Software Costs for Architectural Offices

As a small office, after surviving through the pandemic lockdowns and the new economic situation for the country, I find myself in downsizing to a home office and things still just get a bit harder as I try to rebuild my practice. One of them is software that my office depends on to help produce architectural designs through to construction documentation.

The Major AEC Software Players

The major AEC software corporations are Autodesk and Nemetchek. Autodesk being the market leader and Nemetchek distant second.

With Autodesk leading the charge as the market leader in AEC software, the architectural software industry has moved to software as service or subscription service. Furthermore, Autodesk over the years has brought out new technologies and started consolidating a lot of software under the Autodesk brand and charging an arm, leg and kidney to buy a license to use it. I've never liked Autodesk software and certainly wouldn't pay for hideously expensive software that I thought was under par for the architectural profession.

Now as of this year my design/BIM/CAD Vectorworks Designer software under Nemetschek has followed suit with Autodesk and will only offer subscriptions and do away with perpetual licenses starting 2023. Nemetschek have also gone on a buying spree and consolidated alot of AEC software under their brand.

What does all this AEC software consolidation mean under two major brands? A potential duopoly of anti competitive behavior to extort users with subscriptions. Autodesk and Nemetschek both first a second market leaders represent probably 95% of AEC software market. 

We must remember that these software giants main aim is profit and shareholder satisfaction. They are not necessarily aligned with they AEC markets.

Small office and software cost implications

I looked at learning CAD when I was at uni in the 80's and the cad software was AutoCad V1 and was installed with 3.5" floppies. Once leaving uni, I never looked at cad again until I investigated it at PACE University while living in New York City in the 90's, but the fees were far to expensive at USD$1,500.00 per course. But I a came across an advert in a Fine Home Building magazine and I brought my first license of Vectorworks when it used to be called Minicad 7 for USD$700 and under the leadership of Diehlgraphsoft. It was anything but mini and priced affordably compared to Autocad back then. Automatic wall extrusions self healing door and window symbol wall insertions, it was great software compared to AutoCad. From then I decided I wasn't ever going back to the drafting board.

Today 2022, at roughly USD$5,300 a Vectorworks Designer license now for the last perpetual license its a tough ask for a small office like mine. I have used perpetual licenses to manage my cash flow. From a small business perspective, that's a WST$15,000.00 investment in a down and highly competitive market, not including the new hardware to run it. Subscriptions will make if even tougher when the company moves to only subscription licenses, because you will have no choice but to pay every year, regardless of your cash flow. So I feel kinda left out to say the least, forgotten by Nemetschek as user base.

My Perspective of AEC Subscriptions

Under a subscription service the software company:

• Can turn off your software access if you can't pay due to a cash-flow problem.
• Once you lose access to software, all the work/intellectual property you have produced over the years which has value is now locked up in software until you pay. Sounds like extortion.
  
• What incentive is there for these AEC software houses to continue R&D to update their software. As subscriptions remove that incentive to innovate and compete. You as user become "vendor locked" like a junkie, always having to pay to keep the fix going. A recent example is Autodesk's group of Nordic Revit users complaints open letter regarding the stagnation of Revit development.
  
• Long term you pay more for the same software as compared to perpetuals. Revit users have found a 2.5 per seat increase in license's.
  

Whose to say Nemetschek won't follow suit and emulate the Autodesk strategy. Again I repeat, software giants main aim is profit and shareholder satisfaction. All of Nemetschek market actions have parroted Autodesk.

Furthermore, this is the only industry where as consumers we are forced to accept unfinished development where they release software and it still has bugs and they mitigate this strategy through terms and agreements. When I buy a product, I expect it to work out of the box 100% of the time with all the features implemented. Software, espouses new features and it doesn't get implemented properly and you wait for the fix to come though. There is something inherently wrong with that idea.

I will not use subscription licenses. I will not give these companies the power to own my future as an architect. I will not be their cotton picking slave for them to make significant profits off my back using their tools.

Alternatives for me.

So what to do as a small practice, now that your software has moved to subscription. Well initially for me, it's a give in. I will invest in the last perpetual license of Vectorworks and run it until the hardware no longer supports it and it will be probably the last license I will purchase of Vectorworks. I might get a good 5 years use out of the license. 

However, I am currently looking at alternatives to:

1. Find new lower cost perpetual license software independent of Autodesk and Nemetschek. But this has inherent costs in terms of learning, potential loss of productivity and also capital investment.
   
2. Find opensource software alternatives that cost nothing to use. Yes, you read right, "cost nothing", zero, zilch, nada! Again costs nothing, but time for learning and potential loss of productivity and may not be comparable to the commercial offerings.

