Altium Price Rises

[trevwhite]

Altium very generously just offered me a renewal fee of £2120 + VAT for the year. It’s 90 days before it’s due so I think they were preparing me for the shock. They just hike it up every year without any real justification.  It’s not a small hike at around a 30% increase on last year which was a 30% increase on previous year.


I am fed up with constant money grabbing from them. I am extremely reluctant to give them any more money. I will not renew again I think. Current version does what I need.

[jc101]

I was quite frank with them about the maintenance price of my permanent licence, which was that it was unaffordable.  Plus the new policy that if you don't keep the maintenance up and want back in, you must buy another full-price licence.  I was officially told that at the time of my renewal.  They offered a small discount presented as a "great deal".

In the end I offered them a "this is what I can afford, take it or leave it" counter offer just on the renewal date.  This was true at the time, as customers hadn't paid up so cash was tight.  I was happy to let it lapse if they didn't accept, but they did.  So it cost comfortably under 50% of what they offered.  If was accept that or nothing.

Being a small company helped I think.  I've quite a lot of time invested into Altium now, and got a permanent licence at a huge discount following various offers and schemes a few years ago.  So I wouldn't want to migrate away unless I really have to.

[SiliconWizard]

EDA vendors/distributors usually have a very wide margin for negotiating fees. I have done that in the past with Zuken Cadstar as well, and had cut the renewal fee to less than 1/3 the initial offering.
But yes being a small company definitely helps.

[beenosam]

What's the possible lowest price one could even get for Altium now? The price used to be high but still reasonable, but now for a permanent license it is absolutely ridiculous.

[johnboxall]

What's the possible lowest price one could even get for Altium now? The price used to be high but still reasonable, but now for a permanent license it is absolutely ridiculous.

Try treating it like buying a car before COVID (you know exactly what you want, and how much to pay - you offer $x or walk out).

Have your figure in mind, wait until the end of the month and send sales an email ... "I have my credit card in my hand - call me back if you can do it for $x a month/perpetual and I'll pay over the phone today."

[EEVblog]

Being a small company helped I think.  I've quite a lot of time invested into Altium now, and got a permanent licence at a huge discount following various offers and schemes a few years ago.  So I wouldn't want to migrate away unless I really have to.

Their entire business model relies on that.

[Doctorandus_P]

I've quite a lot of time invested into Altium now, and got a permanent licence at a huge discount following various offers and schemes a few years ago.  So I wouldn't want to migrate away unless I really have to.

I like KiCad quite a lot, but I don't know whether it has "sufficient" usability for you. It also has quite decent importers  for altium schematics and PCB's, and I'm sure that if a bunch of altium users would gang up and pay a fraction of what they are used to for altium to commercial support for KiCad, then I am sure any lasting converter issues will be resolved quite quickly.

[jc101]

Being a small company helped I think.  I've quite a lot of time invested into Altium now, and got a permanent licence at a huge discount following various offers and schemes a few years ago.  So I wouldn't want to migrate away unless I really have to.

Their entire business model relies on that.

Which seems to be the problem.  There doesn't seem to be any consistency in how their sales model works, and it appears to be becoming ever more draconian as time passes.

I've quite a lot of time invested into Altium now, and got a permanent licence at a huge discount following various offers and schemes a few years ago.  So I wouldn't want to migrate away unless I really have to.

I like KiCad quite a lot, but I don't know whether it has "sufficient" usability for you. It also has quite decent importers  for altium schematics and PCB's, and I'm sure that if a bunch of altium users would gang up and pay a fraction of what they are used to for altium to commercial support for KiCad, then I am sure any lasting converter issues will be resolved quite quickly.

I've looked at KiCad, the problem is going through the pain barrier again. 

I'm not a heavy user by any means, but when I do get into a project, I can get things done pretty quickly.  KiCad could probably do most of what I need if I spent the time going through everything.  I have a permanent Altium licence, so at the moment, that isn't time well spent.  I suspect when I finally drop the maintenance renewal, I will look at running them in parallel for a period.  Then eventually make the switch.  If I were on a subscription licence things would be different.

[asmi]

I got a quote for 3K CAD (+tax) for my update sub extension of my permanent license, which is about 20% higher than what it was last year, though part of that increase is undoubtedly weaker CAD.

[VK3DRB]

Altium is risking going down the same road as IBM with Microchannel Architecture. Superior architecture, but IBM got too greedy with licensing fees for hardware manufacturers who basically told IBM to get stuffed, and they manufactured PC's using the PCI bus instead. OS/2 was a similar story but it plagued with high prices and dreadful marketing by the IBM dinosaur, compared to Microsoft and Windows.

As KiCad or Eagle improves, then Altium better watch its back. Also, after failing to buy Altium, Autodesk is getting in on the act and will become a tough competitor over time. I think the PCBA CAD market will be very different in 10 years or even sooner if Altium does not make its software and subscription prices reasonable for all and sundry.

[Karel]

Also, after failing to buy Altium, Autodesk is getting in on the act and will become a tough competitor over time.

You'r kidding, aren't you? Eagle is dead.

