Another year, another Figma pricing update
Surprise! Figma is changing its pricing strategy…again.
But this time, they’re forcing you to buy products you probably don’t need. In 2024, we saw Figma enact its new seat structure to accommodate the launch of “Dev Mode,” which allowed Figma to begin charging for developers accessing design specs. But going into 2025, we have a new seat structure and pricing strategy to re-learn.
Figma’s December 10th announcement was a mixed bag of bummers and small victories for users. Although the price increase for the full seat is a huge disappointment, Figma actually listened to some feedback and is making changes to unintentional billing as well as a new workflow for external collaboration.
Let’s get into the Figma changes to expect in 2025 by reviewing the new seat structure and pricing, why there even is a price increase, and updates to billing for admins and freelancers.
New Figma seat structure & pricing
If you haven’t seen the new Figma prices and seat terminology, I got you. But don’t freak out yet; these prices won’t take effect until March 11, 2025. So if you want to search for an alternative design tool, you have several months to find the right fit for you. And of course, if you have a free plan, the price increases won’t affect you (hey, they didn’t take that away!).
Before we get into the new prices, let’s review the new seat structure. Earlier this year, Figma announced the 4 seats: full, dev mode, viewer, and viewer-restricted. Now the seats have changed to: full, dev, collab, and view. In summary, they’ve added the collab seat, and merged viewer and viewer-restricted seats (the only difference was that viewers could self-upgrade to full; more on that in the “Admin must approve seat upgrades” section).
But here’s the kicker — the price increases…there are as follows for each Figma plan per month:
Full seat
- Enterprise: $75 to $90 (20% increase)
- Organization: $45 to $55 (22.2% increase)
- *Professional: $15 to $20 (33.3% increase)
Dev seat
- Enterprise: $35 (no increase)
- Organization: $25 (no increase)
- *Professional: $15 (Dev seats were not included in this plan in 2024)
Collab seat (new seat type in 2025)
- Enterprise: $5
- Organization: $5
- *Professional: $5
View seat
- Enterprise: Free
- Organization: Free
- Professional: Free
*Note: Professional plan prices vary depending on if you pay monthly or annually. I took the prices for paying monthly for the above values and percentages.
If you’re just NOT ok with the new prices, you’re not the only one. The design community is pissed to say the least. The company I work for pays for my Figma account, but I’m still shocked. And I truly feel for those who freelance and pay for their own tools; they’re the ones taking the biggest hit with a 33% price jump (I hope you get that tax deduction).
You may be wondering, “WHYYY?!” Well, Figma has their reason and you probably won’t like it.
Mandatory upgrade to Figma products you don’t need
Figma’s full seat will include access to Figma Design, Dev Mode, Figma Slides, and FigJam starting in March 2025, which is how they’re validating the significant price increase. As of today, Figma Slides has been free (since it’s in beta), and FigJam has been an add-on product. In 2025, you’ll have no choice but to pay extra for these secondary products. But will you actually use all these bells and whistles included?
Personally, I have never used Figma Slides (Flides) or FigJam. For slide decks, I must use a company-branded template in Microsoft Powerpoint (not ideal, but it gets the job done). And for brainstorming workspaces, my company uses Miro (I love Miro — it’s very intuitive).
Maybe you are like me or maybe you do use Figma Slides and/or FigJam. Regardless, most companies already have tools to cover these communication and collaboration needs. Most of us don’t need a second solution forcefully thrown in our laps.
Not only will this surge your monthly Figma bill, it will disrupt team collaboration. For instance, if a designer with a full seat decides to use FigJam (since they’ll be able to), their project manager with a view seat will not be able to edit the FigJam board. So, they’ll have to be upgraded to a collab seat.
This all sounds pretty intentional to me. I’m guessing Figma Slides and FigJam aren’t performing as expected, so they’re bundling all the products into one subscription (kind of like Adobe’s subscription model). As said before, there are many other tools already embedded in product teams’ processes that they’re trying to override. Figma Design is fantastic, but I just don’t need these other products.
Do you think Figma will build another product? Maybe Figma Project Management? Might I suggest, “Figma Kanban” or “FigBan” for the name.
Admins will have to approve seat upgrades
Over the last couple years, Figma received backlash from users who received higher bills than anticipated — caused by users with a view seat unintentionally upgrading their accounts to full seats. One great thing that came from Figma’s December 10th announcement was that they are allowing admins to approve or reject all user attempts to upgrade.
Previously, admins could only prevent users from self-upgrading by giving users a viewer-restricted seat. But users with a view seat could still upgrade their account by simply making an edit to a file they were given “Can edit” permissions to or by clicking an “Edit file” button. To make matters worse, admins wouldn’t be notified of the upgrades (no wonder they were surprised by their Figma bill).
Soon, instead of upgrades being controlled by user actions, admins will have to approve every upgrade request before a user receives a paid seat (and it shows up on the bill). Even better, the user who requests the upgrade will be given temporary access to the seat they requested for 3 days.
This was a frustrating and deceptive UX pattern, so this is a huge win for admins of organization and enterprise plans, and will prevent errors and bills from skyrocketing.
Connected Projects for freelancers & agencies
Though this was initially announced at the 2024 Config, Figma also mentioned the Connected Projects in the December 10th update. Figma has been a horrible experience for freelancers and agencies because they haven’t been able to collaborate without paying extra. If a freelancer, with their own Figma license, needed to access an agency’s Figma file, the agency would have to add the freelancer as a full seat to their plan (multiplying licenses and burning money). So, Connected Projects is a means to alleviate this duplication and annoyance.
Connected Projects will create a shared workspace between freelancers and agencies so they can collaborate with each other without requiring one freelancer to be added to multiple plans (like if they work with several agencies). Figma hasn’t mentioned much else about this new feature, but they have allowed projects to be transferred across enterprise, organization, and professional plans.
Though there isn’t a set date for this to roll out other than “coming later” in 2025, we can be optimistic that Figma is at least addressing this major user need.
I know, a Figma price increase is not what anyone wanted going into 2025. On top of that, Figma is adopting a subscription model very similar to Adobe’s (the merger fell through, but the inspiration is strong). And though the new prices and reason for doing so suck, Figma has taken feedback to make change for the better.
Don’t get me wrong; I LOVE Figma Design. It will be my go-to UX/UI tool for years to come (or until another tool disrupts the UX industry). But the annual revision of its pricing strategy is getting a little out of hand. It changes every year, and it’s clearly taking advantage of product teams by making them pay for products they probably don’t need.
Who knows? Maybe if enough people give their feedback and constructive criticism on the new subscription model (via the Figma Community Forum), we’ll see another change next year.
