How to Find the Adobe Express Add-on Ideas to Build

Fardeen Mansoori

Dec 6, 2025

8 min read

Blog Image

Finding the right idea for an Adobe Express add-on is harder than building it. I’ve shipped 6 add-ons in the past year, 4 funded by Adobe for and the most common question aspiring developers have is: “How do I come up with ideas that people actually use?”

The truth? Great add-on ideas aren’t found in brainstorming sessions. They’re discovered through systematic observation, genuine use, and pattern recognition across creative workflows.

Here’s the exact framework I use to find add-on ideas that solve real problems and attract real users.

1. Be Genuinely Interested in Creative Tools (Non-Negotiable)

This isn’t optional. If you’re building Express add-ons purely for money or grants, users will feel it, and your add-ons will fail.

I’ve always been fascinated by creative tools: how designers think, how workflows break down, how tiny friction points accumulate into hours of wasted time. When I discovered Adobe Express and its add-on SDK, I saw an opportunity to solve problems for a platform I actually wanted to use.

Why genuine interest matters:

  • You’ll notice problems others miss (because you’re living in the product)

  • You’ll stay motivated through the hard parts (debugging, user support, iteration)

  • You’ll build with empathy (you ARE the user)

Ask yourself: If Adobe never funded your work, would you still build Express add-ons? If the answer is “maybe not,” you’re building on shaky ground.

My test: I built Paletify AI (color palette generator) with zero expectation of funding. I just wanted it to exist. It now has 650+ active users and taught me more about the platform than any other project.

2. Use Adobe Express as Your Daily Design Tool

This is where most developers get it wrong: they build FOR Express users without BEING Express users.

I use Adobe Express nearly every day, not just for testing add-ons, but for actual design work: social media graphics, presentation slides, quick mockups. This constant immersion exposes friction points that don’t show up in feature request forums.

How I found real add-on ideas through daily use:

Codify (Code → Beautiful Snippets)

I wanted to share a code snippet on social, but the workflow was painful:

  • Copy the code

  • Paste into a design tool

  • Manually style, color, and format it (10+ minutes wasted)

The gap: Express is great for design, but it isn’t built to understand code or apply syntax highlighting.

The add-on: Codify takes any code snippet and instantly turns it into a beautiful, customizable design with syntax highlighting, themes, and layout options. It saves creators and developers from all the boring formatting work, and has now helped 450+ users create share-worthy code graphics effortlessly.

3. Think From Multiple User Perspectives

Your workflow ≠ everyone’s workflow.

I’m a developer who occasionally designs. But Express serves marketers, educators, small business owners, influencers, and enterprise teams, each with different pain points.

The framework: Put yourself in different user roles and ask specific questions:

As a Marketer:

  • “How do I maintain brand consistency across 50+ social posts?”

  • “How do I quickly localize content for different regions?”

  • “How do I A/B test copy variations efficiently?”

Add-on idea born from this: Repheresely (AI text rewriting with brand voice presets). Marketers can define their brand voice once and apply it to all designs, ensuring consistency without manual editing.

As an Educator:

  • “How do I create engaging lesson materials quickly?”

  • “How do I provide feedback on student designs?”

  • “How do I ensure accessibility in educational content?”

Add-on idea born from this: Textify became surprisingly popular for this kind of use case, extracting text from textbook images to create digital worksheets.

As a Small Business Owner:

  • “How do I create professional-looking content without design skills?”

  • “How do I save money on stock photos/assets?”

  • “How do I quickly generate variations of the same design?”

Add-on idea born from this: Paletify AI (color palette generator). Small business owners struggle with color theory. Paletify generates harmonious palettes from simple prompts like “warm autumn cafe,” removing the guesswork.

As an Enterprise Team:

  • “How do we enforce brand guidelines across team members?”

  • “How do we streamline approval workflows?”

  • “How do we extract analytics from our design output?”

Add-on idea born from this: Brand voice management in Repheresely 2.0, allowing teams to create shared brand presets so every team member writes in the same voice.

4. Explore Adjacent Online Tools

Express doesn’t need to be feature-complete; it needs to be extensible.

One powerful strategy: identify popular standalone web tools that Express users might already be using externally, and integrate them directly into Express.

Examples of standalone tools:

Background Removal

  • Standalone tool: Remove.bg (popular, but requires leaving Express)

  • Add-on opportunity: Build background removal directly into the Express workflow

  • Why it works: Users avoid context-switching and export/import cycles

Code-to-Image Generators

  • Standalone tool: Carbon, Ray.so (for creating pretty code screenshots)

  • My add-on: Codify (450+ users) brings this functionality INTO Express

  • Why it works: Developers creating technical content can stay in Express for the entire workflow

Grammar Checking

  • Standalone tool: Grammarly (users copy/paste text to check, then paste back)

  • My add-on: Repheresely 2.0 checks grammar directly on Express designs with AI explanations

  • Why it works: Zero disruption to creative flow

How to systematically identify these opportunities:

  1. Google “online [X] tool” for common tasks:

  • Image enhancement

  • Color extraction

  • Font pairing

  • QR code generation

  • Photo editing effects

  • Text-to-speech

  • Watermarking

2. Check ProductHunt’s “Productivity” and “Design Tools” categories

  • Sort by most upvoted

  • Look for simple, single-purpose tools

  • Ask: “Would this be better integrated into Express?”

