I knew that the annual price for Sketchup Pro would be increasing $50 from $349 to $399 on July 2nd. I don’t have an issue with that. I am currently on the monthly plan because my annual subscription was up for renewal a month after I had a medical procedure. I wasn’t able to afford to purchase the annual plan at that time because I had been off work for 10 months recovering. I began paying $49.99 on the month-to-month plan since January 2025. I was very surprised last week when $99.99 was debited from my bank account for 1 months subscription in July!! So the annual cost of Sketchup Pro increased $50.00 however the monthly subscription increased from $599.88 to $1,199.88 annually!! I asked for a refund immediately and get some BS answer that I can’t get a refund since I started the month to month in January and they only refund within 14 days of when the month to month began. I started back to work recently so I will be able to afford the annual subscription in a couple of months however I’m not paying $99.99 for two more months!! I don’t think the idea of giving a company more money after being screwed by them makes good sense. I use it for woodworking design and it’s only a hobby. Also the update is still crappy and constantly crashes!! They’ve taken subcriptions pricing to a new low. Make it make sense!!
I don’t understand why the month-to-month is so much more than the yearly price.
The only explanation is they don’t want any month-to-month subscribers. Short answer…GREED!
Inflation
I thought it was a mistake, but after checking, it’s actually $50 per month more for the monthly subscription.
Years ago, I was told that Trimble’s goal was to sell SketchUp for $1,000. At the time, they still had a perpetual license, and I thought that was the price of that perpetual license… but no!
Or the costs of managing the monthly subscriptions isn’t profitable so they are incentivizing people to pay more for the convenience or switch to yearly.
and they’re making a montlhy version for occasional one-off needs. like an intern / temp, or a very specific project where you need an extra seat for a month or two.
previously, the yearly sub was the price of about 7 month. now it’s 4. it was a bad deal, it’s now worse. because in both cases, I don’t think the target was “people who want to pay their yearly subscription on a monthly basis” but “people who need sketchup once in a while”.
Exactly that 
I used to pay about £96 per month for a plugin that cost £540 for a full year. At the time it made perfect sense to pay £96 every now and then. Nobody in their right mind would the pay £96 every month.
As I said in my original post, I don’t mind paying for SU Pro. I’ve been using Pro for quite a few years. I had been renewing for two years at a time. I’ve invested thousands in plug-ins. I used to be a woodworking professional making extra money designing and building commissioned arts and crafts furniture. I retired in 2019 after a 35 year career in civil engineering. After retirement I started building furniture fulltime. Due to a medical condition I had to give it up as a fulltime woodworker. I’m working as a part-time consultant now and will be able to afford to purchase the annual subscription. Yea I was a little pissed when Trimble never let me know that the monthly cost would increase by 100%. They sent me an email in May that SU Pro would increase to $399. I wasn’t too concerned with the price increase and was expecting to renew once I was able to begin working again. Just inform your subscribers of all the cost increases. My part-time work pays for my extracurricular expenses, such as hobbies like photography, fishing and furniture design. I expected that a few SU elitists would come out of the woodwork and blast me. It’s part of the world we live in. I’m too old to learn new software. I enjoyed your lesson and little scolding at the end. Rather cute.
I apologize for not being too bright but I’m not sure what your rent-seeking point is. The way I see it is a perpetual software license no longer exists for SU Pro and it’s only available with a subscription. Aren’t we all renting Trimble’s software? You sign a one-year agreement to use their software on their terms when you pay their “rental” fee. You can never own it.
I’m a SketchUp developer and have been doing this full time since 2018. I feel your pain. I was very disappointed when SketchUp discontinued the Make version. I was hoping they would offer Make at a reduced price while still allowing extensions for the non-professional user.
Interesting to know I’m an elitist. You’ll note the link I posted was from 2018 - this has been going on for a good while now, every year it seems when there are changes or price increases.
I firmly believe the worst thing that happened with SKP was Google buying them and ‘giving it away’.
Read the linked article. It is about the tendency of converting buying and selling that are subject to market conditions to rent. For an old instance, cultivators used to compensate land owners with a proportion of their crops, which later were transformed into fixed money rents. And now, software licenses you own are tranformed to licenses you rent. If you need a car, today you have still a choice whether to buy or lease it.
Interesting to know I’m an elitist. You’ll note the link I posted was from 2018 - this has been going on for a good while now, every year it seems when there are changes or price increases.
Guru maybe? 
I firmly believe the worst thing that happened with SKP was Google buying them and ‘giving it away’.
I agree.
LIke I stated before I had no issue paying the $50 increase for the annual subscription. I was notified and expected it. Just let me know how the price increase affects ALL of the prices so I can make a decision if I want to keep it. Don’t double the cost for the monthly subscribers, expect us not to be surprised then say, oh by the way if you wanted a refund you should have asked back in January? What the hell did January have to do with the ungodly price increase for monthly sunscribers in July?! I don’t care if they raise the monthly price to $500 a month. Let us know ahead of time to make a decision!! I won’t renew next month however I plan to renew my annual subscription in September only because I have too much invested in SU Pro.
Adobe Creative Suite had a price increase recently as well. They did something similar. They required the month-to-month subscribers to either commit to a year and pay $69.99 month or pay $124.99 with no commitment. They did notify their current subscribers of all price increases.
They didn’t invent the subscription licensing but they made it popular among big software companies, I hate them for that.
I don’t use any Adobe software, and I wouldn’t use it even under life threatening, so I don’t know how the subscription licensing steal ended up or if they’re still trying to solve that, but I have a couple friends who were pissed at the time, they had to pay the entire year plus a fee for unsubscribing. It was ridiculous.
I agree.
If the product was stable and had some new useful features, then sure increase the price. But its still a bit of a mess, and nothing can justify the price increase so far. They’re just following in the footsteps of every other money grabbing software firm out there. Not impressed tbh.
Love 
it. I still do a bit of building. I buy a tool if I am going to use it regularly and I hire if not. A wheel barrow is $10 NZD to hire for a half day and about $300 to but a decent one that will last. If the only place I could buy a wheel barrow in NZ was the said hire company and they stopped selling barrows and I had to hire it for $300 a year but I got a new barrow each year I would stop building.
that’s a brilliant analogy.
brilliant really. sketchup is a wheelbarrow. and trimble is the only company that makes wheelbarrows apparently.