CAD Forum

There are times when I need more simulation capabilities than what is included in SW premium. I reached out to my VAR to ask how much it would be to add simulation professional to my license. The first number was over $15k. After choking on that number, (which also included a bunch of cloud stuff I didn't want) the 2nd quote was still over $12k.

I assumed it would be out of my price range, but was flabbergasted at just how expensive it is.

I thought I would provide this information if anyone was curious about the cost.

What functionality do you need?

Simulation software is just expensive no matter where you go as its complexity and developed by PhD's in math, and companies need so few licenses. We have Sim Premium but had to go to Abaqus for a project.....I think a year lease was 15k+. A perpetual license is like 30k. Sim Premium maintenance costs us 4k a year.

There are term options like 3 months or 1 year for most software out there.

Get a quote from Ansys.
Not sure if other work with SW files.

Curious what capabilities you need in sim.

The main need right now is modal analysis. My current process is to export the solids and do this with Mecway. It works, but there can be a bit of model prep and it certainly isn't nearly as convenient when looking at different "what if" scenarios. I was going to struggle to justify a few thousand for the project requiring this information, but I can't even think about spending $10K+.

I did a quick search and saw ansys at over $20k. (Not sure of the reliability of the source.) Nastran appeared to be in the same price range.

I need to look into Aster and see how it compares to Mecway

Modal?
I did a few on fixtures and frames in SW.
Didn't do much just get natural freq and add support to make it higher.

That is indeed pretty much the price, even the 'basic' version of SolidWorks has a bunch of things forced on it. Try renewing a single SolidWorks Standard licence and see the outcome. They'll tell you there's been a price increase but justify the price increase by all the new gimmick features they added such as Cloud. You don't want them and hope avoiding to pay for them? Well, that's too bad, it's all jammed into one big package, if you wanna avoid that, go the Makers way! Oh wait, the Makers way is not for commercial use, but then what? Then, you're stuck having to pay a hefty fee for a licence that has a lot of bell of whistles that come along with it. Most of them work but some of them only work at certain times and others simply don't work on this model, but they'll most likely work on the next version, just pay the renewal fee, it's really jampacked with enjoyment!

I bet there is a load of makers licenses out there being used for commercial work. Big deal you can only import or export dumb files like Step/Parasolid, for loads of people that would be enough.