Autocad's high pricing debate.

[cupax]

Hello.

I would like to open a debate about Autocad or all other Autodesk's pricing politics.

Of course I'm aware that they are a private firm and the market decides the final price, but being a (non official) industry standard it is hard to avoid their software if you want to be taken seriously.

Personally I think their software is way way too expensive. While a huge architectural or engineering firms can afford this because of well paid big projects, small firms are completely lost. No matter what size of projects you need, you still use 95% of the software functionality.

We are a micro firm of 3 architects and in Europe a full Autocad costs 5250 Euros - that is 5668 USD. A price we can't afford so we are forced to use "fake Autocad" - Brycscad, but its functionality is way behind the original and Autocad LT would not satisfy our needs for 3D modelling. I know many others who decided to go with pirated software for the same reason.

I also think that software developement doesn't need to be as fast as it is now. Us, and probbaly 95% of other users would still be perfectly happy with the functionality of Autocad 2010. I would much more like Autocad to be way cheaper and would easily agree for updates over 3 or even 5 years.

Personally I would find it acceptable to pay not more than 1000 USD for a full Autocad program, and maybe a 100-200 Usd for the subscription.

What are your thoughts?

Dave

[rkmcswain]

@azeembaig94  wrote:

The problem deepens when you understand that the people who are struggling in there careers are left no options by autodesk but to pirate/cheat.  why not autocad would be priced at say 100-200 $ per year or 20 $ /month .

Not true. Autodesk is not a monopoly. There are other software vendors that make comparable applications that cost much less.

AutoCAD is priced based on the market = As high as possible, while still low enough that customers will rent it. It's a fine balance, and the beancounters that come up with this number are probably paid more than programmers who write the stuff.

[RobDraw]

---

@azeembaig94 wrote:

The problem deepens when you understand that the people who are struggling in there careers are left no options by autodesk but to pirate/cheat.

---

What about the legal option to not use the software? Breaking the law is choice.

[azeembaig94]

Alright , my point is not piracy but to encourage legal customers. 

Come on, we are living in 2019 and there are other merging companies' solution as compared to autocad, my point is that autodesk should adapt to change other wise there are examples of black berry and nokia right at front .

The only way to survive in the market is to rule over it and by attracting maximum customers, even at a low price . The policy which made china today world power is :

" Less Profit  - More Sale" => makes slow but steady huge win .

I dont know how autodesk is miscalculating this !

[pendean]

All valid discussions, but Autodesk is just not interested at this time sadly.

Read these from their recent past to understand what motivates them
https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2017/02/07/autodesk-ceo-out-after-management-coup.html
https://www.geospatialworld.net/blogs/carl-bass-steps-down-autodesk-ceo/
https://www.upfrontezine.com/2018/07/upf-985.html

and so much more out there.

[Tomislav.Golubovic]

All valid points, but you're not running a company of this size who's interest is to get the share price to go higher and higher, quicker, not slower.

They have transitioned to the subscription model, and it's not going away. Yes, there are other options in the industry, but the focus is BIM and the Cloud, and you can see that by the push for BIM360 and the products that work with it.

If you want to make another CAD piece of software, then by all means go for it, but look at the other players in the CAD market, they have some share, but I can't see that increasing to take over Autodesk. Hell, there are free versions of CAD out there, but they don't have any real market share either.

[wai1954]

We would not be talking about this if Autodesk used the vigour of its fight against piracy equally across the globe.

There is absolutely no way you can offer to do drawings using AutoCAD, Inventor or Revit at rates of $10/hour or less. There are simply not enough hours in the day to earn enough from this and pay wages (even sweatshop ones), utilities, office space rentals, computer hardware, management, executives, etc.

Australia has been going through an infrastructure binge however very little of the bulk of the CAD work is going to Australian based companies. We are also building high rise apartments like there is no tomorrow and yes, many of them are coming up with structural faults, however again, the CAD work is going to outfits having it done in China.

Why?

Because if only a fraction of 1% of the licences used in China are legitimate, there would be more licences than in Australia.

Companies using these sweatshops believe that because they are operating at arms length, they have no liability, however remember that if a reasonable person could work out that such pricing would not be possible, so should companies using these services.

Autodesk (and other CAD Vendors) are turning a blind eye to this.

Then there are multi-national companies manipulating Autodesk's licensing conditions. They are buying licences in jurisdictions where there is a pricing advantage. They achieve this very simply. They will buy the required number of licences where the price is favourable. The software is downloaded and installed on notebooks, activated, and then shipped around to their various international offices. The software will now run without any hindrance. The CAD Managers where the notebooks are sent to are told that staff (or contractors) using it must not login with the software to anything Autodesk, and ALL help must only ever be sent to the office where the licences were purchased. It is from there that Autodesk will be contacted.

