Changes Coming to Fusion 360 for Personal Use - Blog Post & FAQ

[jodom4]

 UPDATE Sept. 25, 2020: STEP Export stays in Fusion 360 for personal use

STEP export will remain available for Fusion 360 for personal use. This removal of STEP export was previously announced as part of the changes to curb misuse of Fusion 360 for personal use by commercial users. This change had unintended consequences for the hobbyist community. For this reason, we have made the decision to continue to allow STEP export for personal, non-commercial users. It remains in product unchanged and will not be removed as other announced changes roll out this October and January.

We want you to know, while the changes to the personal use entitlement were necessary, we remain committed to our community. You will continue to see development and investment in Fusion 360 for personal use.

UPDATE: There have been lots of discussions on social media and on our forums. We understand the emotions you’re all going through, so in the spirit of clarity, I want to break it down for you with the most accurate information about what is changing, directly from our team. 

___

Here are 8 quick answers to the most common questions we’ve seen in the community.

1 – Is Fusion 360 for Personal Use still free?

Yes. Fusion 360 for Personal Use remains free. It’s not going away.

---

2 – What does the 10 active documents change really mean?

You still keep your data and can have unlimited number of documents (3D design, drawing, PCB) as well as projects (top level folders in your data panel) in your account. 

• Today all your designs and documents are active by default. You can open any design no matter how old or new and they will open. 
• What this change means: 
  • 10 active documents means that you have 10 spots for any document to open and be editable at any given time. All your other documents will be stored in your projects in a new inactive state. They will remain yours, saved in your projects. 
  • When you reach your 10 document capacity, and you want to revisit an older design and open it up, you can do so by deactivating an active document and activating the inactive one to swap places with. Again, you continue to keep all your designs and projects with no limits on how many you can have in inactive state.  
  • PDFs, images, presentations, spreadsheets, etc do not count towards the 10 active document allowance.
  • If you have an assembly with referenced designs in it, the assembly and each reference (if opened) will count as 1 document each. Assemblies can reference active and inactive documents. You will still be able to edit the referenced designs as long as they are also active. If your referenced designs in the assembly are inactive, you can still open your assemblies, but the references will be read only.
  • Electronics Design Library, schematic, 2D PCB count as 1 document.

• How would this work?
  • The interactions of how you do this is still being worked on, and any existing experience around archiving projects from Fusion Team is not indicative of what this new interaction may be, that’s why it’s slated for January 2021. We hope that you understand that we are trying to put limits in place to stop commercial mis-use, while still enabling the vast majority of hobbyists to continue to design and make with little to no impact.

---

3 – Can I still machine parts?

Yes. 2, 2.5 and 3 axis milling will still be available in the new Personal Use offering. 

• More advanced manufacturing functionality such as 3+2 axis, 4 axis, and 5 axis milling will only be available in the paid subscription. 
• Toolpath simulation in the Manufacture workspace is not going anywhere and will still be available. 
• Automatic tool change capability will not be available, and rapid feedrate are limited to cutting feedrate.

---

4 – Can I still 3D Print?

Yes, STL Export will still be available in Fusion 360 for Personal Use.

• You can still use Fusion 360 for 3D printing with File > 3D print > send to print utility of your choice, File Export > STL or Save As STL

---

5 – Can I still laser-cut or do 2D routing?

Save As DXF is still available from sketch. 

• DXF will not be a supported file format from File > Export, but you will still be able to right click on a sketch in the browser and select Save As DXF for your laser cutting and routing needs.

---

6 – Can I still export my designs as STEP?

Yes, STEP export will still be available from the in-product File > Export dialog as well as Fusion Team.

Export of STEP will be not be available from the in-product File > Export dialog on Oct. 1, 2020. After Oct. 1,  You can still export your designs as STEP file formats via Fusion Team in your browser. This workflow will remain until Jan 19, 2021. 

• To get to your Fusion Team page, open the data panel, go into one of your projects, and click on the “Open on the Web” icon.

---

7 – Does Extension Access mean Scripts and Add-ins?

No, you still have access to scripts and add-ins downloaded from the Autodesk App Store, there is no change here. 