3. Browse browser extensions (Chrome Web Store, Firefox Add-ons)

  • Extensions = proof someone needs this functionality

  • If it exists as a browser extension, it might work as an Express add-on

Action step: Spend 30 minutes browsing ProductHunt’s design tools section. Make a list of 10 tools that Express users might find valuable. That’s 10 potential add-on ideas.

5. Study Competitor Creative Tools

Controversial take: Your best add-on ideas might come from Canva or Figma.

I know this sounds counterintuitive, but shouldn’t we make Express unique rather than copy competitors? But here’s the reality: users switch platforms because of missing features. If you can bring a Figma-level feature to Express via an add-on, you make Express MORE competitive.

Case study: How I got the Design to Code idea

I was browsing Figma plugins and discovered “Figma to Code” converters that export designs as HTML. Thousands of developers use these plugins.

My thought process:

  • “Designers use Figma for UI design, then export to code for development.”

  • “Express is positioning itself for UI/UX design workflows.”

  • “But Express has NO design-to-code export functionality.”

  • “If I built this for Express, it would unlock an entire new user segment: developers who design.”

Result: Design to Code add-on, funded by Adobe, currently in development. It converts Express designs to production-ready HTML/React/SwiftUI with 95%+ accuracy.

6. Follow Adobe’s Stated Priorities

This is the easiest strategy and most developers ignore it.

Adobe occasionally publishes what they want in the ecosystem. In their blog post “7 More Ideas for Much-Requested Adobe Express Add-ons,” they explicitly listed:

  1. Grammar and spell check

  2. Advanced text find/replace with AI for brand language alignment

  3. Import text from copy management platforms

  4. Generate content for games/activities (bingo, crosswords)

  5. Create advanced charts and infographics

  6. Apply image/video effects to imported assets

  7. Generate educational content (presentations, lesson plans)

Guess what I built immediately after reading this?

Repheresely 2.0, which addresses THREE of these requests:

  1. ✅ Grammar and spell check (with AI explanations)

  2. ✅ Advanced text refinement for brand language alignment (custom brand voice prompts)

  3. ✅ Text manipulation with AI (rewriting, translation)

Why this strategy works:

  • Adobe has already validated demand (these are “much-requested”)

  • Adobe is more likely to fund ideas aligned with their priorities

  • You’re solving problems Adobe considers important

Action step: Subscribe to Adobe Express blogs, developer newsletters, and community forums. When Adobe publishes feature requests or ecosystem priorities, treat them as a roadmap.

7. Join the Express Developer Community

Joining the express developer community is very crucial. If you need any kind of help regarding anything, then the community is there for you.

Where to find the community:

  • Adobe Express Add-on Developers LinkedIn Group (where I post most of my updates)

  • Adobe Developer Forums

  • Discord channel

  • Twitter

What to listen for:

  1. “How do I…” questions → Feature gaps that add-ons could fill

  2. “I’m building… but stuck on…” → Common technical challenges that tools could solve

  3. “My users are asking for…” → Direct demand signals

8. Think Beyond Features - Think About Workflows

The shift that changed how I find add-on ideas: Stop thinking about “What feature is missing?” and start thinking “What workflow is broken?”

Feature thinking (surface level):

  • “Express needs a better color picker.”

  • “Express should have more fonts.”

  • “Express needs GIF export.”

Workflow thinking (deeper):

  • “Designers creating social media campaigns have to resize the same design 5+ times for different platforms. How can I automate that entire workflow?”

  • “Marketing teams struggle with brand consistency when multiple people create content. How can I ensure brand voice across all team members’ designs?”

  • “Non-native English speakers using Express make grammar mistakes in their designs. How can I help them create professional-quality text without external tools?”

Workflow thinking leads to more valuable add-ons because you’re solving end-to-end problems, not just adding a button.

Action step: Pick one design task (e.g., “creating Instagram posts”). Map out the ENTIRE workflow from start to finish. Identify every friction point. Each friction point is a potential add-on.

Final Thoughts: Ideas Are Cheap, Execution Is Everything

I shared 8strategies for finding add-on ideas. But here’s the truth: ideas don’t matter much.

In the past year, I’ve had 20+ add-on ideas. I’ve only built 6. The other 14 were either:

  • Not validated (nobody wanted them)

  • Too complex (couldn’t build in a reasonable time)

  • Not aligned with my skills/interests

The developers who succeed aren’t the ones with the most ideas; they’re the ones who:

  1. Pick ONE idea

  2. Validate it quickly

  3. Build an MVP fast

  4. Ship it and gather feedback

  5. Iterate based on real usage

If you build something using these strategies, I’d love to see it. Tag me on Twitter or LinkedIn, I’m always happy to give feedback and help promote new Express add-ons.

Now go build something you are proud of.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. See you in the next one :)