Prices varies a lot depending on location/country.... Where are you at?

And welcome to RFO BTW :beer:

Phoenix, Arizona

Thanks.

I think I'm going to be spending a lot of time on this forum once we start working with Revit.

AFAIK, When located in the US, you can only purchase Revit thru the local reseller(s), who are only allowed to sell within a specified radius... So I can't help you... but maybe someone else from the Phoenix area will chime in?

Do you already own AutoCAD licenses? Your local reseller should be able to get you a substantial discount to upgrade to the suites, mine did.

We're planning on purchasing an AutoCAD license along with Revit MEP.
Are the subscriptions to ACAD, Revit and the Building Design Suite necessary or is it something we can do without? The price for everything seems pretty steep.

There's a lot of discussion about the pros and cons of subscription. I, personally, wouldn't do it without subscription. I always want the latest release, so for $750, you get the new release when it comes out. I think if you aren't on subscription, the upgrade price is half of retail, or something like that. Plus, you get some cool extensions and plug ins when you are on subscription, plus 3G storage on The Cloud.

As for the price, I can't remember what we paid, but I believe it was the same price you listed. We are on the Building Suite Premium.

The cost of software purchase is steep at the start, the subscription lowers the annual cost. Think of the ROI ( Return On Investment ) This means how much work do you have to do before the software pays for its self. I would venture to guess the advg Engineer bills out over $200 per hour. Simple calc ( MEP Revit = $9,600 for 5 years) 9600/200=48 hours, over 5 years, of billable time. This isn't very accurate but you are looking at a very small % of needed billable time to pay for the software. In fact the software is one of the smaller costs involved. Think of how much is spent on people.

ACAD is $6,245 for 5 years on subscription. That's 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014. You get new software ever year.
ACAD is %7,990 if you bought it once every 5 years. That's 2010 then 2014. You get new software every 5 years.

You can do this with AutoCAD, because it is capable of saving down to previous years, but still costs less on subscription. Revit however cannot and will never be able to save down. IMO the subscription is the only way to go for Revit MEP and financially subscriptions are the best always.


When you buy the building design suites you get AutoCAD with it. In fact you get something like 5+ pieces of software. The question is which software package is the best financial decision for your company. I would recommend looking at the Building Design Suite Standard. It is the basic package and has both ACAD and Revit MEP with it.

So are you going through CADsoft or someone else? KETIV, IMS and Sterling Systems I have never heard of. But the folks at CADsoft were always helpful, at least they were when I was working down there...