Changes To Onshape's Plans

nyholku

@michał_1 this was most unpleasent comment I've read on these forums.

You wrote: "First, I think all these complaints are unjustified."

Really, every single one? I think we better agree to disagree on this lest things get even more unpleasent.

You wrote: "There never was a promise about how 'free' will look like"

I guess we need to disagree there also. If you are shown what the free plan looks like I think that is a promise of what the free plan is. 

If you are selling a house with a picture and the actual house is completely different I think you will end up in court.

And I think that definitely fullfills the definition of bait and switch.

You wrote:  "That would make sense only if it would not interrupt with whole system."

Really, how coult that interrupt the whole system? 

"Onshape have troubles with computing storage limits."

As professional programmer of +33 years out of which five in developing a CAD system I'm not buying this at all.

Even if computing size limits had some difficulties, it all depends on what limits you want to put in place. 

A limit on number of private documents is 100% sure trivial to enforce and so is pay per day. I would be ready to pay say $100 dollars for a single private document and/or $5/day for my hobby projects which I really don't want to be public even if make no money or have no prospect of making money from them.

You wrote: "Main argument is that low cost plan could lead to full license. Is it?"

and then dismiss this with difficult to chipper drivel (excuse my French).

Surely a person who has invested in learning a system as complex as a CAD with the steep learning curve that it involves will be more likely to recommend that where ever he is in position to do so. I've seen that so many times, new people come into the company and they recommend and buy the tools they are familiar with. And they buy them because companies don't skimp on the money if the tool full fills a need. For a company $1200/seat/year is trivial, we pay x 10 for PTC Creo.

And btw you write "...you've already come to conclusion that $1200-1500 is too much for Onshape", well, that is a bit dishonest if I say so. That is $1200-1500 per year and hope that Onshape stays in business as long as you need to edit the data. With (some/most) traditional CAD it is pay once, use it indefinitely.

You end with the real stinker: "For all those mean and petty users who were granted free tool but didn't even give Onshape a credit of honesty"

Really "granted free tool"? 

Free? Free as in Freedom? I really don't think so au contraire. Free as beer, no I don't think so either as the users paid for the software by investing their time and enthusiasing about the software to all and sundry, some even writing magazine articles (quilty as charged).

Your write: "give Onshape a credit of honesty"

The question is, do they deserve it? 

To me honestly is not only not telling lies bur being open and forthcoming of your intentions.

The sale pitch was (at very minimum) some private documents and now this is gone. I guess the legal proof is in the EULA but in Finland where I live we have what is called "wordless or implied agreement" and I think that when they showed and maintained a free plan with private documents that was the deal, especially after the first tightening of the free plan rules. 

I end up with the reason that really prompted me to respond to your long post which in IMO hardly deserved a response: I resent very much the way you lump all people in this thread together and imply that they are "mean and petty" when most have said they are willing to pay and when they justifiably and mildly suggest that Onshape has taken some advantage of their fate in Onshape.

I guess the picture of Mr Bean giving world the finget at the end of your post says it all...

michael3424

kustaa_2 said:

I guess the picture of Mr Bean giving world the finger at the end of your post says it all...

Yep, that was a real class act on Mr. Michal's part.  Interesting that no one at OS saw fit to remove that little video or comment on it.

Jlabs

Jlabs said:

First of all, your argument is absurd. A software product isn't a Tesla. And since they're offering all the functionality for free the "price tag" argument is invalid because the cost is already baked in because the product is already developed. Basically, most of the users on this thread are telling OnShape to take our money for private documents. Offset the cost of all the freeloaders a little by offering a middle tier. I don't buy the "we're focusing on pros and open source" bull, because it makes no financial or market sense. I think it's more likely professional arrogance. They want to position to serve pros and the founders probably have a grudge against the current top of the CAD market so anything that dilutes the perception that OnShape is a pro tool isn't acceptable, namely mid-level casual users. 

I suspect the real reason is that the economics does not work out for them and there doesn't seem to be any consensus among us makers on what is a  good mid tier plan either. Numbers ranging from $50 a month , 25$ a month... 5$ a month.  $50 a year ... $20 a year are being pitched.  Lets take $5 a month. Considering thier current plan is $150 they will have to sell 30X as many seats to have the same revenue. If you look at their sales team alone there seem to be around 30 employees so they would potentially need 30 x 30 = 900 employees just to keep their current revenue. 

