Adobe charges £1,000 for being British

If you want to buy Adobe's forthcoming Creative Suite 3 in the UK, be prepared to cough up an extra £1,000 on top of what you'd pay for the same package in the US. After recent pricing discrepancies between the UK and the rest of the world on products such as Windows Vista and the Sony PlayStation 3, Adobe is the latest company to unveil pricing details that put the UK at a disadvantage to everyone else.

The most advanced package, Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection - due to be available in the UK this month along with the rest of the CS3 range - costs $2,499 in the US. That's around £1,266 at today's exchange rate. Adobe, however, has priced the CS3 Master Collection at £2,314 including VAT - more than £1,000 higher than the US price.

Customers in the UK can't buy software from Adobe's US website so they're stuck with paying the higher UK price - unless you order a boxed copy from a US vendor. Other versions of Adobe Creative Suite 3 are similarly priced. The Design Standard package costs the equivalent of £607 in the US, with an actual selling price of just under £1,052 here - a price increase of 73 per cent.

Adobe's Design Premium version is priced at £911 in the US , but £1,656 in the UK - almost 82 per cent more. And the Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium retails for £860 in the US, but is nearly double that in the UK , at £1,656.

Adobe replied that the UK market is smaller than the US, hence the prices going up. "Adobe sets pricing in each market based on customer research, local market conditions and the cost of doing business. The costs of doing business in European markets are significantly higher per unit of revenue than in the US," an Adobe spokesperson told us.

"Pricing is higher in Europe on many goods, not just software. Adobe evaluates pricing with each release, and has reduced up the price differential when possible." We have previously reported on the running petition to bring down the UK price of Windows Vista , as well as the difference in pricing of the Sony PlayStation 3 around the world.