Altium designer pricing

[hamdi.tn]

Correct me if am wrong .. Altium designer licence is 9K$  this is a god damn fortune what the hell is that and around 1k$ for update and most of the new features are for cloud crap what they are thinking 

[Wilksey]

People pay it though! That's their thinking.

It is overpriced, but they can obviously sell it at that price.

[free_electron]

For a company that is nowhere near overpriced. Try buying a Menotr or cadence licence .... there wil be 2 or 3 more zeroes involved...
altium is cheap.

besides, there is a free and a low cost version coming:

circuitmaker
circuitstudio

so stop griping.
And yes, there are people buying it. I bought my license 4 years ago at a promotional price of 2995$ and been paying subscription every year. Very happy.

[hamdi.tn]

yeah i did the same when it was 3000$ but 9000$ is too much. it's a real investment for a small enterprise, am talking about the features of altium oriented to cloud , i don't see the point of the extra money for that. I like the tool it's my number one choice but it's a bit costy

[DerekG]

yeah i did the same when it was 3000$ but 9000$ is too much.

Then simply don't upgrade your Altium licence. Version 13 & 14 don't offer a lot more over say version 6.9 unless you are into flex boards/high speed tuning/3D STEP design.

If you want 3D STEP, export your existing Altium board into PCAD format & then import that into DipTrace which is pretty inexpensive. I'm sure there are other ways of doing this too (as it is an industry standard).

Dave gets more visitors to his EEVBlog website everyday than Altium do, so ask for help here instead of the Altium Forum. At least you are communicating with people who use Altium everyday. The Altium support team generally try & find your question in the manuals & they will quote you that verbatim. The problem is that the procedures & menus change with each version bump, so often their answer sheds little light on the "easiest way to do something".

I'm assuming from your comments that you have Altium ver 10, in which case you have a copy of the "frozen libraries". Silicon Valley Garage on this forum also has a good array of extra components which he has kindly offered to forum members for free.

Plus, it is quite quick & easy to make your own components, both Schematic & PCB.

[hamdi.tn]

I'm assuming from your comments that you have Altium ver 10, in which case you have a copy of the "frozen libraries". Silicon Valley Garage on this forum also has a good array of extra components which he has kindly offered to forum members for free.
Plus, it is quite quick & easy to make your own components, both Schematic & PCB.

Good guess
i already do that 
i was like when there representative told me the price, i guess i will keep what i have, 9k i will buy a car instead 

[Wilksey]

I'm sorry, it is overpriced!

You're a happy customer, good for you, you paid a 3rd of the price it is today.

They haven't done anything to justify the price increase that I would call acceptable.

Cadence and the like are separate products, Altium used to be cheaper, thats the issue.

hamdi.tn, shop around, I have spoken to several distributors in europe and the UK for pricing and some of them can get you a better price, depending on number of seats etc.

[VEGETA]

Well, regardless of any opinion, it is still very pricey. I mean, maybe you won't make enough profit from the boards that you designed using it to cover the 9000$.

Having a free and lower cost tool is the best that could ever happen if done properly. CM is free, CS is a professional lower cost software... So, I expect most of the companies to buy CS.

But let's ask this: If CS is professional tools with lower cost (just like they are saying at their website), who will buy that +9k version? you could say that depends on what features does CS provide and If they are enough to give up the full version or not.

As they said, even CM will have all basic features even more than the existing tools for the range (EAGLE for example), and it will be fully working... then I guess CS will have more than enough features for most if not all people, given that it might have a license of say 1.5k...

For me, I will stick with CM xD. No money at all to even think about CS for the time being... my only hope that both CM and CS to be like Altium full version, so one can upgrade for the next version without re-learning every tool and shortcut.

[free_electron]

They haven't done anything to justify the price increase that I would call acceptable.

Maybe not for you. i've done a couple of flex designs that paid for the licence.
I do a couple of designs every year and that pays for the licence / upkeep of the subscription . So it is a zero cost for me.
Six months ago i've done a flex design that landed me a new job  ... All money i invested in the tool + upkeep was paid for tenfold....
Now i use Altium 8 hours a day

[EEVblog]

The price of Altium Designer has always jumped around like a YoYo. It was $12K at one point and then they dropped it by 70% during their (in)famous "Turning the world of electronics design upside down" campaign and change of direction.

[coppice]

The price of Altium Designer has always jumped around like a YoYo. It was $12K at one point and then they dropped it by 70% during their (in)famous "Turning the world of electronics design upside down" campaign and change of direction.

Shouldn't that be the "pissing off the guys who just paid $12k, so they never want to buy from us again" campaign?

[EEVblog]

Shouldn't that be the "pissing off the guys who just paid $12k, so they never want to buy from us again" campaign?

That's the one.
And the PCB module became "optional extra" 

[Scrts]

Putting prices like 12k USD is the same as pushing people to use illegal software...

