1y ago

Fusion 360 increasing annual price to $680 USD

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.

138 comments

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.
- A five finger rebate
- 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?
- What did they take out of the free version?
  
  It's been a little while, but they gutted the mesh editing tools in he free version. They also dropped the number of active models, restricted certain file-functions (maybe assemblies...I don't do any/many), and limited file import/export.

The problem is that there is no real competitor to fusion. If you think about usability/learning curve
- Onshape has replaced fusion for me, was an easy switch.
  
  I find Onshape to be much better than fusion.
  
  Isn’t onshape for non-commercial only?
  
  Ya TheDuckPrince clearly didnt look very hard for competitors, onshape is great.
  
  If on shape had built in CAM like fusion does, I'd switch in a heartbeat.
- SolidWorks for Makers seems like a decent competitor. $48/year USD for now.
  
  I thought they got rid of that tier. Might have to try it out if it's still available.
- Yeah, I've used multiple CAD tools, from pro/engineer to F360, but the learning curve of freecad felt like a brick wall.
  
  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.
  
  Yeah, I've done some editing in FreeCAD, but I'm lost at the rest.
  
  ~~I got stuck on googling how to make a fillet in freecad, to which the answer appeared to be, "yeah, nah, you sort of can't". Oh okay, this program is not for me.~~
  Edit: if people want to help/criticise, I recall the problem was that I couldn't do it parametrically, which is the only way I like to model any engineering parts. So far the only thing that information has gotten me is a downvote. If freecad is as full featured as you say, then this should be easy to do. Feel free to tell me how.
  EDIT 2: after the info I got, I looked into it more and discovered my problem was a bit different - I couldn't do a parametric offset line in a sketch, because I needed to make a particular pattern. I ended up doing it with OpenSCAD if I recall. I apologise for saying freecad couldn't do fillets, that would've been extremely basic. It was still a very painful experience just to figure out that it couldn't do what I needed.
  
  I would love for you to explain how the workflow is any different than in something like SolidWorks? I use SolidWorks in my day job and I use FreeCAD exclusively for my personal projects. It was a pretty seamless transition for me. Sketch->Feature, repeat, paying attention to order of operations in your model tree. What’s so different?
  Is FreeCAD’s UI a little rough in places? Perhaps, but a lot of the things that people complain about in FreeCAD are present in commercial software. If there’s one thing that SolidWorks might do better is allowing you to get away with things like over-defining geometry accidentally. It’s more forgiving of lazy modeling.
  FreeCAD has improved significantly in just the last few years. There is a good community around it. We need more people using it and learning how to model.
- Very true, and the reason I went with Fusion in the first place. It's easy to pick up while still being fully featured.
- How about OnShape
  
  OnShape is free but explicitly non-commercial if you don't pay, and it requires your models to be publicly available in a potentially weird way where someone else could make money from your stuff but you can't. It's a weird AF licensing setup.
- OnShape

I'm sticking to FreeCAD.
- I spent a lot of time in free cad and am now trying Bricscad. I wanted to use Alibre because it's way cheaper but it's windows only and I couldn't get it running in Proton or Wine.
  I like freecad a whole lot, but I couldn't stand the number of crashes any longer :(
  I couldn't find any other sane priced software that wasn't Cloud-integrated (looking at you, dassault).
  
  Huh, I never had crashes.
  Even with an Edu License for Autodesk, I HATE the UI.
- Me too. While it's probably not as good as commercial packages, I've yet to encounter something I can't model. Once the topological naming problem is gone (should happen soon) it's gonna be a delight to use.
  
  The TNP is problably one of the most infiriating bugs FreeCAD has.
  Once that's gone, i'm sticking to FreeCAD till I get bored with this hobby or I die.
- It's such a bad piece of software I just don't get how people can use it...
  
  There was a bit of a learning curve but after a few days I found it works very well for my needs.
  
  How?

