Author Topic: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT  (Read 13759 times)

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Offline EEVblogTopic starter

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eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« on: October 18, 2018, 02:08:56 am »
Solidworks jack the prices up in different countries and force local dealers to sell at higher local prices, just because they are dicks.
I love how the Dassault Systèmes logo looks like BS!

 

Offline sokoloff

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #1 on: October 18, 2018, 02:46:34 am »
I filled out the form at one point and got a call back from a rep. She was very nice and the price quoted seemed like about 4-5% of what I was expecting to pay and probably 10% of what I willing to pay.

Sales: "Solidworks is thirty-nine ninety-five, plus twelve ninety-five annually for support."

Me: "Oh, that's a LOT cheaper than I'd have expected!"

Sales: Laughs. "I've literally never heard that."

Me: "Wait; what?!"

It took a few more seconds to discover that I'd interpreted "thirty-nine ninety-five" as "$39.95" not "$3995"
 
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Offline Muttley Snickers

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #2 on: October 18, 2018, 03:15:53 am »
Wow, I thought the fifteen bucks I paid for a backup copy at the local computer swap meet was a bit over the top at the time, I later found another "dealer" selling the same version for five bucks less so was rather annoyed for not getting a better deal and being ripped off.   >:(

 

Offline mrpackethead

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #3 on: October 18, 2018, 03:19:02 am »
Did they get lessons of Altium?
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Offline ANTALIFE

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #4 on: October 18, 2018, 04:08:19 am »
Dave & Dave if you guys want a cheaper option for legit SW have a look at this:
https://www.eaa.org/en/eaa/eaa-membership/eaa-member-benefits/solidworks-resource-center

A lifetime membership with EAA is 1295USD, though you best check what sort of features (if any) have been stripped out
« Last Edit: October 18, 2018, 05:13:40 am by ANTALIFE »
 

Offline Barny

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #5 on: October 18, 2018, 05:17:42 am »
I'm working wirh NX from Simens.
Its not exaktly ceap but I am not aware of price fixing.

Cars in the other hand are massive price fixed.
Here in Austria its sometims massive cheaper to get the car delivered over thousands of km than bying the car local.
And even fuel is massive price fixed. The price diferences are enorm even inside the country.
If you drive 30 to 40km, the petrol stations have complete different priceing.
 

Offline okurka

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #6 on: October 18, 2018, 06:50:35 am »
A lifetime membership with EAA is 1295USD, though you best check what sort of features (if any) have been stripped out

It says it's a personal-use version, so not valid for businesses.
 

Offline ANTALIFE

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #7 on: October 18, 2018, 06:52:39 am »
Since when is Dave running a business ;^)

Offline Scottjd

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #8 on: October 18, 2018, 09:48:21 am »
Hello Dave’s,
I usually won’t chime in on such things, but I also don’t agree with the different priing models. This is something I’ve been doing to save money on hotels and plane tickets, sometimes even a vacation package deal. I assume it should work for software also. I just wish this would work buying a house,  ;)

You should be able to get around this pricing using a VPN.
I bought NORD VPN at 70% for three years, someone’s sponsored video promo. If I reminder what channel I’ll let you know. I think it was a video from “Smarter every day”. The usual discount i see is 50% to 60% off. So I think it was $100 maybe for 3 years, and I’ve already saved more then the price of the VPN.

If it’s a software key and download then set up a computer (windows) as US, use the VPN to buy the US license, get the key and download the software. The computer sometimes needs to be set up as a US region  windows install or the key might not work for the install on some softwares.
This isn’t with all software, only some. You can try an Australia region windows install and see if it works installs and registers or claim you travel a lot.
Also you may need to be from a US based IP address to register the software for a US license to talk to the US register sever usually only for the first install running the app. Again this is when the VPN can help greatly and save you money.

Good luck.
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Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #9 on: October 18, 2018, 10:01:11 am »
Hello Dave’s,
I usually won’t chime in on such things, but I also don’t agree with the different priing models. This is something I’ve been doing to save money on hotels and plane tickets, sometimes even a vacation package deal. I assume it should work for software also. I just wish this would work buying a house,  ;)

You should be able to get around this pricing using a VPN.
I bought NORD VPN at 70% for three years, someone’s sponsored video promo. If I reminder what channel I’ll let you know. I think it was a video from “Smarter every day”. The usual discount i see is 50% to 60% off. So I think it was $100 maybe for 3 years, and I’ve already saved more then the price of the VPN.

