this post was submitted on 03 Dec 2023
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Got this email from Autodesk that Fusion is increasing their annual price by a huge amount. I subbed for 1 year a couple years ago for I think $380. Then I was able to get an educational sub after that. Fusion is still the cheapest CAD software out there, not including the free stuff like FreeCAD, but still, this price increase is massive.

It should be noted that it's still free to use for personal use minus the extra features.

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[–] overzeetop 103 points 1 year ago (4 children)

No, no - they're not raising the price; they're rebalancing it to reflect the value it delivers!!1!

And since they've reduced the free version functionality significantly, I believe I'm due a substantial rebate.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago

A five finger rebate

[–] Delphia 9 points 1 year ago

I dont use it, but did they bundle any other software in or add any features that would justify the use of the word "rebalancing" or is it just plain old fashioned corporate bullshit?

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (9 children)

The problem is that there is no real competitor to fusion. If you think about usability/learning curve

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Onshape has replaced fusion for me, was an easy switch.

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[–] nezbyte 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

SolidWorks for Makers seems like a decent competitor. $48/year USD for now.

[–] canthidium 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought they got rid of that tier. Might have to try it out if it's still available.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Seems to still be offered, the license allows up to $2000 profit as well instead of $1000 revenue with fusion.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (16 children)

Yeah, I've used multiple CAD tools, from pro/engineer to F360, but the learning curve of freecad felt like a brick wall.

[–] dack 21 points 1 year ago

FreeCAD definitely has a steeper learning curve and a few rough edges, but to me it was absolutely worth it to learn. I really don't like my files subject to the whims of Autodesk.

[–] canthidium 7 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I've done some editing in FreeCAD, but I'm lost at the rest.

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[–] canthidium 8 points 1 year ago

Very true, and the reason I went with Fusion in the first place. It's easy to pick up while still being fully featured.

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[–] dfc09 35 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just in case anybody doesn't know, if you're a US or Canada veteran, solidworks is $20 a year

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[–] Spider89 35 points 1 year ago (13 children)
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[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 year ago (6 children)

So if you make 1000$ in a year from modeling, 680 goes to fusion360

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Revenue does not mean profit. So if you sell something that costs $800 in material, soll it for $1000, you still need to pay for fusion…

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

And then If that's all you sold that year You're all of a sudden at a $480 loss.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's just like rent inflation while wages stay the same

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[–] AnotherMadHatter 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

Solidworks (Education version) for US and Canadian Active Duty and Veterans is US $20 or CAD $40 / year.

I am on my 7th or 8th year of it. I don't use it for making money, but use it for making 3D printed things for around the house, then upload them to Thinginverse and Printables for everyone else to use.

It looks like Solidworks for Makers is US $48 / year.

A couple of answers from the Q&A at the bottom of the page:

"3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers is meant for personal projects and non-commercial use. Per our terms and conditions, you may sell items you make for a profit up to and not exceeding US$2,000 a year. If you are interested in building your business with SOLIDWORKS tools, check out our start up program or our commercial offers."

"Currently this offer is available for purchase with a billing address within the following countries: Algeria, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. More countries will be added soon."

"Files and data created with your Maker account are digitally watermarked and can only be opened up in another Maker platform. You cannot open up files created with your Maker account within a commercial or academic platform. This digital watermark is added to native 3D file formats, such as .3dxml, .sldprt, .sldasm, and .slddrw. Neutral 3D file formats, such as .stp or .iges can be opened on any platform."

[–] canthidium 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh wow, thanks for this! I'm a veteran and $20 a year is awesome! I do the same, mostly just making things around the house. I don't really upload them though, because most things I make are super custom to my needs.

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[–] a_fancy_kiwi 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Are you familiar with the watermark they are talking about? How does that express itself; does it show up on models or is it like metadata in a file?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've not heard anything good about 3DEXPERIENCE, I really wanted to get it but after reading what other people have said, I decided not to.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (15 children)

It's one of the biggest problems of the whole 3d printing ecosystem that so many people are relying on software like fusion or tinkercad that could shut down, lose its free option, and see massive price increases on subscription software.

I wish I could wrap my head around freecad, but we're just not there yet and we may never be. I feel like it or something like it must be our future because until we have a full libre software chain we're living on borrowed time.

[–] LifeInOregon 8 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I’ve started watching a freeCAD tutorial series on YouTube. It’s a little slow going, since I don’t have a huge amount of time to dedicate to it, but it’s amazing how quickly the basics can be picked up.

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[–] CaptainProton 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been using Solid Edge for a while -it's very solid once you learn it, just a less mature UX compared to 360. But no bullshit, it just works, I love not losing work because half the system is in the cloud and randomly forced you up to log in.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

And they make it tricky as hell to find the hobbyist license. I really hate this exploitative shit. Same for Adobe.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Lol that's worse than Adobe pricing

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Autodesk have always competed well with Adobe at screwing over their customers.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

Fusion is still the cheapest CAD software out there

Is it thou?

I was looking at Solidworks and it looks like I can sub for $99/year

https://www.solidworks.com/solution/3dexperience-solidworks-makers

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

Come, join us: FreeChads

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Makes me glad I still have access to my old university email and credentials.

[–] joneskind 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I switched to Shapr3d a few years ago, but I follow the work of the FreeCAD team with great interest.

IMHO, I think Autodesk should provide a free/limited version of Fusion360 for the people who only want to design and 3D print small pieces

[–] dpkonofa 6 points 1 year ago

They do. It’s free for personal/non-commercial use.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

What do you guys use fusion for? I was told to learn it but idk its uses. Im into 3d art and I was gonna use plasticity instead of fusion.

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[–] Ejh3k 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So my educator free subscription isn't changing?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

So most of the big packages have a cheap or free tier for hobbyist/maker use, and I think they all do for educational use. The rub with most of these is that they are either not for commercial use (OnShape, Solid Edge CE), or they have "gotcha" thresholds ($1000 revenue for F360, $2000 profit for Solidworks).

Now if you wanted to go completely free-as-in-beer and still retain full commercial rights, you really have to go open source. Then there's also DesignSpark Mechanical, which is Windows only and not truly parametric, but is much more advanced than something like TinkerCad. They've got their own issues with feature erosion in the free tier, but because the company's main business is selling components, they haven't removed commercial use from it yet.

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