 Alternative Perpetual License AEC Software I'm investigating:

Top of the list for features is interoperability with other software, so exchange formats are high. BIM ability is all important. Parametrics is high on the list.

1. Rhino + VisualARQ + Lands Design Bundle / Commercial license USD$2,395.00. It is a BIM software with extensive parametric design tools. This is top of my list.
2. Bricscad Ultimate USD$2,100.00 BIM, drafting, mechanical. Second choice.
3. ArCADia BIM 14 Euro €799.00. Cost is enticing, feature packed, but the interface doesn't rev me up.
4. RengaBIM USD$1,800.00 this is a really interesting tool and certainly affordable. Working in a 3D environment, automated reinforcing in 3D, IFC etc. But because it's Russian and the war in Ukraine, I won't consider it.
   

I also maintain perpetual licenses of formZ 8.6, it is a great design tool similar to Sketchup. The problem is, it lacks serious 2d drafting ability and AutoDessys (company) lacks any future development strategy with BIM, which means it maybe a dead end for this tool in my office. I'm hoping they can at least develop the ability to export in IFC format or someone develops an IFC plugin. Finally, they do not have an extensive plugin development community, which can also be a strategy to increase their user base. I can only look with envy at Sketchup's plugin environmental evaluation design tools such as Seifaira.

Alternative Opensource Software I'm investigating:

1. Blender 3d / BlenderBIM plug in - I'm exploring this a replacement CAD/BIM tool for commercial software I'm using. However, the learning requirements are steep, especially since Blender has an interface only a mother can love. Blender is a great free rendering, modelling and animation tool, but working with cad files tends to be hard from exporting from Vectorworks. It is my aim to be proficient with these tools and add them to my workflow as I look to divest myself from Vectorworks. However, as rendering tool it can replace Cinema 4d, Twinmotion, Lumion, Artlantis etc. As modeller it will be far superior to Sketchup if you can get over the interface.
   
2. FreeCAD - I'm exploring this a replacement CAD/BIM tool for commercial software I'm using. It already has BIM tools established in its workbenches, but again the user interface is a steep hurdle to overcome.
   
3. LibreCAD -2d drafting tool will be necessary, as the tools above certainly won't be easy for drafting details. 
4. Ladybug tools - for environmental analysis
5. Vi Suite - for environmental analysis using Blender
   

Seeing how architects are using these tools for rendering, BIM, architectural design using Blenders Tissue plugin has really offered some hope against subscriptions for my commercial cad software.

 My Current Toolbox of Software

Over the years, as software industry have switched to subscriptions and stopped perpetual licensing, I've pushed back by supporting companies providing low cost perpetual licensing or opensource software

1. Affinity Designer, Photo and Publisher for USD$99.00 perpetual which you can float the license on windows, mac and iOS. These have replaced Adobe and my last version CorelDraw 2018 applications.
   
2. Procreate and Concept on my iPad Pro for sketching. Both less cost and significantly easier to use then Corel Painter or Adobe Photoshop.
3. Xodo/Nitropdf for pdf's replaced Adobe Acrobat.
4. FastTrack Schedule for project management, swapped out for MS Project. This has been very good value for money, thanks to the Windows 10 environment, where old software can run under compatible versions of windows. I will eventually replace FastTrack Schedule with ProjectLibre
5. Filemaker Pro 8 - Similar to 4 above, use it til the wheels fall off or I learn Libreoffice Base to replace it.
   
6. LibreOffice is an opensource replacement for Microsoft Office and can open MS files. Zero cost to use. The best thing is you can save in open formats to use other office suites that support open formats. 
7. Vectornator an opensource vector drawing replacement for CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator on my iPad.
8. Gnucash for accounting an opensource replacement for Quickbooks.
9. BIM Vision a BIM Viewer to check my IFC exports from Vectorworks, it also has a growing base of plugin developers which extends the application into quantity surveying, clash detection etc.
   
10. Vectorworks/formZ these are my irreplaceable CAD tools at the moment. I used to use AutoCAD version 10 or 11 while working for another company, it was joyless tool to use. Vectorworks has been my tool of choice for more that 20+ years. It's like another limb attached to my hand and brain, therefore the decision to cut it from my workflow has been hard to make. As for formZ it will stay around as long as I can buy a perpetual license and the cost is reasonable.

At the end of the day, with the limited resources my decisions have to be Sun Tzu like. I have to understand my battlefield and plan accordingly. My market is a developing country where unsophisticated clients mantra is about how cheap they can get a service.