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davo453
04-10-2016, 04:51 PM
I tried the demo for Vcarve Pro and have been saving my pennies to buy it.

I last checked the prices a month or so ago and it was £470 then I have just rechecked it and they have put it up to £540 thats a £70 rise.

John S
04-10-2016, 05:50 PM
That's because they had to pay for all my coffee and cheesecake at the open day last Wednesday, - burp:
If you think Vectric is bad then price up Artcam.

Thought you were using the free version of Fusion 360 ?

davo453
04-10-2016, 06:04 PM
Autodesk have always been expensive I was an 8086 assembler coder for them in the 1980's (pre Windows) and they were even more expensive then (had to be to afford me).

Just a shame Vectric are using the fall in the value of the pound as a reason to put the prices up when it's developed and marketed from here.

Boyan Silyavski
04-10-2016, 06:45 PM
The way i see it anything higher than 100-150 euro is not meant for hobby. That should be clear. And if its business, then the price of 699$ is not so big. Just another tool. That's how i think and that's how they think. And that's how it will be or the other scheme:pay 30-100 per month till the end of the days

What exactly were you going to use Vcarve for?

Fusion may be good for general machining, but specialised signmaking programs like Vectric are simply way ahead for their purpose.

i would suggest that ESTLCAm (http://www.estlcam.com/) for 50 euro can do as much as vectric, if not more in some details as having the ability to generate trochoidal toolpaths. It has some small drawbacks and details that have to be further polished too, but nothing to worry on signmaking and general jobs.

Recently i had started to use it alot. Especially for the reason of the trochoidal toolpaths. I can do the same in NX but it will take me an hour just to program a pocket job, that's why i have difficulty learning the CAM part of it. I am telling you- it will be 50 euros well spent, believe me on that

John S
04-10-2016, 08:51 PM
Autodesk have always been expensive I was an 8086 assembler coder for them in the 1980's (pre Windows) and they were even more expensive then (had to be to afford me).

Just a shame Vectric are using the fall in the value of the pound as a reason to put the prices up when it's developed and marketed from here.

??? How can Fusion 360 which is free for small users be expensive ??

I can understand Vectric move as their biggest market is the States. They do two, sometime three 2 day seminars over in the States every year but we only get a one day event and that is never over subscribed. It's done more to keep the natives in line.

Ger21
05-10-2016, 03:50 AM
If you think Vectric is bad then price up Artcam.


Autodesk bought Delcam a few years ago, and just released their new version of ArtCAM.
Since it's now subscription based, it's actually quite affordable. Less than 1/5 the cost of Aspire per year, with comparable features.
Unless you go with the Pro version which is still crazy expensive.

davo453
05-10-2016, 08:33 AM
What ever the affordability of Vectric products compared to the rest of the market is I still don't see that a 15% rise in prices (on some products more/less on others) is reasonable.

Aspire has gone up by £205
Vcarve Pro by £70
Vcarve Desktop by £40
Cut2D Pro by £50
Cut2D Desktop by £15
Cut3d by £35
PhotoVCarve by £15

As I said the company is based in the UK saying the UK price has gone up because of the decrease in the value of the pound is disingenuous.

If the pound falls then the US price should be going down not putting the UK price up, I imagine that if the pound does recover (given the present climate highly unlikely) in value they will not be reducing the UK price in fact they may even use it as a reason to put up the US price.

Obviously they can do what they want with their product that doesn't need stating but it seems greedy from my perspective.

Maybe I should write my own product if anyone is experienced enough to actually do it then I guess I am but then again 3 years+ to do it is not particularly attractive :hurt:

Ho hum...

magicniner
05-10-2016, 09:18 AM
Subscription is only cheap compared to purchase when they've started by supplying a broken product and you need the fixes, and the fixes for the fixes................

- ;-)

John S
05-10-2016, 10:13 AM
Where I find Vectric to be good is the speed you can do something in it.
Last night I programmed some Ferrari striker plates up, look simple but there are actually three depths. Already had a DXF file so just import, select tools and then select the 4 operations. Holes, pocket I, sub-pocket 2, and OD.
Took me all of 15 minutes to do this,. In any other program I have it would have taken twice or even 3 times as long so cost per part is far less.

http://www.stevenson-engineers.co.uk/files/Ferrari%20striker%20plate%20RH%20P1.jpg

Ger21
05-10-2016, 11:54 AM
Subscription is only cheap compared to purchase when they've started by supplying a broken product and you need the fixes, and the fixes for the fixes................

- ;-)

Generally, yes, this is true.

But, consier that Aspire is US $2000.
ArtCAM, with comparable features, is $360/year.

Roughly, every 2-3 years, an Aspire upgrade is $400.

After 5 years, you'll have paid $1800 for ArtCAM, and always have a current version.

