Same SketchUp you love, a new way to buy

SketchUp
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Today, we announced that we will stop selling our Classic Perpetual Licenses and Maintenance and Support renewal plans after November 4, 2020.

If you own a Classic Perpetual License today, you will be able to use the latest version you own in perpetuity. In addition, if you’d like to update your Classic Perpetual License, you can do that until November 4th, 2020. Please be advised: if you purchase a Classic Perpetual License or renew your Maintenance & Support license prior to November 4, 2020, you will not be able to upgrade and access additional features on that license every year as you have in the past.

SketchUp was always meant to be accessible to everyone, and it still is. With a subscription model, we can provide a lower-cost option including SketchUp Pro, one of the most affordable professional modelers on the market. We can also offer our core modeling features on the web for free with the option of upgrading to a more robust version for only $119/year.

Committing wholly to a SaaS business model challenges us to earn your business every single day by constantly improving the tools you need and love throughout each year. We aim to deliver. Since we started offering subscriptions over a year ago, we’ve demonstrated that this method enables us to release new features faster, making the suite of SketchUp products ever more valuable - and helpful.

Today, and going forward, we are proud to offer our community a subscription to SketchUp that contains the SketchUp products you value, and much more.

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You can subscribe for a year, skip a year, renew every year — it’s up to you. Whatever you choose, you’ll always be up to date with the latest features and you’ll receive more frequent updates and improvements. You’ll continue to get access to Pro Technical Support, and also never have to worry about losing access, renewing, or finding your authorization code, if you choose to auto-renew.

For more about our switch to subscriptions, you can read the full announcement blog here. We appreciate that you probably have some questions, so we built a handy FAQ guide.

While changing our pricing model isn’t our favorite announcement of the year, we still think that a SketchUp Subscription is a no-brainer. If you need help getting a subscription, or getting up to date with your Maintenance & Support, our incredible support team is here for you.

** Edit: Please note that we no longer ship a media install for SketchUp Pro.

If you’re interested in creating your own SketchUp Pro media (CD, flash drive, etc.), Please feel free to download the install file and burn it to the media of your choice.

To get started, please visit our Help Center article to electronically download SketchUp Pro.

2 Likes
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Well, this is not unexpected for many of us, the writing has been on the wall.

I think many users see this logic in a very different light, the exact opposite in fact. If I have a working perpetual version then it is necessary for SketchUp to significantly improve in order to motivate me to purchase another year of update, otherwise I’ll continue to use the last version I have. With SaaS, if SketchUp has no changes at all, or even got worse, I am still forced to continue paying each year regardless of improvements or my software will stop working and I’ll loose access to my workflow.

It would be easier to understand if the argument was simply, “We need more money and a reliable revenue stream to continue developing this software, and SaaS gives us that.” I love SketchUp, if this is the best way to keep it alive, fine.

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nope nope nope.

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Sad to see it change. How is this better? At the moment most people are maintaining course (if they can) and trying to cope, but others need to stir the pot.

But thanks for putting it off for a year. The truth is, this is an announcement that in 2021 you can either hold onto the software you have under Classic Coke or start paying more for a subscription to New Coke that no one liked anyway.

Oh well, there’s other software if I don’t like it.

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Well let us go down the feature list:

Trimbal connect business
I do not have a need for it
Sketchup viewer and XR viewers
No need for them, I cannot afford the hardware for Oculus
$299.00 / year
More than double the current M&S

There are many users like myself (hobbyist) that will not spend the extra $$$$. It just got priced out of my range. That plus web based is a killer.
It looks like I will stick with the version I currently have, the improvements do not justify the added expense.

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2.5X the price for additional features that I do not need or want (in the Pro subscription) is a poor tradeoff for me personally. Not sure that I will subscribe; I can’t really justify $300 per year for my hobby use of SketchUp Pro. Bummer.

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I agree fully. I think they will loose many of the hobbyists that do not need all the cloud services that professionals may want. Difficult to justify $300 vs $120 for extra stuff we don’t need or want…

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Not to mention the fact that the software stops working if/when we stop paying the subscription fee. Some of our simple models could be manipulated in web-based SketchUp Free (after canceling a subscription), but the serious models (million+ entities, say) are beyond what the web version can handle (for a while to come, I expect).

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I believe I am in the majority of Pro users who have no need of the web based cloud control or any of that extra baggage, or knowing they can pull the plug on the software anytime they like or when they fail.

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It is disingenuous to state that the subscription is a “lower-cost option” when this actually represents a quite substantial price increase for use existing customers with a perpetual license. Others have already pointed out the other false statement wherein the new model does not encourage you to improve the product. At least be on the level with us when taking away the ability to renew our perpetual license which was promised at the time of purchase and increasing our annual cost.

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Can someone from the SketchUp Team confirm whether the desktop version of Pro that comes with your subscription will be disabled when the subscription expires? This is not currently the case with the ‘perpetual’ classic license.

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Yeah… finally created a forum account just to voice my disdain for this move. I’m a hobbyist, and use Sketchup to make mecha. The services the subscription offers are not my cup of tea, outside of feature updates for the actual program: I don’t need these extra services that I’ll never use, and the perpetual license has worked just fine for me.

Paying that much more for a subscription to have additional content I’ll never use doesn’t sit right with me. It’s a waste of money, and if I switch to a subscription license that’ll stop my ability to use the program when I’m not paying up (Which other people are saying is going to happen), that kills it for me even more.

I think your current model of offering both a licensed version and subscription version works best. If I have to suffer a year without the “latest features” offered through the subscription service until a new version for us license holders is dropped, I’ll suffer: it won’t kill me, I’ll eventually get those features even if I’m behind the subscription version.

I’ll just keep on keeping on with my current version of Sketchup with no future updates.

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The subscription for SketchUp Pro is tested on software launch, if your subscription expires you’ll get a message stating that and it won’t launch the software past the welcome screen where with that message. If you’ve enabled auto-renew then you wouldn’t encounter this behavior as it would automatically renew “in the cloud” before you launch SketchUp.

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I’m sorry, but I am not sure I understand. So I would need to be connected to the Internet every time I launch SU in order to have this check happening?

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I’m a hobbyist. I cannot justify another $240CAD a year for features I know I will never use. I respect that your business model included taking this step eventually - I knew this was coming for a while. However, I do not appreciate how you are trying to dress it in the announcement.

I own a Classic Perpetual License, currently using SU2020.1 What will happen with this latest version that I own when I upgrade to a new computer next year? Will I be able to port the software?

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From the FAQ: "The desktop applications in SketchUp subscriptions, such as SketchUp Pro, are installed directly on your computer. Once the applications are licensed, you don’t need an ongoing Internet connection to use them.

An Internet connection is required the first time you install and license the products in your subscription. Your license will need to be validated at least once every 28 days after that, which will require an Internet connection.

In between those sign ins, our desktop applications can be used when offline. Certain services such as 3D Warehouse and Add Location which always require an internet connection, will not work."

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I recently purchased the perpetual license For 2020 and now feel totally ripped off. Trimble needs to grandfather longer based on when the license was purchased. Poorly thought through and will really make me rethink my relationship with the company.

I must note that the periodic changes historically made to the software are underwhelming when looking at the return on investment of an annual license fee. This is a key reason why I did not buy an annual license in the first place. There are very basic issues that have not been fixed over the last 5+ years and there is an over reliance on 3rd party extensions as work arounds and for innovation.

Trimble will have to really raise its game on updates to keep customers from moving to other software - myself included.

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thanks

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You still have the desktop version, web based versions are on top.

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You can always remove or activate your ‘active’ license, so yes.