With this format, you can do a direct comparison between options at any point in time. However, the graph type I find most useful in comparing options shows the average annual cost for each option, and how that average cost varies over time. Here’s a line graph of the cumulative total expenditure for each of the options: I think this is clearer.Īlthough this graph is useful in showing what budget you would need each year in each scenario, it’s not ideal when comparing the total expenditure. Here’s a line graph showing the same thing. For example, here’s a bar chart showing the cost incurred in each year: There are a number of ways these options can be compared graphically. The options that will be available from June will be examined in the next post. You would need rocks in your head to switch to subscription right now before the special offer kicks in. Pros: keep it up to date, retain previous version & home use rightsĬons: lose your perpetual license, ridiculously high costsĪt this stage, it’s easy to dismiss option 2. Here’s how that pans out.Īssumptions: 10% compound rise annually from 2020 Again, being generous to Autodesk, I’ve assumed there will be no subscription price rises until 2020, at which point Autodesk will start bumping things up 10% a year. If your renewal date falls between now and then, and assuming no other special offers apply, the cost is huge. That looks like this:Īssumptions: 30% compound rise annually from 2020Ī curious aspect of Autodesk’s announcement is that the offer associated with switching from maintenance to subscription doesn’t kick in until June. There’s always the possibility that Autodesk could get really nasty and bump up maintenance costs even more, say 30% a year from 2020. Pros: keep your perpetual license, keep it up to date, retain previous version & home use rightsĬons: increasing costs, expect more unpleasant “persuasive” surprises from Autodesk Assuming you’re a perpetual license holder who has been paying annual maintenance, just keep doing what you have been doing, as long as you can.Īssumptions: maintenance cost 20% compound rise annually from 2020 Option 1 below is what I am using as my baseline for comparison. Others will want or need to keep their software up to date. If it works for you, go ahead and you may as well stop reading now. Pros: zero costs, keep your perpetual licenseĬons: don’t keep up to date, previous version & home use rights, reduced supportįor some of you, that option will seem suddenly quite attractive. Option 0 – drop maintenance, keep using AutoCAD It would be remiss of me to mention an even lower baseline that could be used: That may be generous to Autodesk, but time will tell. I’ve made the assumption that these will be 20% a year, compound. In order to compare costs beyond the short term, an assumption must be made about future maintenance price rises. No announcements have been made regarding the cost of maintenance from 2020 onwards, but it’s safe to say that Autodesk won’t be making life easy for its maintenance customers. The rises are compound, so the actual rises from the 2016 cost are 5%, 15.5% and 38.6%. I’ll call this the 2016 cost.Īutodesk has announced that maintenance costs will rise by 5% in 2017, 10% in 2018 and 20% in 2019. Prior to Autodesk’s recent announcement, the annual maintenence cost to keep one copy of AutoCAD up to date was US$540 and the equivalent subscription (rental) cost was US$1680. Once I’ve gone through all the options, I’ll do a summary post that compares everything, but there are so many variables that a single post that covers all the options in adequate detail would be very long and complex.įirst, I need to describe what I’m using as the basis of my comparison. In this series of posts, I’ll examine various payment options for CAD software and compare them with the cost of staying on your Autodesk maintenance contract long-term. Note: due to new information from Autodesk, an updated summary has been posted.
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