• You will still be able to leverage our API as well as the add-ins available on our App Store.
• Extensions in this context refer to the Manufacturing Extensions available to purchase. These are the capabilities like Probing, 4 axis Rotary, 5 axis Steep & Shallow Strategies that extend your manufacturing capabilities with more convenience, faster machine times, and higher quality finishing.  

---

8 – Are there changes to Education, Startup, Trial & Paid Subscriptions?

There are no changes to these offerings.

• Just to clarify, this change does not impact the trial, Education offering, Startup offering, or the Paid subscription. Product updates will continue to be delivered to all of our offerings, additional advanced functionality may be excluded from the Personal offering moving forwards.
• We will continue to support the Personal Use offering with product updates, improvements, fixes, as well as new features moving forward.

____

Hey everyone,

As announced on the blog, soon we'll be making some changes to the Fusion 360 for Personal Use offering. We’re making these changes so that we can continue to offer Fusion 360 for Personal Use free of charge, clearly differentiating between what’s available in each offering, which we hope will reduce confusion, misuse, and abuse, whether it was intentional or unintentional. 

Don’t worry - Fusion 360 for Personal Use is not going away, it will still be free for anyone working on non-commercial hobby projects so you can bring your ideas from concept to creation. 

If this is your first time hearing about this announcement, we encourage you to check out our blog post for the full announcement as well as our FAQ, where we answer more specific questions in detail. 

> See the blog post announcement

> See the FAQ 

[marcin_szczurowski]

Now this seriously looks like a shot in a knee.

Yes, a lot of students and hobbyists have projects that are over 10 files large. Also, a lot of them use STEP export. That move will actually take away tens or hundreds of hours of their hard work on projects, that won’t ever bring them adequate earnings, if any. This is what hobbyists do. And these are only 2 functionalities that will be gone.

There were also students and more advanced users, that worked hard to become a better designers.

Autodesk gave away software to these people, but not really for free.

• Community grew fast as a lot of people recommended Fusion to other people. Autodesk benefits from large potential customer base built for free without additional marketing.
• Community spontaneously created forums, where they help other people with their issues, becoming free trainers and support teams.
• A lot of videos emerge, both shared through provided screencast tool and on youtube. Everyone can learn thanks to other users. There are countless hours of educational videos that did not cost Autodesk a single dollar.
• A lot of users became software testers, as they reported more or less detailed bug reports. Please check average salary of software tester.

Fusion360 would not be remotely that popular without its users. Actually, it is community that make it grow over the years and now they got kicked.

There are a lot of people looking for a job, that will write down Fusion in their CV but that can change over time. It’s hard to gain trust but it’s very easy to lose it.

I will be moving my projects from Fusion. Vast majority of them are simple objects for 3D printing (to be deleted), but I also have 2 large projects that consumed hundreds of hours. None of them are commercial but one of them could potentially be in the future. Now I have to look around and learn something new, that I could trust more. It’s a shame, as I believe millions of man-hours around the world will be wasted because of promise, that never actually existed.

[jodom4]

Hey everyone,

The blog post has been updated with some clarifications that should answer some of your questions. https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/blog/changes-to-fusion-360-for-personal-use/?_ga=2.1924...

[kadah.coba]

The 10 document limit is going to be a massive hindrance on any single personal project that is even modestly organized, let alone working on more than one project at a time. Just between the two small personal projects I've been working on this year, there's several dozens of different documents.

As long as there isn't a terrible and cumbersome workflow to changing archive status (like leaving F360, going to some web browser, locating random page to manage files from, renaving to document, menu, open, menu, change archive status, repeat, or such nonsense), and isn't throttled like file exports have been getting (seeing 10-20 minute delays after the first 1-2 files), this new limitation may be workable, albeit a pain in the butt. However, when you eventually force Eagle over to F360, this limit will be a pretty huge issue.

Not having STEP export is going to be bothersome. Anything I make for release is done so as open souce and I almost anyways (ie. if I remember) include the source files both in native formats and in any commonly used portable formats, aka STEP. Locking a design to a particular software suite is not nice or welcoming.