If it’s a software key and download then set up a computer (windows) as US, use the VPN to buy the US license, get the key and download the software. The computer sometimes needs to be set up as a US region  windows install or the key might not work for the install on some softwares.
This isn’t with all software, only some. You can try an Australia region windows install and see if it works installs and registers or claim you travel a lot.
Also you may need to be from a US based IP address to register the software for a US license to talk to the US register sever usually only for the first install running the app. Again this is when the VPN can help greatly and save you money.

Good luck.
Scott
You have to be aware that the license may forbid doing this, so you may effectively have a very expensive illegal version. Of course, support is out of the window too.
 

Offline NivagSwerdna

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #10 on: October 18, 2018, 10:47:34 am »
I love how the Dassault Systèmes logo looks like BS!
OMG. It so does.  That is brilliant.
 

Offline HighVoltage

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #11 on: October 18, 2018, 11:28:12 am »
Same here in Germany...

Even worst, I was not allowed to use my USA license in Germany, ok... may be ....

But I need Solidworks for some of my clients and a few years back, I bought a new license in Germany for Euro 12,900.-

It is ridicules.



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Offline rsjsouza

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #12 on: October 18, 2018, 04:00:30 pm »
Hah, join the club. Until today Microsoft, Autodesk, Adobe, etc., etc, etc. do this in Brazil - just for comparison, a copy of Windows 10 Home (download, not a USB stick) is $200 plus taxes.

In the 1990s it was much worse: identical software, english language manuals (not even translated to the local market, which could justify some added cost), non-existing support and much more could be obtained for 10x the price.
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Offline onesixright

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #13 on: October 18, 2018, 08:14:50 pm »
Indeed its fucking shit. Excuse my language.

A long list of companies doing this and it's utterly annoying.  |O

You should have made it a 'regular' episode 😉

Simply a mass boycot these products. They will roll over in a heartbeat, if everyone stop buying their stuff for 3 months. But that will never happend... :-X
 

Offline thm_w

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #14 on: October 18, 2018, 08:21:40 pm »
Since when is Dave running a business ;^)

If he's going to skirt the law, just pirate it at that point.

One shitty thing that Solidworks does as well is prevent opening a 2018 file with Solidworks 2017. So if you are collaborating or sharing designs online, you are basically forced to stay on the latest version. Even Altium doesn't do this (they give a warning that certain features aren't supported, but can still open it).

Although if you could get a hold of an old version it would probably be fine (in terms of features, stability), but again is legal grey area (according to them you are not allowed to transfer license).
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Offline taydin

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #15 on: October 18, 2018, 08:28:52 pm »
I use Alibre Design, which does most things that SolidWorks does, but without robbing you in broad daylight.
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Offline Robomeds

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #16 on: October 19, 2018, 01:01:46 am »
I've been using Solidworks for about 20 years.  It's a good solid product and my ProE skills fell to the wayside due to Solidworks.  That said, as a user the virtually required yet buggy yearly upgrades along with forced backwards incompatibility is a big negative for me.  What killed me when I used to use the program a lot was that we would wait 4 months after the upgrade to put it on our computers because X.0 was always buggy.  It was usually 1-2 updates before you trusted the program.  So you had about 6 months of stable code where you and your vendors and customers were all on the say revision.  Then they would release the next year's package with mostly insignificant changes and the cycle would repeat.  In the past I was lucky and could share a work license with my home computer.  Sadly that is no longer the case.  For personal use I just can't justify the price.  I've been looking for a good alternative that is hobbiest affordable.  Any suggestions?  It doesn't help that I'm very comfortable with SW. 
 

Offline Icchan

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #17 on: October 19, 2018, 01:31:56 am »
Simply a mass boycot these products. They will roll over in a heartbeat, if everyone stop buying their stuff for 3 months. But that will never happend... :-X

I'm not trying to make excuses for the pricing as such, I just want to put things on perspective here...

