I’d like to see Sketchup adopt what I call the Agenda pricing model. I loved Sketchup before, but don’t like the pricing/subscription model that now requires me to pay rent forever to use it, regardless of my needs.
IMHO (and many others), the folks at Agenda have found and implemented the perfect balance:
They have a very robust free-forever version, just like you, but it is not online only.
Buying into their "Premium” version includes:
12 months of all new features
Keep all of that “forever"
Includes all basic upgrades forever (ie it also keeps working through OS changes)
After that year, pay again whenever Premium features are worth it to you. Or just stick with what you already have if you don’t want the new features.
No lock-in to use what you already paid for
No required “subscription”, yet the incentives are perfect. Developers can just keep adding improvements and features without waiting for the next big version to entice upgrades. They are incentivized to improve significantly continuously, or folks won’t pay again. Modest entry pricing, so there is a low barrier to entry and the same low level to buy new updates helps users to buy and try Premium. No “big releases” to hold out features for, just continued improvement, and users can wait 18 months, or 2 years if they aren’t enticed by improvements and features (I suspect many upgrade after the year is up just because they love the model so much).
They also have a great user community forum, where you rarely find any complaints beyond users wanting more features. And they are always straight with users, never evasive.
I hope Trimble considers this, as it really is the right thing to do, and no doubt will restore a level of trust was lost when they downgraded the free version and switched to a subscription model.
I think you’re basically describing the Classic license, but for less money and with continual support upgrades for OS changes.
Additionally, not really fair to compare Agenda to SketchUp (again, because I recall reading you post all this elsewhere before). The software packages are as different as any two can be.
Newer software tends to make rapid advances each year as new features are added. Generally, the more complex & mature that software becomes, the more expensive it gets for the developer to add in new features.
Then, the idea of updating each year becomes less attracive to users. If Version 5 works great for you (in a commercial workflow), then why pay to upgrade to 6? or 7?
For a company, upgrading software isnt something people do just for the sake of it…there has to be a business case & budget set aside for the administration.
Adobe went through that with Creative Suite… most users just stuck with CS6 or CS8 and didnt really get excited by a lot of the newer features (which were decreasingly useful to the majority of
people who just wanted Indesign/Photoshop/Illustrator and dont care about the other addons)
I’m not sure how complex or mature Sketchup can be considered…we get some development each year but it may not be considered enough to make companies keep paying for upgrades.
Certainly some of the recent things that Trimble added to SketchUp Pro have given virtually no benefit to commercial users.
Just installed the new update for BricsCAD Pro. Here are the release notes - this is just the third one after the major v.21 release - BricsCAD (Windows) Release Notes (bricsys.com)
Compare this to SketchUP’s funny “updates” and You see how well “subscriptions” speed up the development and innovations! BricsCAD has it’s all - perpetual, subscriptions, network licenses. Just saw AutoCAD 2022 went out - another subscriptions “benefit” monster - here are the “new” features after the one year “development” costs $1,775 /year - Get to Know AutoCAD 2022 - The Connected Design Experience | AutoCAD Blog | Autodesk
Yes, that’s what I meant… the CS to CC transition…
Incidentally somehow Adobe completely screwed up the whole CC management/update process, now we all have multiple versions installed labelled CC2019, 2020, 2021 and people just mix and match.
When Archicad yearly update charges (in addition to the 6000 € price) amount to more than four SketchUp subscriptions the improvements ought to be significant.
Blender isn’t remotely comparable. It’s totally free software. Nobody owns it, it’s entirely Open Source. The developers “own” Blender and can, at any point, stop development without any responsibility to supporting anyone anywhere for any reason.
If software isn’t significantly improving why are we paying them over and over again. Rent vs own. There has to be a good reason.
No one said Agenda and SketchUp are the same. They are software and I am comparing pricing models not products.
Can’t compare products and prices unless the products are comparable.
Yes, Adobe is abusing their power of market share and size. Always looking for a better solution. Hard for anyone to compete when a company that big can spend more to out innovate or replicate your efforts, or simply buy you and the consumer loses options.
That’s the value of the software as determined by Trimble. You certainly do pay to “rent” in essence. That’s the licensing. All these arguments for a lower price and more affordable structure are really just arguments that people don’t think SketchUp is worth as much as the price tag. Personally, I find the price to be just about right for what I get out of it, and comparing to other software packages is absolutely pointless.
The price of a pro subscription is $25 a month. For most people, whether they live in the middle of a field or in the center of a metropolis, this is covered entirely by an hour of work or less. For me, personally, $25 is 15 minutes of work, and easily covers the cost of the tool to get the job done. Are you REALLY saying that some people should pay less based on where they live? That argument is ridiculous.
I clearly thought of everyone from those in fields to those in big cities
Are you now asking for an hourly or monthly subscription? That is a total departure from the current discussion. Thinking of a yearly subscription broken down by month is definitely how you should be thinking about it, though.
Now, as far as hotels go, it makes sense to charge by the night. The sole purpose of hotels is to have a place to stay for the night, a place to stay. Any hotel that charges by the hour, we all know, is catering to a totally different purpose altogether. They are hardly hotels in the traditional sense at that point.
I don’t understand this question. They aren’t charging by the hour, so this scenario doesn’t exist. I pay for the tool, and I use it to generate income. That’s how the profession works.
It’s totally open source. From their own site:
“Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, video editing and 2D animation pipeline.”
“[Blender] Mission:
We build a free and open source complete 3D creation pipeline for artists and small teams, by publicly managed projects on blender.org. Blender is licensed as GNU GPL, owned by its contributors. For that reason Blender is Free and Open Source software, forever.”
No, you didn’t. You asked me nonsense questions about why I don’t pay Trimble $4,000, and then something weird about how people living in fields away from a community pay more/less for services? You also balked at my basic math showing the cost of a subscription when broken into months, and how it is but a small fraction of what a professional charges for services.
Of course I wouldn’t be willing to. Still confused as to why you’re even typing this, as it’s a scenario that exists only in your imagination. I don’t even know what $2 an hour is referring to, but it certainly has no connection to this reality or anything about what I’m willing to pay for.
Once again, if I have to “imagine” it, we’re talking about a fantasy scenario disconnected from this reality. Trimble charges $299/year, which is $25/month and less than $1/day.