I would buy a subscription if there was an affordable option for personal use that is less than $500/yr (and not a one time "we're sorry" discount....). My zero hesitation price would be $150/yr even if its just the old free with some basic limit increases like 4 layers and more board area in Eagle.

2020 has been a bad year for everybody. I'll happily pay for F360 if I can, I just cannot justify or afford half a grand per year on something I use a few months out of the year at best. F360's cheapest offering has stuff I won't even need/use, and is more expensive than all the services, subscriptions, and licenses combined that I use for my profession in IT, and everything I do in F360 is as a hobby.

[jsantosrico]

I think I understand why you are removing advanced features, as you probably want to give added value to the paid licence. Things like complex machining (I'm sure there are hobbyists or a makerspace or two out there with expensive CNCs, but that's a minority), modelling, generative desing, sure: fun things to play, but probably not needed by a hobbyist. But others, like cloud rendering, when you charge for the credits... why don't just remove the free credits and give the option of buying them for those hobbyists that need a really quick render for some reason?

But other things, they are just plain annoyances. The 10 document limit is really painful, and it's totally arbitrary. Are you telling me that after running the numbers, you realised that you can only allow 10 open documents or the costs of running the service would be too high? Or is it that you want to create added friction to a normal workflow?

Same thing with format exporting. I can't believe that STEP or DXF exporting is a paywalled feature: clearly another way to make people get fed up of the basic version...

I was really disappointed when I read the news. While I understand your business model and that is your product and you can do with it whatever you want, these kinds of moves normally end up in having a bad reputation. The community will be wearier about supporting your "next free product that will eventually become a paid product".

[tazdarmedia]

Hi, I use fusion for all my cnc and 3d printing work. I have hundreds of designs and sell a few on etsy. Could you please consider offering a version of the software at a price point between personal and commercial? I am willing to pay quite a bit, but not the full commercial price. I won't even be able to cover the cost with my etsy profits each month.

Also, could you at least pretend that you price your features according to the development difficulty? It seems like you are just picking features to remove from personal to cause max pain without making the software completely useless. Active documents? What a joke. 

[runekc]

It a shame for the average user who only uses Fusion 360 for personal projects, I understand that things cost money but the average user can’t afford those prices you charge. I would gladly pay for Fusion 360 but for my use $60 is way to much. I use Fusion 360 for personal 3D printing projects and have no use for Manufacturing etc. 

isn’t it possible to make an affordable 3D printing license and keep the functions you are cutting out of the Personal license?

best regards 

Rune

[keqingsong]

You can still 3D print.

You can still use Fusion 360 for 3D printing with File > 3D print > send to print utility of your choice, File Export > STL or Save As STL.

[Anonymous]

And as long as you don't want to share any of your files, exporting it as a STL is a fine option.  Just... don't ever have a need to collaborate on a design, or want to be able to iterate on something with a friend.  lol

[keqingsong]

UPDATE: There have been lots of discussions on social media and on our forums. We understand the emotions you’re all going through, so in the spirit of clarity, I want to break it down for you with the most accurate information about what is changing, directly from our team. 

Here are 8 quick answers to the most common questions we’ve seen in the community.

1 – Is Fusion 360 for Personal Use still free?

Yes. Fusion 360 for Personal Use remains free. It’s not going away.

---

2 – What does the 10 active documents change really mean?

You still keep your data and can have unlimited number of documents (3D design, drawing, PCB) as well as projects (top level folders in your data panel) in your account. 

• Today all your designs and documents are active by default. You can open any design no matter how old or new and they will open. 
• What this change means: 
  • 10 active documents means that you have 10 spots for any document to open and be editable at any given time. All your other documents will be stored in your projects in a new inactive state. They will remain yours, saved in your projects. 
  • When you reach your 10 document capacity, and you want to revisit an older design and open it up, you can do so by deactivating an active document and activating the inactive one to swap places with. Again, you continue to keep all your designs and projects with no limits on how many you can have in inactive state.  
  • PDFs, images, presentations, spreadsheets, etc do not count towards the 10 active document allowance.
  • If you have an assembly with referenced designs in it, the assembly and each reference (if opened) will count as 1 document each. Assemblies can reference active and inactive documents. You will still be able to edit the referenced designs as long as they are also active. If your referenced designs in the assembly are inactive, you can still open your assemblies, but the references will be read only.
  • Electronics Design Library, schematic, 2D PCB count as 1 document.

