Shift to a subscription model - your questions are welcome

[Akos Pfemeter]

Dear Community,

You may have already read the press release or the Insights post about our strategic shift to a subscription model. 

Here is a quick summary of the news:

BUDAPEST, April 2, 2024—Graphisoft, the leading Building Information Modeling (BIM) software solution developer for architecture and multidisciplinary design, today announced that, as part of its strategic shift to a sustainable subscription software delivery model, perpetual licenses will be gradually phased out by the end of 2025. This change does not affect the delivery of Software Service Agreement (SSA)/Forward subscription services to existing customers. 

Archicad perpetual and SSA/Forward licenses will be available for new customers through December 31, 2024, and to existing customers through December 31, 2025. Starting in 2026, Archicad will be available only through subscription. Active SSA/Forward contracts will continue to be serviced beyond 2025. Alternatively, SSA/Forward customers can convert to Archicad Collaborate subscriptions at the same price as SSA/Forward. This offer is designed to help existing SSA/Forward subscribers take full advantage of the Archicad Collaborate subscription, which combines award-winning Archicad for architectural design with BIMx and BIMcloud SaaS for fast, efficient, secure, real-time access to shared projects.

Please ask your questions and share your thoughts here -- Graphisoft's expert team will try and provide answer to all sorts of questions you may have!
Thank you.
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Edit by Moderator:  here is the link to the evolving information/FAQ page about this announcement:

https://graphisoft.com/convert-ssa-forward-to-archicad-collaborate/faq

[jl_lt]

Based on some previous threads, i don't think they have carefully tested or calculated anything. They just saw a saturated blue jeans market (or was it Bim software with suscription scheme market??) and said "me too!!"

[tkrepler_fjc]

Well, "I am sure" was meant in a (sarcastic) British way. (No, I am not British, but I've picked up some stuff from them. For those who've never heard of it: https://www.angmohdan.com/48-things-british-people-say-and-what-they-actually-mean/ - there are multiple versions of it...)
Nevertheless, I trust, that once Graphisoft clears it up (you might say "if and when" but I am a tad more hopeful, I'd just say: please Graphisoft, please), we will think more calmly about the whole scenario.

At this point @jl_lt you are absolutely right.

[jl_lt]

Well, i'm not british either, but whenever I have to speak english I do imagine myself talking in a nice London accent

[Bricklyne Clarence]

---

@jl_lt wrote:

Based on some previous threads, i don't think they have carefulley tested or calculated anything. They just saw a saturated blue jeans market (or was it Bim software with suscripción schemesarket??) and said "me too?!!"

---

Oh, I'm sure they did calculate some things,......

(***read to the sound of a slot machine cashing out,....**

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.....

......or, to be more region specific.....

......

€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€.....)

[jl_lt]

It reminds me of a scene of a late 90's movie (i dont know if i can say movie titles here... but there is a club... and they fight), where the protagonist is telling a lady on the plane how he calculated if the company would do a car recall or not:  "A times B times C equals X. if X is less than the cost of a recall, we dont do one." 

In this case, the amount of big offices who would convert to suscription (A), minus the amount of small or solo office you are going to alienate with your negligence (B), times the sparkling new monthly subscription  fee (C), times the estimated number of years left before AI takes over (D) minus the cost of implementing a paying system and getting some interns writing some PR panflets exalting the virtues of suscription (E), equals X.  If X (revenue) is more than keeping things like they are minus the cost of actually inovating and fixing long time problems, guess what?  We will go to suscription

[snow]

I think if GS does this step it's time to say goodbye to archicad.

[Jp1138]

It´s not an if. It´s happening NOW and the ship has sailed, I´m afraid.

[Miha_M]

Could we get some more and structured information about this? I know the prices have always been tailored to a specific market so you can't publish those (or can you, as you seem to be going for a global price model?), but please give us a product roadmap so we can plan ahead. Just an example (with my interpretation which is likely wrong - made in Archicad), which I would like to see made by GS:

[Scraptrash]

At the end of the day, it’s all about the pricing. I certainly don’t mind they force me to subscription if it only costs me €10 per month.

The funny thing about GS is, they keep updating the FAQ and still cannot tell my local sales rep the new pricing. 

Don’t just tell me the pros and cons. Give me the pricing then I can decide to stay or leave. 

If GS still cannot make up their mind on pricing, the rant in this thread is the natural consequence and we would escalate it, just like what architects did to Autodesk.

BTW, the open letters did push Autodesk to put resources into Revit development, and Revit is becoming more user friendly and more automated.

If we don’t like how GS treats us long time supporters, the best way is to go to autodesk’s roadmap website, and put archicad’s killer functions onto their roadmap. I’ll put priority junction into their roadmap so to speak.

