Hello Frank,
Unless you need Akeeba Subscriptions and Akeeba Ticket System you don't have to buy a Deluxe subscription. Your Essentials subscription gives you full access to Akeeba Backup, Admin Tools, Kickstart and UNiTE.
The price of the Deluxe and Commerce subscriptions was increased as the result of the price increase of Akeeba Subscriptions. At its old price point of €40 we were losing money very fast, so it came down to either increasing the price or dropping the component.
Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Lead Developer and Director
🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!