That would be true if their product required a traditional sales cycle, but it doesn't you can subscribe and provision online without ever interacting with anyone. Their sign-up and purchase process are streamlined and simple. So what if you need 5-10 times the subscribers at a middle tier level? You don't have to spend a dime to acquire them and the overhead is nil. 

øyvind_kaurstad

I think we better move on, folks. Onshape doesn't want to comment on any of this, and I think they have made it quite clear, both by the explicit non-communication and by the (quite sparse) actual communication that they do not want us "mid-tier" people here. For me personally this means a transition to Fusion 360, which offers me free, non-commercial usage, one year at a time. That might not last either, but since they currently also have a low-cost plan, I guess at the very least that will remain an option. And who knows, perhaps their Project Leopard will become a good alternative to Onshape for non-commercial but also non-open source projects? The Solidworks cloud CAD project will most likely only be an alternative for paying professionals, just like Onshape.

I do agree that @michał_1 's comment had some rather nasty wording and characterizations of other users, but I suggest we do not sink down to his level.

gustav_svenson

Very sad to hear about this, it was to good to be true. I was so exited about finding OS and have been telling all my friends about the great features and you get 10 private documents.
Perfect for trying out Onshape before buying or use it as a hobby tool for you small private ideás.
Now I dont know 

steve_28

This is pretty disappointing.  I've been a huge advocate and by complete coincidence, someone just asked me if they should try Fusion 360.  My immediate reaction was "no way, use OnShape!"  I haven't been an active user lately, so when I came to get them a link to the the site I was very surprised to see this announcement.  At four times the price of an Autodesk product(!), I can't honestly recommend it to him.  If he can't work on at least one design privately for a reasonable price, it's kind of a non-starter.

caylan_larson945

I really couldn't believe the news when I read it. I kept going through the paragraphs wondering where my situation fit in. $120/month is too expensive for a hobby that might turn into something more. I'd certainly pay ~$30/mo for privacy and the ability to export STL files. This decision led me to spend 2 hours researching the competition...

james_mcpherson11762

It's clear that Onshape doesn't want / care about the hobby / home maker market. I was really bumbed the first time that Onshape changed the free plan, and now with ZERO / ZERO private documents, I will simply go elsewhere. 
I've said it many times to many people in Onshape, but they don't care. Well, I don't care so I'll say it again. 

I WOULD GIVE YOU MONEY for a mid-tier account. 

YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY MONEY.... so I'm out.

Its so sad. I told everybody I knew how great Onshape was for the makers out there. How it had the chance to be the next "standard" in CAD like Solidworks is today. That's now all gone with no reasonbly entry point. It's just another CAD company, nothing to see here.


-Jim

Synio

Like many others I'm disappointed at the removal of private documents.

3dcad

But hey, there is a middle tier after all - Onshape enterprise is starting at $200 / month and free version goes without private docs and then there is the middle tier called Onshape Professional starting at $100/month.

So you can choose the best fit from 0 - 100 - 200. Very nice.

michael3424

@3dcad - I suppose that is one way to look at it.  For my part at least they pulled the plug while I had only 2 private documents so migration won't too painful, all things considered.  It's sure put me off cloud-only CAD, though.

I'm curious - what sort of Plan B do Pro guys like you have if OS raises the price or reduces features beyond what you find acceptable or, worse, goes out of business completely?  All of that data in the cloud will be pretty much useless if you can't access it.  Do you routinely export drawings and dumb solids to your own storage or just hope for the best?

owen_sparks

Even as a pro user I see this change as a breach of trust.

(1) It's not like a sandwich vendor upping their prices where the consumer can just have a different sandwich next time.  In this case users have pored potentially hundreds of hours into learning OS and creating designs.  OK there may not have been an explicit promise that private docs stay private and editable but that's not an unreasonable assumption to make.  If I chose to give away product and then if I realise that "oh that was dumb" I'm not going to go back to my customers and ask for my widgets back as I've already given them away, they're not mine anymore.

(2) Worst case I would have expected an announcement of "No more free accounts with private docs, but those with existing accounts will of course be able to keep them."  Possibly with a thriving black market of existing log-on details...  I'll rent you my old account for what, say $25 a month? ;-)

(3) There's the perception of the whole thing.  Even if the change is legal, makes good marketing sense and is in line with OS's strategy going forward why create mistrust?  It's already a big leap of faith for many to put their data in the cloud.  Now if the account policies keep having the goal-posts moved too then that might be the final straw.