So, all we are asking for is fair pricing and fair enforcement. As things stand it is neither. The pricing is NOT fair and equitable by any stretch of the imagination, and enforcement is on the basis of who is a soft touch.

[Tomislav.Golubovic]

I think you're a little bit loose with your interpretation of the licencing. They are possibly Autodesk's bigger accounts and that's the head office where the licences are bought, and as for the support, they are probably directed to a central place because that's the agreement with Autodesk.

If its a genuine piracy issue, you can always report it

[wai1954]

Autodesk's licences are only valid for the country in which the licence is purchased. If you attempt to activate it in another country, you will be told you have to "localise" it which means you have to pay the price difference between the local rice and that in the country in which it was purchased if it is higher. There is incidental use permitted, however the only time Autodesk knows about it is if a call to support is made or the user signs in from the software.

[Tomislav.Golubovic]

Not if you have ETR licences.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

>> Autodesk must understand that the pay scale is not

>> the same worldwide as if it is in USA or Europe,

This discussion is as old as Autodesk exists, the result is then another trouble with international customers buying the software at the cheapest market and using it world-wide.

Other question: is your hardware cheaper than anywhere else? Was there ever a discussion about a laptop has to have a tenth of the price compared to European or USA values?

- alfred -

[peterm]

Hi Dave,

I agree with you.

Originally we used to purchase new AutoCAD licences every 3-4 years when there were significant improvements in the software.

Our last full purchase was 2011 which did pretty much everything we needed it to do.

Unfortunately with the introduction of Windows 10, the old AutoCAD wouldn't work on any new machines purchased and so we were forced to upgrade our AutoCAD and move onto subscription.

Now we are stuck with extortionately high annual subscription fees for little or no improvement in the software.

Ideally we would like to purchase our licences outright and forego any further upgrades.

Moving over to an alternative CAD program is not an option as AutoCAD is the only one which does everything we want. But why can't we just buy it and be done?

[cupax]

Simply because Autodesk has no profit from people like you.

Software can't be improved forever. As you said the 2011 version was already good enough for you, as it was probably for 90% of the users.

That's why almost every software company is switching to subscription - to force users to pay them even if they don't want or need to.

But then Autodesk is also targeting US market, has no clue (or interest) what is happening in other smaller countries.

In US an average architect's sallary is 50.000$ per year, while an Autocad license is 1610$ per year.

In our country an average architect's sallary is 15.000$ per year, while Autocad costs 1965$ per year.

Now you find the logic in that?!?

[RobDraw]

Your numbers are wrong. Where are you getting these figures? Inaccurate facts invalidates anything else you say.

[cupax]

US prices:

https://www.autodesk.com/buy-online

SLO prices:

https://www.arhinova.si/cenik.html (check the first line, it is in Eur).

US architect's salary: https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/architect/salary/

SLO salary is as I said, I'm an architect and I know it.

[Alfred.NESWADBA]

Hi,

please do not forget that USA shows prices without tax, Europe by default including tax, that makes your difference.

- alfred -

[peterm]

What was wrong with the old system where you could choose to either buy a particular release of AutoCAD or go on subscription and receive regular support and updates?

That way, larger organisations could control their budgets and maintenance by going on subscription and smaller organisations could limit their costs by making a one-off purchase. Happy customers all round.

I wouldn't mind so much if there were significant improvements in the software each year, but as I said before, there has been nothing of note (from our point of view) since 2010/2011.

[cupax]

Not true.

Check the very first line where it states, that the tax (DDV) is not included.

And in our coutry it is 22%!!! How much it is in US states? Between 0 and 10%.

So really no comparison here.

[RobDraw]

[start sarcasm] Even in the US, there are huge disparities in income and cost of living but we all have to pay the same price. That's ridiculous! [end sarcasm]

[Anonymous]

That is exactly our issue as well. No significant benefits to newer versions but annual costs that can’t be sustained in a small firm. We are testing BricsCad.

[rkmcswain]

@peterm  wrote:

What was wrong with the old system where you could choose to either buy a particular release of AutoCAD or go on subscription and receive regular support and updates?

What was wrong with it? Unpredictable cash flow/income for Autodesk.

Someone had a light bulb go off and thought "what if we can force our customers pay every year, at the same time, the same amount?" --- and voila - a steady income stream was born. But of course, Autodesk didn't really invent this, they just copied the last business to do it.