[Wilksey]

Yes,

Most companies don't care about piracy in the sense that they have their loyal fanbase who will pay with a lung if they have to for the upgraded version regardless of cost, especially a company like Altium, maybe for them it's a ploy to get rid of smaller customer bases and small businesses who can't afford the license, who they don't really want to waste their time with anyway.

Don't get me wrong, it's a good package, we use it at work, to some it is worth the cost, to others it is not.
Personally, I wouldn't get 9k use out of the package so to me it is not, if you speak to a rep they can get you some good discount sometimes (Premier EDA in the UK).

[DerekG]

Personally, I wouldn't get 9k use out of the package

Much better value for many people would be Mentor Graphics.

Designer Schematic & Designer Layout is now available as an annual subscription for just US$599.

This package is limited to 6 signal layers, 50 square inches & 1500 connections.

Excellent value if you need more than DipTrace & Proteus offer & can live with the above limitations.

http://www.digikey.com/product-highlights/us/en/mentor-graphics-designer-software/4171

http://www.digikey.com/product-search/en?keywords=MGDLDS365-1500-BNDL-ND&WT.z_slp_buy=MentorGraphics_Designer

[EEVblog]

Much better value for many people would be Mentor Graphics.
Designer Schematic & Designer Layout is now available as an annual subscription for just US$599.
This package is limited to 6 signal layers, 50 square inches & 1500 connections.
Excellent value if you need more than DipTrace & Proteus offer & can live with the above limitations.
http://www.digikey.com/product-highlights/us/en/mentor-graphics-designer-software/4171

Perhaps this is what Altium is responding to with their change of direction yet again?

[Precipice]

I couldn't see from a quick look - is a 'connection' a pin? (could be a net, which would be more useful here).
Also, what's the pricing when you hit those limits? Is it 'fair enough, it's a decent project, I'll take the hit', or is is it back into the old Mentor 'mortgage and firstborn' territory?

[DerekG]

I couldn't see from a quick look - is a 'connection' a pin? (could be a net, which would be more useful here).

According to the Mentor Graphics Wiki, it looks like a connection is a "pin".

"The number of connections is the number of module type pins in the design minus one. Special components are ignored in the count."

https://eewiki.net/display/MentorGraphics/Connecting+Components

And on the Mentor Forum page it states that there will be an unlimited connection version.

"An unlimited connection version will be available by the end of the year."

http://blogs.mentor.com/jimmartens/blog/author/jmartens/

Perhaps this is what Altium is responding to with their change of direction yet again?

You could well be right Dave. It looks like this space is heating up at long last.

[koko79]

Well for what its worth in the UK you can rent OrCAD PCB Designer Standard which is Capture and PCB Editor no pin limits or layer limits with Step, push shove and more for £499 a year. But is is the same GUI and database as the higher end Allegro software.

[mrpackethead]

Just stand your ground with the sales folks, and they will discount to get the sale.

[DerekG]

I have just received an email from Altium offering 10% off new licences & 20% off upgrades (until 19th March 2015).

The new pricing is:

New Standalone License AUD$8,321
Upgrade from Altium Designer 10 (or earlier) versions AUD$5,840
Upgrade from Altium Designer 12 AUD$4,720
Upgrade from Altium Designer 13    AUD$3,760

These prices do not include Australian 10% GST.

I think Altium is having a hard time selling their full priced software in these economically depressed times.

[hamdi.tn]

they should find a better way to sell their product, soon some competitor will find the right formula to sell a cheaper but equivalent quality product.
i heard cadstar is preparing a major release for this year, with entry-level package for 1k$ this could be interesting.

[DerekG]

they should find a better way to sell their product

Well they are trying with their cut down version called Altium Circuit Studio:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/altium-circuit-studio/msg597011/#msg597011

[hikariuk]

Well they are trying with their cut down version called Altium Circuit Studio:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/altium/altium-circuit-studio/msg597011/#msg597011

I still think that's priced too high if they're looking to target it as an entry point for basic users.  I think it needs to be priced a lot lower with a upgrade path that allows you to step up to the £1,900 version.

[hamdi.tn]

agree, this been said so many time in the eevblog, what i think users want ( or what i will gladly pay for ) is a basic low cost version capable of being upgraded accordingly to user's need. Just the PCB part, no fpga, no scripting , no advanced interactive routing for high frequency etc etc i mean a tool used in a daily basis.
Altium is a great software with a lot of capability, they may not be interested in taking over low end users such as hobbyist from other competitor such as Eagle, sadly enable to innovate and made a decent 21th century user interface  but i think we all been there and being a hobbyist is the first step for being a professional designer, just pushing those potential customer away will not be a successful long term strategy, any software editor can approach the market differently and win it. I will be happy to see that happen