(4) Anyone watch season 3 of "Halt and Catch Fire"?  Anti virus SW company sells SW to industry, and gives it free to home users "forever".  (All whilst deciding behind closed doors at what time and at what price point to start charging home users.)

OS was a breath of fresh air, and I saw it as empowering a whole raft of new CAD users who would otherwise have been excluded from dipping a toe into the field.  Now, not so much, just another SW company.

Owen S.

øyvind_kaurstad

owen_sparks said:

 OK there may not have been an explicit promise that private docs stay private but that's not an unreasonable assumption to make.

I'm quite sure that Onshape is not going to change private docs to become public (that would really be the ultimate breach of trust). Instead, they'll revoke editing permissions for private docs for all users that don't subscribe to the Pro (or Enterprise) Plan.

Other than that, I agree with everything what you wrote. Onshape is turning into "just another SW company". The fresh air has turned stale.

owen_sparks

øyvind_kaurstad said:

owen_sparks said:

 OK there may not have been an explicit promise that private docs stay private but that's not an unreasonable assumption to make.

I'm quite sure that Onshape is not going to change private docs to become public (that would really be the ultimate breach of trust). Instead, they'll revoke editing permissions for private docs for all users that don't subscribe to the Pro (or Enterprise) Plan.

Sorry, my comment was incomplete, I intended to say "private and editable", not just "private".  Thanks for pointing out my error.   Sorry for the misleading term.  (Original post edited to be correct.)

Regards,

Owen S

Stamos

IMHO OS will only lose from this movement. Customers who are professionals and make money from CAD will pay, either way, to have all the privileges that Pro Plan provides. Free users will go and look elsewhere. Many of these free users contribute and help the development of OS. They also spread their love for OS (till now).
I understand that OS wants to make money, but you cannot expect users who want 1-2 private docs for their small projects, to pay the same as pros!!!
OnShape does justice to all who don't trust cloud services. You are hostage to company's wills. Pity, because the idea of cloud CAD is great but the way OS is heading is disappointing.

donavon_yelton

I'm out. I have just a couple of VERY small projects that I use OnShape for, but they are proprietary and I don't want them made publicly available. I refuse to pay over $1000 a year for this ability. I wouldn't mind paying $15/mo to keep the same 10 document limit or something similar, but what OnShape is asking us to do is just nuts.

I work in a manufacturing facility where we use SoldWorks. I've pumped up OnShape in the past to those guys (I'm over IT at the company) but I can't say that I'll put much faith in OnShape in the future. If you guys are willing to not do any research with your customers prior to making such a cruel announcement, then I wonder what happens when you decide that $100+/mo per user isn't enough and jump it to $250 or more.

I'm not riding your optimism and will no longer have the same view of OnShape that I've had in the past. Good luck with your new business model.

3dcad

For me it sounds like the only mistake Onshape made is that they ever gave anything for free.

donavon_yelton said:

I'm out. I have just a couple of VERY small projects that I use OnShape for, but they are proprietary and I don't want them made publicly available. I refuse to pay over $1000 a year for this ability. I wouldn't mind paying $15/mo to keep the same 10 document limit or something similar, but what OnShape is asking us to do is just nuts.

I work in a manufacturing facility where we use SoldWorks...

Do you get SolidWorks for free if you only create like 10 files with it? 

All cad companies asked for full price when I was in need of just very little design work in my company. And for extra computer they said I need another license or I need to de-activate / activate licenses between computers.

I use Onshape everyday and for me it's still a fresh breath of air not having to play with updates and license restrictions between computers..

marcel_lenormand

Very disappointed too.  I've invested a lot of time in Onshape — working up from hobbyist and educational use to now having the skills to be working on potentially commercial projects.  By going 'all or nothing' you've shut the door to me and whole host of other users — including the few people that I've introduced.

I'm able to pay a modest fee for modest use.

I'd say you've got the rethink this one fast or once people move away they'll be unlikely to return.

michael3424

3dcad said:

For me it sounds like the only mistake Onshape made is that they ever gave anything for free.