[thm_w]

Also, after failing to buy Altium, Autodesk is getting in on the act and will become a tough competitor over time.

You'r kidding, aren't you? Eagle is dead.

Discussed in the other thread, when people say Eagle, they probably meant the current fusion360 PCB tool. Which doesn't have its own name..
Its terrible currently, but could get better, and could easily compete at the low end where Altium has dropped support ($50/month for f360 vs $380+/month).

[VK3DRB]

Also, after failing to buy Altium, Autodesk is getting in on the act and will become a tough competitor over time.

You'r kidding, aren't you? Eagle is dead.

Discussed in the other thread, when people say Eagle, they probably meant the current fusion360 PCB tool. Which doesn't have its own name..
Its terrible currently, but could get better, and could easily compete at the low end where Altium has dropped support ($50/month for f360 vs $380+/month).

The Autodesk product may well improve rapidly, because of the calibre of those behind Fusion 360. Even so, if they don't have good experienced electronics engineers at the helm driving the development, they are wasting their time.

The definition of what low-end is these days is blurred. Maybe low-end CAD is not having harnesses, impedance control on differential pair routing or powerful design rules. Or maybe only up to 6 layers and PCB size limitations. Or maybe low-end is putting up with slow routing speeds and bugs in complicated designs.

Altium still has bugs of course but they seen fewer these days. But the old saying still holds, "It is doesn't have bugs, it isn't Altium."

[EEVblog]

Altium is risking going down the same road as IBM with Microchannel Architecture. Superior architecture, but IBM got too greedy with licensing fees for hardware manufacturers who basically told IBM to get stuffed, and they manufactured PC's using the PCI bus instead. OS/2 was a similar story but it plagued with high prices and dreadful marketing by the IBM dinosaur, compared to Microsoft and Windows.

Altium has always gone up and down in price.
I can remember being in the staff canteen at Frenches Forest when Nick Martin gathered everyone together and announced that they were slashing the price by 75%, permanately.
The CEO at the time thought that was dumb and left soon after that.
of course, it was back up to the orignal price within a year or something.
The current price of AUD$475/month is actually less than it was back in those days, which was about US$10k IIRC (reduced to $2500 with the 75% cut)
Sure it's a different monthly format, but huge numbers of users upgraded yearly anyway.

[trevwhite]

Well I am fed up with the pricing being all over the place. Altium is marketing heavy. They sent me a renewal offer three months before its due. Some kind of strategy to begin the negotiations. I have never really known anything like it but I will offer them a figure this year. They can take it or leave it but I ain’t paying silly money just because they integrated GitHub into their cad software. It’s a nice feature but I can do that myself really with the git desktop app.

[Ice-Tea]

Remember how last year we were threatened we would never get back on subscription if we didn't pay up right there and then? Well, to the surprise of not a single person on this planet or at least this board: they are changing their policies.

Don't let it hinder your momentum. Our new Restart Policy ensures that licenses that expired no more than three years ago can get back on subscription.

[trevwhite]

What does the policy state? Is there a financial penalty to pay?

[Ice-Tea]

I'm guessing officially the same as before: pay the backlog of subscription fees. But there's no additional information.

[trevwhite]

Thay have started adding subscription based features too. The pro subscription has constraint manager for example. 

[EEVblog]

Record high Altium share price 

[mikehoopes]

This, combined with generally unsatisfactory treatment by the salesforce, is the reason that my manager and I decided today to do a simple, but real, design in KiCad to see how it goes. It is an iteration of a standard design that we understand very well, so any challenges should become clear.

John

Do you have a license already?

I don't get people that have an Altium license and complain about subscription costs. Just get a perpetual license and don't pay subscription if its an issue.

Altium licenses are perpetual. The subscription is only so you keep getting updates. When subscription stops you are frozen at the last version/service pack you paid for. it keeps working.

I'm currently locked out of Altium Designer because my license expired.

Old thread, but I figured this may be an ongoing concern. I’ve worked with many an expired AD subscription (we’ve let a portion of our seats lapse over the years), and I suspect the only way one gets “locked out” is if they update the client. Even if you’re off subscription, AD will cue the user to perform software updates. They can be installed, but won’t function without a current subscription.

[thm_w]

There is a running offer now where no penalties are charged for lapsed subscription, if anyone wants to update an old perpetual license for ~$4k.
Even if you have a 10+ year old license they might be able to do it.

No idea if Renesas will go and change the prices though, so don't get angry if it drops in the future.

[ajb]

Is that part of the 'gear up for growth' thing they emailed me about?  I was curious, but not curious enough to request a phone call by clicking on the tracking link.

[thm_w]

Is that part of the 'gear up for growth' thing they emailed me about?  I was curious, but not curious enough to request a phone call by clicking on the tracking link.

Didn't get an email for that, could be.
Just one email for free training modules (have to sign up): https://www.altium.com/training/altium-designer

[jc101]

I got a call from Altium Germany today offering 35% discounts on new licences. I'm not sure why the UK office didn't make the call, and I've not received any emails with offers.

Not that I need any new licences.  Less bugs would be nice, and not splitting the user base into Standard and Pro would be good too.