• How would this work?
  • The interactions of how you do this is still being worked on, and any existing experience around archiving projects from Fusion Team is not indicative of what this new interaction may be, that’s why it’s slated for January 2021. We hope that you understand that we are trying to put limits in place to stop commercial mis-use, while still enabling the vast majority of hobbyists to continue to design and make with little to no impact.

---

3 – Can I still machine parts?

Yes. 2, 2.5 and 3 axis milling will still be available in the new Personal Use offering. 

• More advanced manufacturing functionality such as 3+2 axis, 4 axis, and 5 axis milling will only be available in the paid subscription. 
• Toolpath simulation in the Manufacture workspace is not going anywhere and will still be available. 
• Automatic tool change capability will not be available, and rapid feedrate are limited to cutting feedrate.

---

4 – Can I still 3D Print?

Yes, STL Export will still be available in Fusion 360 for Personal Use.

• You can still use Fusion 360 for 3D printing with File > 3D print > send to print utility of your choice, File Export > STL or Save As STL

---

5 – Can I still laser-cut or do 2D routing?

Save As DXF is still available from sketch. 

• DXF will not be a supported file format from File > Export, but you will still be able to right click on a sketch in the browser and select Save As DXF for your laser cutting and routing needs.

---

6 – Can I still export my designs as STEP?

Export of STEP will be not be available on Oct. 1, 2020. After Oct. 1,  You can still export your designs as STEP file formats via Fusion Team in your browser. This workflow will remain until Jan 19, 2021. 

• To get to your Fusion Team page, open the data panel, go into one of your projects, and click on the “Open on the Web” icon.

---

7 – Does Extension Access mean Scripts and Add-ins?

No, you still have access to scripts and add-ins downloaded from the Autodesk App Store, there is no change here. 

• You will still be able to leverage our API as well as the add-ins available on our App Store.
• Extensions in this context refer to the Manufacturing Extensions available to purchase. These are the capabilities like Probing, 4 axis Rotary, 5 axis Steep & Shallow Strategies that extend your manufacturing capabilities with more convenience, faster machine times, and higher quality finishing.  

---

8 – Are there changes to Education, Startup, Trial & Paid Subscriptions?

There are no changes to these offerings.

• Just to clarify, this change does not impact the trial, Education offering, Startup offering, or the Paid subscription. Product updates will continue to be delivered to all of our offerings, additional advanced functionality may be excluded from the Personal offering moving forwards.
• We will continue to support the Personal Use offering with product updates, improvements, fixes, as well as new features moving forward.

In the 8+ years I’ve been at Autodesk, I’ve engaged with you in so many meetups, represented Fusion 360 in so many Maker Fairs, and and talked to you on so many occasions, whether it was in person or online. I can say on behalf of our entire Fusion 360 team that our intention is not to continue to limit the Personal Use offering in order to get true hobbyist users to pay, but rather to curb abuse and misuse of the offering for commercial purposes. It is impossible for us to go after each person who abused the offering; we don't have the ability or capacity to do that. We recognized the value it brings to the community, and we want to keep delivering value to those of you using it day to day.

[runekc]

Hi, yes I am aware of that but your new limitations is a bit of a pain so if there was a cheaper version for 3D printing only that would be nice 😁

[Anonymous]

I can say on behalf of our entire Fusion 360 team that our intention is not to continue to limit the Personal Use offering in order to get true hobbyist users to pay, but rather to curb abuse and misuse of the offering for commercial purposes. It is impossible for us to go after each person who abused the offering; we don't have the ability or capacity to do that. We recognized the value it brings to the community, and we want to keep delivering value to those of you using it day to day.

