Autodesk Upgrade Pricing

[Laszlo Nagy]

I just read a post about the changes Autodesk is planning for their upgrade pricing. Basically it is about forcing everybody on subscription otherwise they will pay their shirt off:

http://bimboom.blogspot.com/2012/05/news-flash-autodesk-to-remove-upgrade.html

The way they do it is they say that upgrade from the 6 previous versions will cost 70% of the full price of the software (it now costs 50% for the last 3 versions, then 70% for the next last 3 version). So if you buy, say AutoCAD 2013 or Revit 2013 now but do not go on subscription, then next year you will have to pay 70% of the full price to upgrade from version 2013 to version 2014.
So basically their users are COERCED to be on subscription.
The guy also says they will also increase the price of their subscriptions so either way it is more money out of the pockets of their users into theirs.

I honestly feel sorry for their users. It feels to me like Autodesk is now fully using its size and power to have its way to the detriment of the users it should be serving.

What do you guys think?

[Anonymous]

Sounds like the Dark Ages 😉

[Anonymous]

Australia must be in the dark ages then...

I've understood Graphisoft have a similar pricing strategy here in Australia for years - there is no incentive to not subscribe as you have to pay for any 'missed' upgrade steps enroute to the version you want.

e.g. have 14, miss 15, want 16? then you must pay for 16 and for the 15 upgrade as well! And it follows the longer you leave it...the more prohibitively expensive it becomes.

[Anonymous]

rwallis wrote:
Australia must be in the dark ages then...

I've understood Graphisoft have a similar pricing strategy here in Australia for years - there is no incentive to not subscribe as you have to pay for any 'missed' upgrade steps enroute to the version you want.

e.g. have 14, miss 15, want 16? then you must pay for 16 and for the 15 upgrade as well! And it follows the longer you leave it...the more prohibitively expensive it becomes.

...but that's a well understood model used for years and with many software vendors, where you need to pay for the missed steps. There are no issues with that....I'd be mightily pi33ed off if I had to pay 70% of the new purchase price if I missed one upgrade.!!!

[Laszlo Nagy]

Rwallis,
What is the cost as a percentage of the full license if you wish to upgrade from 1, 2 and 3 versions ago?

[Anonymous]

laszlonagy wrote:
Rwallis,
What is the cost as a percentage of the full license if you wish to upgrade from 1, 2 and 3 versions ago?

I can tell you.
We were on Archicad 12 when we switched to Revit (yuk ! ). Realising the errors of our way we needed to pay the two years subscription to Archicad 14 at the time which equated to about 30% of a new seat price in total.

Rob

[Laszlo Nagy]

So that would be about 15% of full price for one year's upgrade. That's about the price I know of.

[JaredBanks]

A lot of architects are going to get screwed in a few years. Seems reasonable that there are plenty of firms on Revit that won't understand this policy change until it's too late.

[Anonymous]

Im not sure Graphisoft are much better.

I am being quoted over £2000 to upgrade from 12 to 16

Or about 75% of the fee for a whole new seat.

Seems steep to me.

[Barry Kelly]

Yeah but that is 4 versions.
Less than 20% per version - that's not bad.
Barry.