To remain current after 5 years with Aspire, you'll have paid more than 50% ($1000) more.
IF you can't afford the up front price of Aspire, you can get into ArtCAM with a much smaller up front investment. And it would be about 8-9 years before it actually became more expensive.

I've heard that this version of ArtCAM is comparable to the older ArtCAM Insignia, but I'm not sure.
Looking at the feature list, it would seem that Aspire might have a few things that ArtCAM doesn't, and ArtCAM may have some features that Aspire doesn't.

John S
05-10-2016, 12:15 PM
The original pre Autocad buy out Artcam was written by Mark Moran and Tony McKenzie who then went on to start Vectric.

Vectric incidentally has won the Queens Award for industry two years on the trot.

Not sure how the subscription service for Artcam works as regards copies and being online but I have a copy of VCP on about 4 machines here, all on the same licence and only one machine can get on the net.

Rye
05-10-2016, 01:27 PM
I have VCarve Desktop and absolutely love it. Intuitive and very easy to use. My only beef with the software, apart from the cost, is it being limited to 625 mm x 625 mm jobs. It also lacks any 3D modelling ability; so you can't draw or create your own 2D to 3D shapes. For that I'd need to upgrade to Aspire, but there's no way I could justify spending £1,500 on it.

Boyan Silyavski
05-10-2016, 02:07 PM
So i think we all agree they need to be punished :hysterical: . I hope you all know how to use google and search for "getintopc" and search there the relevant section.

davo453
06-10-2016, 11:29 AM
Generally, yes, this is true.

But, consier that Aspire is US $2000.
ArtCAM, with comparable features, is $360/year............


I actually use Artcam at the moment and wonderful though it is it exceeds my present requirements and it is £54 a month so £648 a year convert that back to US dollars and it would be $824.

looks like we loose again in the UK Brexit was such a good idea wasn't it, stuffed our currency :(

Ger21
06-10-2016, 12:14 PM
If you pay by the year, you save 33%.
In the US, ArtCAM is $45/month, but only $360 if you pay for a year. They also have 2 and 3 year subscriptions that lower the price a little more, 3 years for $970.

davo453
06-10-2016, 12:34 PM
If you pay by the year, you save 33%.
In the US, ArtCAM is $45/month, but only $360 if you pay for a year. They also have 2 and 3 year subscriptions that lower the price a little more, 3 years for $970.

Pretty significant price difference really, a year with Artcam here is £408 so using today's rate that's $517 usd for 1 year or (£1,104.00) $1,398 usd for 3 years.

I've been paying monthly till i find an alternative and Vcarve looks like it really.

Just looked at Artcam premium prices OMG!

John S
06-10-2016, 12:35 PM
Brexit has nothing to do with the prices. We were shafted on the pounds to dollars thing years before that.

davo453
06-10-2016, 05:59 PM
Brexit has nothing to do with the prices. We were shafted on the pounds to dollars thing years before that.

Obviously I realise that, but it has still made a total mess of the present exchange rate which will only make things worse, everything is going to be more expensive.

DogBeagle
22-05-2017, 11:30 AM
But, consier that Aspire is US $2000.
ArtCAM, with comparable features, is $360/year.

Roughly, every 2-3 years, an Aspire upgrade is $400.

After 5 years, you'll have paid $1800 for ArtCAM, and always have a current version.

To remain current after 5 years with Aspire, you'll have paid more than 50% ($1000) more.
IF you can't afford the up front price of Aspire, you can get into ArtCAM with a much smaller up front investment. And it would be about 8-9 years before it actually became more expensive.

There's a 50% discount on a 1-year subscription to Autodesk ArtCAM Standard when buying from the Autodesk Store (https://www.autodesk.co.uk/store/products/artcam?mktvar004=ilt_wwm_emea_it_nc____TopBanner_1&term=1year&support=advanced) until 31st July 2017. The price is currently £204 for UK customers and $180 for US customers.

If you're in the UK, you could try buying through Quidco (https://www.quidco.com/autodesk/?asi) to potentially obtain an additional 15% cashback on a 1-year subscription, or Topcashback (https://www.topcashback.co.uk/autodesk/) to potentially obtain an additional 12.6% cashback. If you're in the US, you could try buying through Topcashback (https://www.topcashback.com/autodesk-store/) to potentially obtain an additional 10% cashback.

Every little bit helps! :friendly_wink:


I've heard that this version of ArtCAM is comparable to the older ArtCAM Insignia, but I'm not sure.

The functionality in Autodesk ArtCAM Standard is near equivalent to ArtCAM Insignia, or ArtCAM Express and all of its modules. The features in Autodesk ArtCAM Standard are listed here (http://www.artcam.com/downloads/pdf/artcam-feature-comparison-flyer.pdf), and the features in ArtCAM Insignia 2015 R2 are listed here (http://web.archive.org/web/20160712174150/http://artcam.com/feature-comparison.asp).