Is it me or is the new 2023 pricing model beyond the reach of most personal hobby people like me?

SketchUp
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As the title says is it just me or is the new 2023 pricing model beyond the range of most casual users like me who use SketchUp for personal projects a few times a year?

I found SketchUp by accident a few years back, installed the free edition, watched Aaron model incredible things every Friday, and then graduated to the Pro edition to use extensions.

I put SketchUp aside until now when I decided I needed to model my backyard reno and USD$400+ is just not something I can afford. I know, I know EVERYTHING went up in price but that means non-essential stuff is taking a backseat for many people right now. I just cannot afford this tool.

I would pay, say, $100/year for personal use (to keep Aaron employed!) but thatā€™s as high as I would go. Not sure if thereā€™s anything out there that can do what SketchUp doesā€¦but I have no choice but lookā€¦

Amazing tool SketchUp. Sorry to see you go.

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Your profile says you are using SketchUp 2017 Make. You can use extensions with that version and it should do what you need for your personal projects.

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Computer got rebuilt (to install Windows 11) and I canā€™t download the 2017 Make edition; they removed this edition due toā€¦ā€œsecurity issuesā€. I was going to just go ahead and purchase a ā€œlegitā€ personal edition of sortsā€¦and thatā€™s when I came across the new prices. Soā€¦yeahā€¦

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Please update your forum profile, then.

Maybe you should look at SketchUp Go or SketchUp Free.

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Web / Go. One is free, the other is 19$ more than what you offered in your first post.

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SketchUp Pro is only $349 USD.

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Less than $6.75 a week.

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But do those version support plugins? In many/most cases we need/want plugins.

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No.

To do what?

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Well, in particular, I use Fredo6ā€™s plugins a lot.

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I do, too. I find it worthwhile to pay for both SketchUp and Fredoā€™s extensions.

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There have been some people complaining about it, personally I think the price increase is fair, thereā€™s no other software on the market that can do what sketchup does costing less than at least $1000 per year, sketchup pro as itā€™s name says is for professionals, mainly, that means that itā€™s a tool that helps you in your work hence to make money, I can cover the price of the license with small percentage of the earnings of a small project, from there all the other projects in the year are just profit.

If you need to use plugins you can get the sketchup make searching on the World Wide Web, there a lot of people that are still using it, but if you donā€™t need plugins for your hobbyist modeling you can use the sketchup free or the sketchup Go which has a few more tools than the free version and also includes the iPad app license.
There are also other free softwares like blender, it has a lot of tools to model sculpt, animate, vfx and a lot more, the learning curve is steeper but itā€™s totally worth it if you donā€™t want to pay for a software, If I was a hobbyist I wouldnā€™t pay $350 per year for a software Iā€™d use either the 2017 sketchup make or Blender, but one of the sketchup pro features tha I use and need to get my work done is Layout so Iā€™ll keep paying for it until I retire if the software still exist and probably beyond that cause I canā€™t live without modeling architecture or cars.

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I went to a restaurant the other day and wanted the steak. I had to pay for it. There was no negotiating, or whining.

And yes, a few years ago when the restaurant was owned by a giant chain the steak came with the salad, so you could buy then salad and get the steak for free! You could even do this trick where you could order the steak and salad and pretend not to really eat it but sneak little bites when no one was looking, and you didnā€™t have to pay for it as long as you pretended it was not really for dinner.

But that owner didnā€™t really care about the food and was just using the restaurant to further their image and location to put up a giant billboard. After a while they sold the place.

The cooks all stayed on and working with the new owner they changed up the menu so now if you want the steak and salad you have to order (and pay) accordingly. Sometimes I think back to the good ole days and wish things stayed the same, but I like it there and Iā€™m getting used to the changes. Itā€™s familiar and comfortable, I know a lot of the staff and some of the cooks, and I realized that of course, giving away steak with a salad probably wasnā€™t the best business decision.

I donā€™t really ever order them but they now have some tapas items - you can basically get smaller plates of their main dishes - you can even get them to eat on the go! They never really had take away / mobile before. So that is kind of cool even though I only use the take out when I am doing a client presentation.

More often I am coming in for a full meal, with all the trimmings. Yeah, it costs money - but itā€™s still cheaper and more convenient than the places down the road.

And this place is super flexible. If I donā€™t feel like I want the celeriac soup as a side I can customize and let them know I only like the basic salad and steak combo. Iā€™ve seen other people do really exotic stuff with their orders - all sorts of crazy add ons! Some of the stuff they have to pay extra for, some things they can choose from the restaurantā€™s ā€˜side boxā€™ - sort of mix and match your basic meal. Many of those sides are from local producers - the restaurant has a setup where the bring in specialty items and you can plug them into their regular menu. Itā€™s pretty cool honestly. Sometimes Iā€™m in the mood for something a little different, so Iā€™ll indulge and change it up, or maybe Iā€™ve got guests in town who like different food - I love that this place is so flexible.

Anyway, change is inevitable. Iā€™ve tried some different places and nothing really has so many good things going for it, so I stick with it. Someday maybe some new place will open, or a few of the older, legacy restaurants in town will figure out how to make a menu more accessible to people like me, but until then Iā€™ll stick with them.

Oh, and they introduced this ā€˜subscriptionā€™ model. Kind of a shock at first. But then I checked my credit card receipts and it looks like it will be a wash. But if I eat out a lot it will be pretty cheap overall. Especially compared to the other guys down the road, itā€™s like 1/3 the cost. So, yeah, I guess my familiar local place is changing, and itā€™s different now. And it will be OK

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Inflation happens, so youā€™d expect compounding 5-7% increases each year.

But Isnā€™t the issue that Sketchup pro hasnā€™t changed much in the last number of years?

Yes, some performance improvements and updates to keep up with modern OSs, and a few new features like tag control in layout and dashed edges, a couple of tool variations (lasso select and flip)ā€¦ but for the tools and features that a person sees and uses daily, thereā€™s not all that much difference to SketchUp 2017.

There have been lots of effort on SketchUp for Web, SketchUp for iPad, VR, Metaverse, new 3d warehouse interface, extension warehouse/manager, live components, predesign, campus/training videos, new logos and interface backend, etcā€¦Iā€™m just not sure that these are actually perceived as adding value to subscribers, though i wouldnā€™t know the use statistics.

Personally iā€™d rather some of that other stuff was charged add-ons to a subscription, like a paid extension (or per use, like how we paid for nearmap aerial imagery).

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