Why there is no plan for hobbyists or students

Sure, but the free version of fusion 360 has been handicapped in the QoL aspect of things to the point where, while usable, is just uncomfortable for the sake of being uncomfortable.

It’s also a buggy mess and sometimes struggles doing some basic things. Yeah, it’s free but it’s not the “amazing software” that it was in the early days when they were giving it away with all the features, to be able to get a foothold in the industry that they needed as a new software.

I feel that Shapr3D lays in this really odd place as far as pricing goes. €300/year (because looking at the almost €50/month otherwise, is absolutely pointless) is a steep price for a hobbyist, but then is arguably cheap for a professional when you look at alternatives; half the price of a Fusion annual license. You get a lot and you’re not limited anywhere as far as the software is concerned as a whole. As someone doing the 14 day trial, it’s painful and even €250 would be nicer, but it’s not unmanageable and if it’s something that you need then it would justify itself I reckon.

Something that seems should possibly be considered is regional pricing to even out the cost to subscribers based on where they are.

Any update on additional subscription plans? I am a hobbyist and 3D print a lot of models created by others. I’d love to learn to create my own models but current pricing is too much for someone just getting started.

Fusion/Solidworks has had a much longer time in the game. The pricing usually comes down to infrastructure costs. The servers around the world are very expensive to keep going where all our work is stored. Everything costwise has doubled in the past 4 yrs to maintain, so I understand the pricing increase

BUT, everyone here does have a point. the hobbyist are the driving force for adoption. the pricing structure is just to high for a weekend warrior.

The biggest draw to people using this app is that it is very easy to understand and use, AND they can go from their iPad to desktop in an instant. That takes a lot of server resources to accomplish.

I think they should have a super basic tier of service… around the $10/per month mark is usually where the line for paying ends for these guys

In this tier, files are only kept local and the types of files that can be saved/opened are drastically reduced. Possibly a LITE version of Shaper3D?

Perhaps only save .shpr / .stl / .dxf / .3ds
and only open .shapr / .stl / .dxf / .svg
(these are the only filetypes that hobbyists can really use)

maybe a +$5 tier for the ability to have drawings and use the filetypes involved with that

then maybe a +$5 tier for using the 3d rendering export to PDF/JPG

You can use it on the tablet or desktop, but you have to manually save the file and then open that saved file on the desktop. No team sharing and no cloud saves.
I wouldn’t cap the amount of projects, nor amount of saves for 10 bucks

It has to usable, but a little trouble, if you need to go back and forth between iPad and desktop.

Im only thinking out loud here for a hobbyist to want to shout it out to the world and get fellow hobbyists to adopt. If you want influencers to market this, it has to have a lower price point.

These apps have a learning curve and you can easily get someone to spend more if they learn and use more things.

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Lite version sounds good, with just high res stl, dxf sketch export, shapr backup, 10 project at a time. $120 yearly option but no monthly.

Sketchup is $119 per year, I think $120 for a year is reasonable.

For free version I think you should just unlock the Shapr file format at least so we can backup and continue making thing, that format is locked to Shapr anyways.

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As a weekend warrior / hobbiest the file formats I use on a regular basis for export are 3MF, X_T. And SVG. For import I use X_T, and occasionally SVG,and STL

The native formats will always be needed for backups.

I would say the main problem with pricing is the exchange rate … if I get charged (AUD) at the number the Euro is, then shapr will see a big reduction in the amount paid … I have no answer on pricing … sure I’d like it a little cheaper as I get stung on the exchange rate, but I am in the software on a regular basis and have my end-to-end 3D printing process figured out on the iPad.

While looking for a cheaper way to acquire software, I accidentally stumbled upon this discussion. Today, I had my first experience with 3D modeling, aiming to eventually 3D print the model I created. I am a complete beginner in 3D modeling, but I managed to create a simple part within an hour using this software. However, the issue lies in the price of the program—many people have mentioned that it is too expensive for those who will only use it a few times and then not touch it for months or even years. My goal was to design a part and find someone to print it for me, as this is cheaper than buying a pre-made part from other manufacturers. So, I will need the software very rarely, and even buying it for just one month makes it not worthwhile since the total cost will end up being higher than purchasing a pre-made part.

Just my 2 cents.

I’m a hobbyist with a 3D printer as well. I only use CAD occasionally for small household projects, and loved the use of my iPad for CAD while I was eligible for a student license. I found the design experience on Shapr3D far more intuitive and fluid than Fusion 360, and the only reason I use Fusion 360 over Shapr3D is the actually usable free tier that provides full-quality exports to STL/3MF.