Then WHY are you hitting the mid-to-advanced maker-type users so hard?  So many of these changes have the feel of utterly arbitrary limits.  I've seen that detailed exhaustively on here in probably a hundred places, in terms of things that would actually follow that purported intent, *without* crippling the ability of a home-shop worker to model a swingset / chair / 3d printer and share it with their friends.  These feel quite precisely targeted at the people who have integrated Fusion most heavily into their shop processes, and will have the hardest time getting out to explore alternatives.  If the purpose is not to drive users into paying a subscription, then... why?  STEP export?  Rapid movement on basic 3-axis CNC?  These are things that are used in even the most basic of printing collaboration or CNC router projects. 

I don't see anyone protesting (much) the high-end simulation removal, the lack of high-axis-count programming abilities, the things that *truly* a commercial shop would be the users of.  I see people protesting the removal of basic functionality that is used heavily at the home-shop level and for maker projects.  I even see a ton of willingness to PAY for such a continuation of functionality. 

The "targeting commercial abusers" just doesn't make sense.  Unfortunately, "forcing users to pay for full licenses"... does.

[tazdarmedia]

I just want to mention, I would actually would prefer to pay for Fusion even though I am a maker/hobbyist using it for free. I want to pay for a version of the software with a reasonable feature set at a price I can afford. It would give me some confidence that my designs would not be deleted and that losing features like this would be less likely going forward. I can see how generative design and simulation make sense as enterprise features even though I loved them as a hobbyist. But please let me pay a bit for the full document storage and CAM capabilities.

[Dan_S79]

---

@tazdarmedia wrote:

I just want to mention, I would actually would prefer to pay for Fusion even though I am a maker/hobbyist using it for free. I want to pay for a version of the software with a reasonable feature set at a price I can afford. 

---

I'm with you 100% on this.

I'm a developer by trade and work for a company that sells desktop and cloud based applications like Autodesk, but for a completely different industry. The company i work for sells everything from cheak student cloud licenses, all the way up to bespoke cloud appliances that you can install in your own server center if you want.

Pricing for a regular cloud account looks roughly like this. I say rougly as their are options that can shift the cost up or down some within each tier.

Student - $10
Personal - $20
Academic - $70
Enterprise - $150 

If Autodesk adopted a pricing scheme more like this I'd be happy to pay $20 a month as its more in line with how often i use fusion and to what extent I use some features.  




 

[Anonymous]

---

I can say on behalf of our entire Fusion 360 team that our intention is not to continue to limit the Personal Use offering in order to get true hobbyist users to pay, but rather to curb abuse and misuse of the offering for commercial purposes. It is impossible for us to go after each person who abused the offering; we don't have the ability or capacity to do that.

 You are completely wrong, of course as the developers you have the ability and capacity to prevent misuse of your software, as mentioned by other users we are not protesting the removal of the more "professional" aspects of the software but the restriction and lockdown of file types and amount of "active" documents.

Again as mentioned by others you are punishing the many due to the actions of a few and the reasoning behind this is convoluted at best.     Restricting your free users in this way is going to be leaving a bad taste in the mouths of many hobbyists/makers etc and make them leave to use other available software that doesn't restrict you into an ecosystem that wants you to pay for yearly license that is out of reach for most.    I personally love(d) Fusion 360, its intuitive and easy to use along with having plenty of documentation/tutorials to walk me through something I may not understand. But unfortunately stunts like this make me want to jump ship and move to another program that doesn't restrict me into just using their software. 

In regards to the document limitations, this has got to be one of the most ridiculous restriction I have seen so far; I along with probably alot of the community wish to work on assemblies and have separate files/documents for parts that I want to later insert into what I would consider the "final" build.   I understand that I can have more than 10 documents referenced to, but will have to go through the rigmarole of activating/deactivating documents to work on various sub assemblies if there is more than 10 documents.

Surely it would be more beneficial to yourselves (aswell as us as a community) to have a lightened hobby grade Fusion 360 with the more advanced tools removed like Simulations and Generative Design along with Cloud Rendering?

Take a look on social media platforms; 18000+ views of one video highlighting on these changes with over 600 comments mostly disgusted with the treatment and implementation of the changes, surely this should ring home that what you are doing is very VERY wrong. 