Just in case anybody doesn't know, if you're a US or Canada veteran, solidworks is $20 a year
- Will need to look into this thanks!

So if you make 1000$ in a year from modeling, 680 goes to fusion360
- 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…
  
  And then If that's all you sold that year You're all of a sudden at a $480 loss.
- It's just like rent inflation while wages stay the same
  
  Cost of business is factored into price to the consumer. A single freelance contractor trying to help pay rent and groceries for his wife and 2 kids shouldn't need to eat the increase at the expense of his family's financial support, so he charges more for his services.
  A big company will also increase their costs likewise, but they already have expenses covered and the extra money goes into stock buybacks and board member compensation packages.
- And if you make $70,000 in a year from it, $680 goes to Fusion360.
  
  Let's stay realistic here, mmkay?
- Just use the same creative^W standard accounting practices that all other companies use. Take Google for example... we all know that they don't pay any taxes, because they don't earn any positive revenue. Right?
  So I'd like to use the same approach. I would not be the one making $1000. That would be my, um, cousin, who just happens to live in Bermuda. HE is the one making all that money, not me! So I don't have to pay the $680, right?
  (By the way, can I also stop paying taxes and be worth a trillion dollars now? No? Why not?!?!)
- If you want a net profit of $1000 you would need three subscriptions

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."
- 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.
  
  If that's the case, you don't need to be paying for Fusion. You should qualify for the free, personal license.
  
  Yeah, I make things for me and family, but you'd be surprised at how many other people would be interested in it as well. I certainly was. I looked at my Thingiverse analytics, and I've had 10's of thousands of downloads of my things. I know those don't directly translate into prints, but I was shocked at how many people downloaded my designs that were originally just for me to organize my sandpaper, or sift sand or hold my CNC collets and wrenches. . .
- 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?
  
  I don't know exactly how it is implemented, but if I had to guess, it is probably just metadata in the file. I know that when I print out the 2D drawings I make, it puts text in the bottom corner with something to the effect of "This was made with the educational version of Solidworks, Not for commercial use" or something like that. I expect something similar if you tried to open a file made on the educational version on the commercial version, there would be something similar on the screen. Not sure though, since I only have the educational version.
- 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.
  
  I tried it and made a few things for around the house.
  It's fine, but it's Invasive, and so cloud connected that I got really fed up with it.
  I would pay them the same price for an offline only version.
- Thanks for the tip, I use SW at work. This would work out well for me.
  
  I use CATIA at work, and it's funny how both programs are made by Dassault, but have such different interfaces.
- I've searched for this and couldn't find it. They must hide it well. How well does it run on Linux?
  
  Probably not well. Its drm does some weird shit where it (3dexperience) runs in the background and then launches a web page that has you log in and you launch and update from the browser. I think there's a way to directly launch it with a shortcut but all in all it just does so much weird shit that i haven't even tried.
  I miss Autodesk Inventor but i can't remotely justify the price for dicking around with personal projects and solidworks for makers is a pretty damn good deal. Plus SW seems like the industry standard so looks better on a resume? I'm a programmer so it doesn't really matter but meh.
  OnShape might be okay, probably runs just fine on Linux, but i hate that its cloud based. I just want to own my software goddamnit.
  One day we'll have a foss parametric non-destructive blender-level cad suite. FreeCAD and OpenSCAD are neat but not really what I'm looking for.
  I'm ranting again..
  
  Sorry, I don't have the slightest idea.

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.
- 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.
  
  There is going to be a TON of progress next year. I think 2024, freecad will be very usable for hobbyits.
  
  Hey, give us one of those cool privacy respecting links if you don't mind :)
- I've just become a CAD hobo or squater you could say. There will always be one ""free"" piece of cad software that caters to the casual 3D printer and I've just accepted that they will inevitably raise the price and I'll just have to jump ship again. But, at least I get to keep all the knowledge and that is what counts.
- I wish I could wrap my head around freecad, but we’re just not there yet and we may never be.
  May I ask why it is that you say this?
  