You can hardly boycott a software that hundreds multi-million (maybe billion?) euro companies use to design and make their products and their profit.

They don't really give a damn about the price, they pay it so they can continue designing their new car, truck, train, a factory, jet airline, aircraft carrier or what ever huge product/project it is that has millions or billions riding on it. Not that someone's using solid-works for an aircraft carrier necessarily (more like Catia), but you get my point.

World is basically running because these software, so they can ask what the hell they want for a license. A large company isn't going to invest potentially many millions in wasted work time to retrain their engineers to another software after having all their design architecture tied to it for maybe tens of years, just so save a "few bucks" per license. :D

You as a single, small-time user or one man company? You all together might make as much seats as one single large company using it. So I don't think they really care :/

That being said

It is bullshit... too bad we can't really do anything but vote with our wallets. They will not change their policies for that unfortunately. :)

Offline FrankT

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #18 on: October 19, 2018, 01:45:19 am »
I use Alibre Design, which does most things that SolidWorks does, but without robbing you in broad daylight.

Same problem.  In Australia we still buy from resellers at an increased price, except all support is through Alibre USA.  I don't know what the resellers do to justify the price increase.
 

Offline jonovid

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #19 on: October 19, 2018, 05:22:40 am »
there is a reason why pirates and hackers will clone it and sell or give it way for free.
go figure!
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Offline HighVoltage

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #20 on: October 19, 2018, 08:49:45 am »
there is a reason why pirates and hackers will clone it and sell or give it way for free.
go figure!

I am surprised, no one from China has said anything here.

When I traveled China this year I saw a lot of installed Solidworks packages in
companies that did not pay anything at all and the company owners do not care.

So, there must be a lot of illegally installed Solidworks seats around the world,
probably just because the official license is so expensive.


And ...
My clients are totally happy with me using an older version of Solidworks.
So, I have not signed up for the yearly renewal since 2015.
However, this year I wanted to upgrade to Solidworks 2018, and expected
to pay one yearly fee of Euro 2000,- (including sales tax) to get the latest version.
But .... NO!
Solidworks Germany requires to have all last 3 years paid, so 6000 Euro!
Next year it will be 8000!
What kind of Bullshit is that.
 
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Offline Zbig

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #21 on: October 19, 2018, 01:37:23 pm »
Adobe was doing the exact same thing with their Creative Cloud subscription. The European prices were much higher than the US ones. No resellers involved - just exaclty the same binaries downloaded from the same servers. The price literally changed when you switched your location on their site. It's most probably still the case - I just couldn't be bothered to recheck. When people on their forums began asking for the reasons of the price discrepancy, their non-answer was a long-winded drivel about the "cost of doing business" in Europe vs. United States which was basically a convoluted way of saying "because fuck you - that's why". To me, even more shocking was the fact that bunch of hipsters on the forum actually began defending the company's policy :-// Talk about fanboyism.
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #22 on: October 19, 2018, 02:27:08 pm »
Both are cases of dominant market leaders doing whatever they please, knowing full well most people are going to have to take it. Adobe software is the defacto standard in graphics and Solidworks in most sectors where CAD is a thing.

Even worse is that you don't really get value for money as development is slow or non-existent. Some shiny features are occasionally tacked on, but at its core it's still the same software that can throw a hissy fit over nothing. Engineers have learnt to tiptoe around the peculiarities and ways simple operations can throw errors but that really shouldn't be necessary for something that costs this amount of money, and each year too.

Apparently Fusion 360 isn't enough of a threat to change things. It's a deal with the devil too, as it's not just Autodesk but also a cloud solution. Maybe getting shafted by Dassault is still better.
 

Offline onesixright

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #23 on: October 19, 2018, 08:19:36 pm »
Adobe was doing the exact same thing with their Creative Cloud subscription.

For those looking for an alternative (for Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign), Affinity is pretty cool (not affiliated).
 

Offline onesixright

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Re: eevBLAB #55 - Solidworks Pricing is BULLSHIT
« Reply #24 on: October 19, 2018, 08:21:20 pm »
What kind of Bullshit is that.
Basically thief's  :palm:.
 


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