Software for students and freelancers in Morocco start free, buy one thing later

You are running two calendars at once. Coursework has deadlines a professor set; freelance work has deadlines a client set. Neither of them cares that your laptop has eight gigabytes of RAM and a disk that is nearly full.

That puts three real demands on your software, and none of them is “more features”.

• Compatibility: the file has to open on someone else’s machine, in the format they expect — DOCX for the report, PDF for the submission, MP4 for the client, and sometimes a layered file a studio can still edit.
• Continuity: whatever you learn this year, you will still be using in three years. Learning a tool you can afford to keep is worth more than learning the one the tutorial happened to use.
• Weight: a program that stutters on your machine is a program you will avoid at two in the morning, which is when the work actually gets done.

Then there is the income, which is irregular by nature. A subscription that renews during a month with no clients is a real problem, not a rounding error. That single fact should govern everything below: buy short, buy late, and buy only what a paying job has already demanded.

The short answer: for your first month, buy nothing. Use the free stack in the next section, finish two real pieces of work with it, and find out where it actually breaks. The gap is almost always smaller than people fear.

When you do buy, buy one thing — the tool that appears in the work you get paid for.

• If your paid work is visual — social graphics, print, retouching, layout — that is Adobe Creative Cloud, 400 MAD for 4 months, which is 100 MAD a month. The term ends by itself, which is exactly what you want on an irregular income.
• If your paid work is documents, spreadsheets, reports and admin, that is Microsoft 365, 100 MAD for 3 months, or about 33 MAD a month (100 ÷ 3).
• If short-form video has become a repeated deliverable rather than an occasional favour, that is CapCut Pro, 700 MAD for a year.

One thing to be clear about: ROSH™ Company Labs is an independent one-person business in Morocco. We resell genuine licences, and we are not an authorised reseller, partner, affiliate or agent of Adobe, Microsoft, Google or anyone else. Anything not on the list above is quoted on request.

Most of a working setup can cost nothing — and not as a compromise. These are tools people ship paid work with.

• Documents: LibreOffice or Google Docs. Microsoft also offers browser-only Office apps free with an account: fewer features, but they read and write the formats your school expects.
• Images: GIMP, or Photopea if you would rather install nothing. Krita for illustration.
• Vector and print: Inkscape, for logos, icons and layout.
• Interfaces and web: Figma’s free tier is enough for one designer.
• Video: DaVinci Resolve — the free version is a real editor and colour grade, not a trial. CapCut’s free tier covers most social edits.
• 3D: Blender. Audio: Audacity. Notes: Obsidian. Antivirus: Microsoft Defender, already in Windows.
• AI: the free tiers of the main assistants cover most coursework. Pay only when the daily limits start interrupting real work.

Then check what your school unlocks. Many universities issue an email that activates Microsoft 365 for enrolled students, and Autodesk, Figma, JetBrains and GitHub run education programmes with their own verification. Two honest warnings: eligibility is decided by the vendor and your institution, never by us; and some education licences cover coursework only — Autodesk’s does — so read the terms before you invoice a client for a file made under one.

Counted in dirhams, the numbers stay small. Everything here is settled locally over WhatsApp, so no international card is needed.

• A fully free semester: 0 MAD. That is realistic in most fields.
• Adobe Creative Cloud: 400 MAD for 4 months, which is 100 MAD a month. A full year is three terms, 3 × 400 = 1,200 MAD.
• Microsoft 365: 100 MAD for 3 months. A full year is four terms, 4 × 100 = 400 MAD.
• Google AI Pro: 250 MAD for a year — 250 ÷ 12, so just under 21 MAD a month.
• CapCut Pro: 700 MAD for a year.
• Bitdefender Total Security: 399 MAD for a year across 5 devices — 399 ÷ 5, so roughly 80 MAD per device.

A design-led freelance year — Adobe for twelve months, Microsoft 365 for twelve, and Google AI Pro — comes to 1,200 + 400 + 250 = 1,850 MAD. For anything else: contact for pricing.

The inconvenient part. ROSH™ Company Labs is not a formally registered company and issues no tax invoice. If your accountant needs a facture, or you plan to claim the cost as a deductible expense, buy directly from the vendor and pay their price. Purchases here are at your own risk.

A starter kit that costs nothing: LibreOffice or Google Docs, GIMP and Inkscape, DaVinci Resolve, Obsidian, Defender. Add a professional email address that is not your childhood nickname, one folder structure you keep to, and two copies of every client file — a free cloud tier and a USB stick. In your first year, that discipline is worth more than any licence.

Upgrade when one of these three things happens, not before.

1. A paying client sends a layered file your free tool cannot open faithfully.
2. You have been paid twice for the same kind of work, so the tool has proven it earns its cost.
3. An export limit or a watermark is costing you hours or credibility.

Then buy in this order: the tool your paid work needs — Adobe Creative Cloud at 400 MAD for 4 months, or Microsoft 365 at 100 MAD for 3 months. Then Google AI Pro at 250 MAD a year, if you write or code every day. Then CapCut Pro at 700 MAD a year, once short-form video is a repeat deliverable. Then Bitdefender Total Security, 399 MAD a year for 5 devices, if you handle client files on a shared machine. And do not renew anything you did not open last term.