I think that's an excellent point.  It made sense to make the product free during the "beta" and early development period since what was implemented at that time didn't really justify Pro pricing.  Had the policy been free access then, and paid at some later point (if private documents were wanted) then most of us unhappy free plan users wouldn't have much to legitimately complain about.  Even as things are, OS certainly has the right to price however they choose and they don't really "owe" free plan users anything.  I still maintain, though, that the way this evolved leaves a bad taste in the mouth for many of us and demonstrates very poor marketing and a lack of good judgement, especially for a team that has so much experience in the industry.  Kudos for making it a public announcement thread and allowing us to discuss it.

@3dcad - still interested in hearing what your (or other Pro users) fall back plan is for accessing cloud-based proprietary files if you lose Onshape use for any reason.  One thing this has taught is to be very wary of cloud-based programming.  If that disappears and a major part of your business depends on it, what do you do?

3dcad

michael3424 said:

@3dcad - I suppose that is one way to look at it.  For my part at least they pulled the plug while I had only 2 private documents so migration won't too painful, all things considered.  It's sure put me off cloud-only CAD, though.

I'm curious - what sort of Plan B do Pro guys like you have if OS raises the price or reduces features beyond what you find acceptable or, worse, goes out of business completely?  All of that data in the cloud will be pretty much useless if you can't access it.  Do you routinely export drawings and dumb solids to your own storage or just hope for the best?

To be honest I will be missing some of you guys in the forum as this forum is also a breath of fresh air.. except threads that have discussion about Onshape plan changes..

About Plan B, it is about the same as I have for dropbox, accounting services, emails, bank services, webshops and other online services. It is possible to download data and keep it in my ultimate supersafe unbreakable harddrive that is better than any service in the world..

I don't have any plan B for my webservices as I'm paying for them to keep the data safe. I'm pretty sure Onshape will send me email and tell me to get my stuff out if they are shutting down. And that would be about same as moving from any cad package to another, I have my models but without history.

If they don't then I'm back to where I started when I found Onshape, looking for new cad

But let's assume Onshape run out of money, what would happen? I suppose shut down is not even an option at that point, what they would need to do is cut down expenses and gather profit so they would get rid of free plan, reduce people in customer service and development maybe even sales. I suppose they already have enough customer base to keep the system running, it is the develoment that cost the big money not usage cost.

Any other perspectives on this?

adrian_vlzkz

alexey_kornienkov said:

This is very sad. Like many hobbyists, I have invested considerable time and effort in learning Onshape. Removal of private documents and lack of affordable "hobbyist" paid tier means I'll have to go through the whole CAD selection and learning process again.

I feel betrayed by this change, and bitter from wasting countless hours learning Onshape.

Yes, please think about "Hobbyist" Plan that allows a limited number of Private Documents. $125 a month is too much for us weekend warriors.

michael3424

3dcad said:

To be honest I will be missing some of you guys in the forum as this forum is also a breath of fresh air.. except threads that have discussion about Onshape plan changes..

About Plan B, it is about the same as I have for dropbox, accounting services, emails, bank services, webshops and other online services. It is possible to download data and keep it in my ultimate supersafe unbreakable harddrive that is better than any service in the world..

I don't have any plan B for my webservices as I'm paying for them to keep the data safe. I'm pretty sure Onshape will send me email and tell me to get my stuff out if they are shutting down. And that would be about same as moving from any cad package to another, I have my models but without history.

If they don't then I'm back to where I started when I found Onshape, looking for new cad

But let's assume Onshape run out of money, what would happen? I suppose shut down is not even an option at that point, what they would need to do is cut down expenses and gather profit so they would get rid of free plan, reduce people in customer service and development maybe even sales. I suppose they already have enough customer base to keep the system running, it is the develoment that cost the big money not usage cost.

Any other perspectives on this?

Thanks for the perspective.  Back with Alibre/GMD I had my files stored in M-Files vault and that suddenly become unusable due to a conflict with other software.  That left me wondering what to do with 2.5 GB of historical data and from then on I created a PDF version of drawings for each part and saved that separately from the CAD data files.  The issue arose again with this OS change but much less proprietary OS data so the issue is much less stressing now.  It seems like it would be prudent to archive all OS files as dumb solids or PDF drawings as a hedge against disaster, and were I faced with that on my Alibre/GMD data I'd be royally screwed - it would take weeks or months to export all those dumb solids and create PDF drawings if there were none.  If my business were dependent on CAD data I'd have to plan on doing all that archiving as projects progress and that introduces a certain inefficiency.  With conventional locally hosted CAD programs you just need to maintain data backups and archives of the install files.