The lack of functional iPad environment for Fusion 360 does sting, but I can’t justify the sheer cost of Shapr3D for how little I’d use it, and the forced low quality settings on 3MF exports from Shapr3D were so unusably poor, that even for prototyping, it was completely useless for my use-case.

Honestly, I understand a primary reason for the license costs being what they are is there’s probably a fairly hefty licensing cost component within Siemens Parasolid kernel from which Shapr3D is derived, but when the option is “pay nothing and stay on basic forever while using the competitor’s product” and “getting a slightly lower fee from more people for a single make-or-break feature”, I think it doesn’t make any business sense to not have a tier between Pro and Basic (i.e. Hobbyist).

Perhaps a compromise could be found with the below to safeguard getting some income from those who, like myself, wouldn’t pay US$25 per month (In my case, this is AU$483.59/yr at current exchange rates. Add 10% GST (VAT) and that’s AU$531.95/yr. Yikes.) for something to only be used occasionally for hobbyist purposes:

  1. Disable cloud-enabled storage and collaboration features hosted by Shapr3D - working files must be saved and managed from local device storage or a BYO cloud service (iCloud, OneDrive, Google Drive etc) in the “basic” and “hobbyist” tiers. Real-time sync between devices then becomes a Pro/Enterprise-only feature.
  2. Slightly extend the cap of “x” files active within the App to maybe 5 or 10 for paid tiers
  3. Hobbyist tier License explicitly forbidding commercial use of models created using Shapr3D
  4. Charge US$5 per month monthly for this “Hobbyist” tier, OR structure with an in-app purchase of US$2 per high quality model exported.

At the end of the day, it’s up to the devs to decide; it’s their app, and putting up these walls and restrictions would have a real-world cost in dev time, but hey, I know I’d convert across from free Fusion 360 for full-quality STL/3MF exports alone, so who knows. You can see the metrics of this post, 4,600 views over 2 years. Assuming they were unique, and every single person that saw this post signed up at $5/mo, that would be an extra $23,000 per month net revenue as an absolute best case scenario.

Maybe that’s worth considering at least?

Just figured I’d add my voice in here, although given that we’re at almost 3 years of this thread it doesn’t appear that it’ll make a lick of difference. As someone using CAD software probably 6-8 times a year for personal use, I’d happily pay to support…but I can’t afford $300 a year, plus whatever price increases inevitably get handed out. There’s definitely some sort of economy of scale that I Shapr3D is missing here. Hundreds and hundreds of additional subscribers at $100/year is a heck of a lot more money than $0 because hobbyists and makers can’t afford (not should have to) the commercial Pro version.

It seems (to me) Shapr is not really targeting hobbyists anymore. Let’s face it. The only new features in the last year or two has been for professionals and virtually nothing to make creating easier except for history, and arguably that is for editing creation more so than tools others we have been asking for. It seems performance issues are plaguing the dev teams. Just my 2 cents.

I think you’re totally right, which is sad to see. Seems they would rather forgo the hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars (and likely more like millions) they could easily capture annually from the maker/hobbyist market at ~$100/year or $10/month or whatever and just focus on “professionals”. Which is super unfortunate to see. Unless they have a specific licensing cost due per individual user (for parasolid or etc.) then there’s no way they “can’t find any way” to offer a non-commercial hobbyist tier. Given the canned responses in the past I don’t personally buy it.

In any case, I absolutely loooooove the idea of Plasticity and all it’s got going on (I bought a studio license during the first few days of it originally launching) but unfortunately I’m looking for something closer to parametric CAD than Plasticity offers (at least the last time I looked, which admittedly was a while ago). And having recently bought an iPad I just wish there were some better mobile alternatives. Valence3D looks super cool, but even for my basic use cases is missing some super basic items still. Fingers crossed someone will come along someday and force Shapr3D’s hand in actually evaluating and offering service to the maker/hobbyist market.

I think you overestimate their paid customer base. They aren’t Autodesk.

I obviously have no clue what their paid customer base is sure, and I’m sure it’s like most companies in that a lot of people don’t pay.

But I also know this topic has had an incredible number of views compared to virtually every other topic and the same exact sentiment is also literally everywhere you look - YouTube videos, Reddit, random other forums and reviews, etc. Bottom line is regardless of the exact number there are a LOT of people in the hobbyist/maker realm who would throw their money at Shapr3D…but just can’t because of the lack of any swingable price tier.

And [whatever yearly amount that tier would cost] x [a lot of people] = more than $0.