  I also have this question. What is so different about the workflow between FreeCAD and other 3D CAD software? If you can do one, you can do the others.
  
  I've got an IQ of 87. So far, tinkercad is basically the best 3d modelling program for me so I can make stuff by using arrow keys to move around basic shapes.
- Uhm, what about Blender?
  
  Blender is not designed as a CAD software. It is for 3d modeling. So you would use Blender to make graphics for a video game, or a 3d movie.
  CAD is more for designing things to be made outside of a computer, so 3d printing, CNC or stuff like that.
  Blender doesn't consider the object as a whole, and can leave holes that a CAD setup would handle.
  
  blender can be used as cad software, but for any practical application, you want parametric design.

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.
- I love synchronous mode for quickly adjusting parts. Otherwise the standard mode works pretty much the same as solid works with some quirks.

I used to use a lot of Autodesk software as a hobby by abusing their student versions but they've really tightened their belt on those lately. I always thought if I turned a dollar on one of those old projects I'd absolutely want to give Autodesk their fair share but if they're going to be greedy then fuck em.

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

Lol that's worse than Adobe pricing
- Autodesk have always competed well with Adobe at screwing over their customers.

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 $99/year
https://www.solidworks.com/solution/3dexperience-solidworks-makers
- Says 48$/year or 15$/month for me.
  
  Yeah, sorry.. I think it's $99CAD but yeah, $48US
- I’ve been considering switching to this but I’ve heard a lot of bad things

Come, join us: FreeChads

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

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
- They do. It’s free for personal/non-commercial use.
- As a hobbiest who’s relatively new to CAD, I wish I liked Shapr3D more than I do. I want to use it on my Mac but everything is multiple clicks away compared to other software and it seemingly has fewer keyboard shortcuts to compensate :/
  Also, this is probably user error but I could not for the life of me figure out how to make the spout on teapot for a Halloween costume in Shapr3d. Spent maybe an hour and a half on it. Ended up installing Fusion360 and had it done in about 30 minutes. I don’t know the term for it but getting an extrusion to follow/form to a bunch of different sized circles in Shapr3d wasn’t doing what I expected.

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.
- Fusion360 is for CAD, people use it for designing mechanical parts. It has features like simulation, generative design, shape optimization, additive manufacturing design, etc. It is a really complete software for what it does, and that's why it is a shame that the price increased so much.
  For art, you should try Blender. It's widely used and libre software!
  
  Yeah Im a 3D artist, already use blender, I was told that for mechanical models like game weapons for example, fusion works great. So I wanted to know if I should try.
- 3D CAD. I use it for designing models to print on a 3D printer. My favorite feature is the design timeline
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  design timeline
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

So my educator free subscription isn't changing?
- I don't think so. I'm on the education license as well.

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.

The new CAD assist feature will save me hours from every setup. If you do production work (metals, plastic injection) fusion's value is still a hard to beat. Pays for itself a lot of times over.
- The prismatic option when converting meshes is the big one for me. I find I am modifying downloaded files so often.

Juste crack inventor

New Lemmy Post: Fusion 360 increasing annual price by $190 USD (https://lemmy.world/post/9087502)
Tagging: #3dprinting
(Replying in the OP of this thread (NOT THIS BOT!) will appear as a comment in the lemmy discussion.)
I am a FOSS bot. Check my README: https://github.com/db0/lemmy-tagginator/blob/main/README.md
- I don’t understand the point of you. You link a post to the same post, tell everyone the new post is itself a new post… it looks like the only partially useful thing you do is add tags, and in this case it’s literally just the community name in tag form.
  Why did someone write you? Why do you exist?
  
  My understanding is that this bot serves no direct utility for Lemmy users, but helps users on other fediverse platforms (like Mastodon) discover Lemmy posts through tags.

I've been using Solid Edge for a while -it's very solid once but with 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.

138 comments