What's the best strategy ?

[Neale]

It's still not cheap but you might consider Vectric Cut3d and VCarve as separate items. You can use Cut3d to generate a toolpath and then import that into VCarve to combine with text and other 2d paths, position the 3D item, etc. It's about half the price of Aspire, doesn't have the drawing tools of Aspire, and it's a little more clunky to use. But it does depend on exactly what you want to do.