One can only hope that Autodesk take heed on the comments and suggestions from us as a community rather than stiff us out of what used to be great software. Please Autodesk, Do the right thing.

[dirk.brewer]

I'm still a newbie with Fusion 360. I understand that the original intent wasn't for a "free CAD" or "Hobby CAD", but it kind of has for some of us. We just can't afford full blown 2D/3D CAD software, but we have ideas for our hobbies (for personal use only) and trying to get them to work just isn't practical without software: The ability to make complex objects has finally come to the masses (inexpensive lathe's, milling machines, 3D printing, etc.). Autodesk came to our rescue by offing Fusion 360 for Personal Use, with a relatively easy to use, but powerful, piece of software.

But I am still confused over the "10 active documents" and how it's going to work. Can someone give a demonstration of how it's going to work for us "simple folk"?

[metalloupegarou]

 As someone who just designs stuff for personal 3d printing some of the Terms get me.  "only 10 documents".  I have projects that have 3 canvases and 10 sketches.  They also might have 30 bodies.  What constitutes a document?  Is the project a document?  Are my canvases a document?  That the clarification I Need.  I don't care about step just stls and that isn't changing.  I don't 3d print directly from Fusion so i don't care either.  I wouldn't mind paying 10 bucks a month for my simple usage but 300+ a year is a stretch for me.  If you can give me clarification on the "Document" information I would appreciate it.

[keqingsong]

A document is a design file (3D design, drawing, PCB) you save in your data panel. You still keep your data and can have unlimited number of documents as well as projects (top level folders in your data panel) in your account. 

• Today all your designs and documents are active by default. You can open any design no matter how old or new and they will open. 
• What this change means: 
  • 10 active documents means that you have 10 spots for any document to open and be editable at any given time. All your other documents will be stored in your projects in a new inactive state. They will remain yours, saved in your projects. 
  • When you reach your 10 document capacity, and you want to revisit an older design and open it up, you can do so by deactivating an active document and activating the inactive one to swap places with. Again, you continue to keep all your designs and projects with no limits on how many you can have in inactive state.  
  • PDFs, images, presentations, spreadsheets, etc do not count towards the 10 active document allowance.
  • If you have an assembly with referenced designs in it, the assembly and each reference (if opened) will count as 1 document each. Assemblies can reference active and inactive documents. You will still be able to edit the referenced designs as long as they are also active. If your referenced designs in the assembly are inactive, you can still open your assemblies, but the references will be read only.
  • Electronics Design Library, schematic, 2D PCB count as 1 document.

• How would this work?
  • The interactions of how you do this is still being worked on, and any existing experience around archiving projects from Fusion Team is not indicative of what this new interaction may be, that’s why it’s slated for January 2021. We hope that you understand that we are trying to put limits in place to stop commercial mis-use, while still enabling the vast majority of hobbyists to continue to design and make with little to no impact. 

[Anonymous]

Ok, you were going to get a new costumer, but I now realized that what you wanted was a hostage. Goodbye fusion, shame all the time I've waste learning your software, you can keep my more than 10 documents btw.

[ncglad]

I've been searching without success for clarification on what "rapid feedrate are limited to cutting feedrate." means. Does this mean that all formerly rapid moves will be a G1 at the modal feed speed i.e. the last cutting feed move?

Currently, Fusion has a "high feedrate mapping" option where rapids are replaced with a specific feedrate you can set. Will that remain or is that being removed as well to enforce the speed limit?

 

[Anonymous]

I am retired and started using Fusion 360 and became dependent on Fusion 360 for my hobby work while still working. It was a boon to have a version of Fusion 360 that I could use for free once I retired.

I exclusively use Fusion 360 to design items for printing on my 3d printer and am looking into using it for use with my hobby router CNC machine, CNC 3018. 

The products I create are basically toys for my grandchildren.

There is no revenue from my use of Fusion 360, and I am now on a fixed income so I can't afford to both support the hobby of making things and a subscription to Fusion 360. 

Please reconsider any changes to the free for Personal Use policy.