I'm looking at it from the perspective of a small company with limited resources, though, and maybe that sort of activity is just normal workflow and accounted for in the cost of doing business for much larger companies.

I'll be sticking around here for a while and will continue using OS on non-propietary projects, assuming it offers some advantages over F360.

coleman

Have any of you actually tried fusion360........its dreadful compared to onshape. 

øyvind_kaurstad

coleman said:

Have any of you actually tried fusion360........its dreadful compared to onshape. 

Yes, I am now working on the transition to Fusion 360. It is different, that's for sure. To say it is dreadful? I don't agree, but there is no denying that I like Onshape's UI better. Then again, F360 has way more tools and functions than Onshape, and I do see sculpting with t-splines as a useful feature.

I think it is likely that Onshape will develop further, but that does me no good as I don't foresee doing any business with my CAD work, so paying for the Pro Plan is off the table. So for me it will be Fusion 360, and I'll just have to work at getting better in that software instead.

OpenR2

coleman said:

Have any of you actually tried fusion360........its dreadful compared to onshape. 

Yes. I use it to generate the toolpaths for all my design for my Tormach PCNC1100. I think the interface is actual clean and consistent from function to function. To me it's the most often used modules with the most often used functions from a mature CAD 2.0 (feature/solid/hybrid modeling) 

OpenR2

I was describing this situation to a coworker today. He mention that git did the same thing...public stuff is free. Private stuff is paid. And there's no in between.

nyholku

This needs clarification:

"He mention that git did the same thing...public stuff is free. Private stuff is paid. And there's no in between."

'git' is a software version control tool that is free in every sense of the word.

There is no charge and you get the source code so you can further develop it or fix bugs and install in anywhere.

A company called 'github' offers git as a cloud service along the lines "public stuff is free. Private stuff is paid". There are others with varying business plans. And you can easily setup your own cloud service at the cost of running your own server if you so feel at negligible cost.

The marked difference to Onshape is that if github goes bust for whatever reason you can set up your own 'github', something you cannot do with Onshape. 

Not very relevant but thought this needed clarification.

benedict_tan

I can only speak for myself, but with this plan change Onshape has gone form a product that I saw as a tool that one day I may be able to make enough money from that it can pay for itself to a non-starter in my limited resource business strategy.

As it stands, I have little choice but to migrate to Fusion 360 or adapt 3D modelling software that I already own a licence for to the task of developing my client projects.

When I eventually make enough to afford Onshape it is unlikely I will come back to it given I will have familiarized/invested myself with the workflow of other software.

I'm ultimately fine with this (not that I have a choice), and I understand how individuals such as myself drift out of the target demographic but it makes it no less disappointing.

3dcad

@michael3424
I was thinking how will other cads do if company runs out of business? Geomagic needs connection to licensing server every now and then, otherwise program won't start. How about SolidWorks, I suppose it's the same thing?
We can't prepare for everything, if we do it takes so much resouces that cost would be unreasonable.

We had a lot of drawings made with Designer 1.1 which was very good software for quick drafting. After corel bought it there was no new versions on that name, program worked of course since there was no licensing servers at that time. But when I updated to windows 8, it didn't work anymore due to 16bit architecture or so was not supported.. That was the end of story, I had some old computer with old wxp but never used it - so I didn't need those old drawings after all.

Now I'm again in that situation, I have tons of Alibre files but I haven't imported them into Onshape and I have used Alibre only few times after fully moved to Onshape. I have recreated a lot of stuff while learning Onshape though. When I get new workstation someday in future, most likely I don't remember to install Alibre at all..

So if my subscription to Onshape would suddenly end, I would download the most important models that are in constant use and other would stay there in read only mode. Then I recreate stuff with some awesome new cad that has so much better workflow and the best part, it has free version to start with (does this sound familiar?)

I'm curious, how much other companies business relies on old data? How big disaster it would be if those old tapes would disappear someday? I'm not talking about on going projects but something acrhived over a year..

michael3424

coleman said:

Have any of you actually tried fusion360........its dreadful compared to onshape. 

Can you expand on that a bit?  I'm just starting to familiarize myself with F360 and struggling a bit, though I seem to get the job done in the end.  I've needed tech support and that has been pretty much as responsive as Onshape's always impressive tech support.