GB Storage
20+ Creative Cloud Apps
Access to Latest Features and Updates
Adobe Fonts
Adobe Portfolio
Free Templates
Step-by-Step Tutorials

Adobe After Effects Features

Popular features found in Animation
2D Drawing
3D Modeling
Media Import
Rendering
Video Editing
More features of Adobe After Effects
3D Video Editing
Animations & Transitions
Collaboration Tools
Content Library
Content Management
Digital Asset Management
Drag & Drop
Media Library
Motion Tracking
Preview Functionality
Text Editing
Text Overlay
Video Content

Adobe After Effects Integrations

Adobe Premiere Pro

Integration rated 4.8 from 105 reviews

Adobe Photoshop

Integration rated 4.8 from 77 reviews

Adobe Illustrator

Integration rated 4.7 from 66 reviews

Media Encoder

Integration rated 4.8 from 30 reviews

Adobe Creative Cloud

Integration rated 4.8 from 15 reviews

Adobe After Effects User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.7

Ratings Breakdown

77%

21%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

3.9

Value for money

4.2

Customer support

4.1

Functionality

4.7

Samuel I.

Verified reviewer

Internet

2-10 employees

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed June 2024

Adobe Effects Industry Standard Video Editing Tool.

Adobe After Effects is the right software for all video editing needs. It gives us all the tools we need for creating industry standard videos for clients and promotional purpose.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Value for money. You can employ professionals for Gigs. Used for multiple editing purpose, animation. You can create effects or purchase effects online. Can extract and export audio.

Cons:

Might consume RAM on your PC depending on your PC Specification. Not easy to use as Adobe Premiere Pro. Videos exported are large in size and needs to be compressed by other softwares.

Reasons for choosing Adobe After Effects

Videos can be edited without limits. You can create effects and sell.

Chris T.

Verified reviewer

Design

11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed February 2025

Top Quality Motion Graphics and Animation software

After Effects takes time to learn, but it is worth putting in the hours. You are always learning new things and they are always trying to improve the workflow. Its is the go to programme for animation and motion graphics.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I use After Effects on a daily basis for animation and motion graphics. It has everything a creative needs to make professional animations and videos for social media or TV. The possibilities are endless and the amount of adds-on and plugins are very vast and enable you create stunning VFX and motion graphics.

Cons:

The updates to After Effects can mean that you need to have a fast machine to be able to preview some complex clips. They keep making it better however you need to have a good machine to be able to keep up.

Andre S.

Verified reviewer

Food & Beverages

2-10 employees

Used monthly for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed November 2023

Very robust editing software but difficult to learn

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Previously 4

Functionality

Previously 5

Pros:

Can accomplish editing and effects in this program that can not be done elsewhere.

Cons:

Very steep learning curve and the program will freeze at times losing all of your work.

James T.

Verified reviewer

Health, Wellness and Fitness

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed October 2024

After Effects is the key to great motion video.

Fantastic! After Effects has become the core of any audio video presentation!

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The versatility. I like how easy it is to import footage and begin adding effects immediately

Cons:

I wish there was greater alignment between After Effects and other Adobe products.

Andrew G.

Verified reviewer

Entertainment

Self-Employed

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed October 2024

Extremely Powerful But Poor Performance Stiffles Creativity

Overall, despite the horrific performance, it's my go to for video editing as there simply isn't a better tool.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The pros are numerous. It might be the most powerful video editing tool available. There are many add-ons and mods available to simplify daily routine tasks and take animations to the next level. The user interface could use some work, but overall it's not that complicated once you get used to it.

Cons:

The biggest problem is pre-renders in the timeline. One tiny adjustment and the entire timeline has to re-render and each time long form content has to re-render can take as long as an hour. Imagine waiting an hour for every edit to pre-render so you can see the result. Yeah, that makes After Effects almost unusable. It's so bad that I have to structure how I film and often break up renders into multiple projects otherwise I would never get anything done.

Reasons for choosing Adobe After Effects

I have been using Adobe products since 1991.

Jon M.

Verified reviewer

Design

Self-Employed

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed March 2025

All in one animation software

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

After Effects allows creation of pretty and attractive animations. For this price, that’s normal, it provides many plugins that simplify the process

Cons:

The learning curve is long, it takes a while to learn how to extremely use it

John Angelo C.

Verified reviewer

Marketing and Advertising

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed February 2025

Why did I avoid this for so long?!

Adobe After Effects is a game-changer, I've been using Adobe Premiere Pro for 11 years and not touching Adobe After Effects because it looks hard but I decided to try and it's not that hard when you have knowledge in editing. Been using this for 2 years now and counting.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

This software makes every editing idea, possible.

Cons:

Need a powerful pc, my old pc can't keep up so I decided to get a new one.

Keely W.

Verified reviewer

Media Production

Self-Employed

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed April 2025

After Effects sets in motion

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I have used it sometimes in a simple way. It's complete for animations. While I use it, it gives me better results than products like Canva

Cons:

It's not for beginners and requires some time to learn it. I spent months to understand the basic concepts and until now I cannot claim to be a pro

Verified

Reviewer

Wholesale

1001-5000 employees

Used monthly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed January 2025

A leader, but with room to improve

I love After Effects as a whole, but I do think there's room for improvement to match others in the industry.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

After Effects is a feature-packed animation software that integrates seamlessly with the Adobe Creative Cloud workflow. It is a high-level professional tool that can create stunning animations in both 2D and 3D.

Cons:

This program has the steepest learning curve of almost any product I've used in the 2D animation space. It is also a very beefy program that I do not recommend unless you are on strong hardware.

Verified

Reviewer

Non-Profit Organization Management

2-10 employees

Used monthly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed January 2025

Great tool to make high quality lower thirds