What is the current price of Altium Designer

[jd]

Hi all

I would like to know, what are people paying currently for Altium Designer?

Also the "vault" if anyone uses it.

Thanks

John

[daedalus]

Hi John,

As you are in UK too, you need to buy through premier EDA, who are the exclusive distributor for UK. Their prices include support services above and beyond what Altium directly offers.

If you are a startup or new company ask about Altiums startup program, this gets you a full licence for Altium designer and support subscription for 1 year for just under £2k, with the option of paying the remainder to get a permanent seat at the end of the year. Its a good way to spread the cost out.

Criteria are as follows:
• Officially registered company, not older than 3 years
• Max. annual revenue of 500.000 Euro
• Max. 15 employees
• Independent company, not a subsidiary of an existing company

[jd]

Hi,

Thanks for the info, I was actually curious what the cost was in other places. The startup program is news to me, but unfortunately does not apply in my case.

I also meant to ask about the annual maintenance, although it seems nobody is telling that either!

Hi John,

As you are in UK too, you need to buy through premier EDA, who are the exclusive distributor for UK. Their prices include support services above and beyond what Altium directly offers.

If you are a startup or new company ask about Altiums startup program, this gets you a full licence for Altium designer and support subscription for 1 year for just under £2k, with the option of paying the remainder to get a permanent seat at the end of the year. Its a good way to spread the cost out.

Criteria are as follows:
• Officially registered company, not older than 3 years
• Max. annual revenue of 500.000 Euro
• Max. 15 employees
• Independent company, not a subsidiary of an existing company

[T3sl4co1l]

In the US it's about $7k, give or take some room for negotiation; subscription $1-2k/yr (first year included in purchase).

Tim

[ajb]

I seem to recall last year the 'list' price hit a pretty even $8K in the US including the first year of subscription. . .something like $6300 for the license and $1700/yr subscription.  Some variation depending on which license model you opt for, and the sales reps seem to have some leeway.

[jd]

Thanks guys

John

[ocset]

Isnt it amazing that people pay this,  even for pcb's that can easily be done in eagle.....people can  more easily develop eagle skills, because they can afford to buy eagle and practice it at home.

[ahbushnell]

Been there done that.  I do not like Eagle.

I liked DIP trace.  And I have used Circuit Studio and it works.

I just purchased Altium.  I do engineering work and the people I work with also use Altium.  Plus I like it on the whole.  I have imported by Circuit Studio files into Altium with no problems.

Nothing is perfect.

Andy

[Ribster]

I just bought altium in belgium. They had a discount running where the first 2 years of subscription were free. It was 6K EUR ex. VAT

[EEVblog]

I would like to know, what are people paying currently for Altium Designer?

What day of the week is it? 

[Bassman59]

I would like to know, what are people paying currently for Altium Designer?

What day of the week is it? 

It's a day that ends in "y."

[cadguy68]

I would like to know, what are people paying currently for Altium Designer?

How much U got ?

[Pseudobyte]

If you are a one man shop you can get Altium for around $4000 w/ 1 yr subscription included

[ocset]

The yearly fees are around $1k (USA)?
Surely there is a version that can be bought without any support where you dont have to pay subscription fees each year?
(and of course you just dont get any updates etc).

I worked for a company that hadnt payed their altium fees for the last few years.........nobody checked up on them...how do they know youve not payed fees.?

[T3sl4co1l]

The license is indefinite, i.e., you buy and own the software (to the extent of your rights as given in the EULA).  That includes use of anything similarly licensed, of note, access to the Altium component vault (at least with what version and amount of content is covered by your license).

Subscription only entitles you to tech support and continued updates.  When your subscription ends, you retain the right to whatever the latest release was at that time.

Tim

[Bud]

In practice it may not be that indefinite. Time will come when that version of the software will not run on a new OS . Also it appears even if you have a license file, activation still may require online connection to Altium if you reinstall the software. Meaning Altium goes tits up, you are dead in the water.

[Ribster]

This is the main reason i run everything in a VM. It saves me the setup time. And you keep the configuration of your database and all the rest.

[ajawamnet]

If you use the standalone license you get an ALF file. I've tested installation on machines with dates well into the future and no internet connection. No problem reinstalling and running.

If you download the full installers for the various versions it will allow you to install on older OS's. I have an XP box that runs AD15 (last version for XP support) and I can open 19.1.7 files with little issues. Going from 99SE is a bit weird, but I've been able to backvert newer 19 designs to P99SE.  For hand builds I use an old addon called QualeCAD 9 no longer available) in AD6.9 that allows me to generate build sheets in PDF. I have little issues in opening AD19 files with the older AD6.9...


More than I can say for Orcad.

Orcad versions 16.6 and later will not open version 7 or older Orcad files (altium exports version 7). I have an old copy of Orcad 10 I use to bring stuff from Altium into Orcad. As to even older Windows for Orcad files (6.22 - 7) I had to go find an abandonware site that had the four installer floppys of Orcad 7.2 in order to open my files from the mid 1990's.  As to Allegro, once opened and saved in version 17, you can no longer open in previous versions - sort of like Solidworks. That really sucks.

Altium seems to be OK with dealing with being able to open newer and older versions as well as not having to deal with dongles or some cookie-jar BS that locks the install to a specific machine.

[Bud]

Anyone else received a 50% discount offer from Altium for v20 ?

[Eternauta]

just received an offer for perpetual license: EUR 7800. Not really an irresistible offer 

[blackfin76]

just received an offer for perpetual license: EUR 7800. Not really an irresistible offer 

The problem with CAD tools is that they try to sell you the stuff like the software is doing all the work for you, of course it isn't.

Prcices like these make that the tool is not suited for a lot of design work. If circuit board design was the only business you where in it might be the right price but engineering requires so much more investments to be made that is becomes more and more impossible for smaller companies to do product design.

[VK3DRB]

I got my Altium 19 for about half price including 2 year's subscription. Even so, it is expensive software.

It is bad news is you have a license and need another one for a contractor to help you during heavy workload for a couple of weeks. Altium should really consider renting the software, eg: $1K for 1 month for these cases, rather than someone having to fork out a small fortune for the full license.

Buying licenses is not the best investment. If you invested $1K in Altium in 2011, your shares would be worth $387,000 now

[EEVblog]

Buying licenses is not the best investment. If you invested $1K in Altium in 2011, your shares would be worth $387,000 now

I almost invested $20k in Altium shares in 2011 (my payout from them for getting retrenched)
(likely I wouldn't have put the full amount in, maybe $10k)
But at the time it looked like the founder was finally going to run the company into the ground with the China move.
No one predicted the hostile takeover and resurrection of the company.
I thought about investing back in when the new CEO was in place and they got focused again, but didn't for whatever reason. Did take years to climb back though. I probably would have bailed at a couple of bucks and free-carried the rest. Still would have a been a huge win though. Oh well.