[Mjules]

I am not sure the prices will be affordable. This is an idea about what I am expecting: 

[Barry Kelly]

So, that shows that Archicad Subscription is the same cost as Archicad + BIMCloud.

Which is exactly what the subscription is ... Archicad + BIMCloud + BIMx

No big increase in price.

Or is that something you have mocked up as what you would like?

Barry.

[Mjules]

I currently pay lower than that for perpetual license + SSA, and those subscription prices scare me a lot.

[Scraptrash]

The functions in my SSA is more or less same as Archicad Subscription tier. I’ve checked my local GS website and it’s true that Archicad Subscription pricing is 3x of my current SSA. 
I don’t need the additional functionalities in the archicad collaborate tier. 

so it is 3x price hike!

[Barry Kelly]

---

@Scraptrash wrote:

At the end of the day, it’s all about the pricing. I certainly don’t mind they force me to subscription if it only costs me €10 per month.

The funny thing about GS is, they keep updating the FAQ and still cannot tell my local sales rep the new pricing. 

---

Firstly no-one is forcing you to do anything.

You can stay with the SSA/Forward support if you want.

Secondly, there is no new pricing.

If you decide to take out the subscription for 3 years (up front payout), you will get it for the same as you are paying now for SSA.

Or I believe you can subscribe yearly with a 10% extra cost if you don't want to pay out the 3 years in one go.

I don't think you will have any luck from any company if you want to know the future costs in the years to come.

All we can work on is what we have now.

Barry.

[Scraptrash]

So the archicad collaborate price is about 3 times of SSA I’m current paying yearly. 
so GS is increasing price by 3 times, plus no more perpetual license. Oh that’s a huge price hike! Much worse than Autodesk!

So changing to subscription model is a mis-direction (a magic trick I learnt from Netflix recently). The real thing is 3x price hike!

[Barry Kelly]

If you don't need the collaboration, don't switch to subscription.

Stay on SSA.

Sure there is no guarantee that SSA prices will not increase, but then I bet the subscription does as well.

If it all gets to expensive for the value you get out of it, then stop the support payments and you will still have your Archicad at the version when you stop payments.

Barry.

[Scraptrash]

With this pricing, I probably would stay in SSA for 3 more years, get the perpetual license for AC29(?), then decide to jump into AC30 subscription or not. That’s becoming clear. 

But still I need to wait for local sales rep to confirm their latest offering. 

The point I want to make plain and clear is, GS is announcing a 3x price hike & killing perpetual license to SSA subscribers. This should be a factual background we should all know.

[Barry Kelly]

There is no 3x price hike.

With a subscription, you do not pay the up front 10000+ for the license and then the yearly SSA support on top.

You are effectively renting Archicad and BIMCloud.

SSA is cheaper because you have already paid for the license.

There is nothing to say you can not stay on SSA for more than 3 years.

You just won't be able to by a new license in future - then you will have to take out a subscription if you need any more.

Barry.

[mthd]

That’s what most of us here understand about how subscriptions will affect ongoing pricing and upgrades to future versions. 

Just read the fine print on our contracts when they issue them to us, no matter what option we choose for our business going forward.

Graphisoft’s terms and conditions seem to be quite different to other 3D/CAD/BIM software subscription services ???

More clarification regarding stopping a subscription conversion down the track and returning back to a license needs to be made transparent for all of us.

We will just have to wait and see what transpires. 

[torben_wadlinger]

Here is a joint paper of four european organisations for fair business priciples between software companies and users.

https://www.beltug.be/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2022.10.06-11-fair-principles-BELTUG-CIGREF-CIOPLAT...

These four organisations have filed a motion to the EU Comission to check the new licensing conditions of Broadcom and it's product VMware (no perpetual licenses any more, only subscription, similar to Nemetschek).

https://ciso.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/grc/broadcom-questioned-by-eu-over-vmware-licensing-c...

https://www.beltug.be/impact-item/business-users-of-it-strongly-condemn-market-behaviour-of-broadcom...

[Francois_MCD]

Participating & following this conversation have been very insightful, despite unanswered questions still hanging in the air.

@Barry Kelly thanks for your valiant effort here supporting the community & keeping it "level headed"! 👊

This is a summary of my understanding at this time:

I went to http://store.graphisoft.com: options are...

• Archicad Collaborate Subscription monthly = 3.83 x my current SSA
• Archicad Collaborate Subscription 1 Year (upfront) ÷ 12 = monthly 2.26 x my current SSA/month
• Archicad Collaborate Subscription 2 Year (upfront) ÷ 12 = monthly 2.14 x my current SSA/month
• Archicad Collaborate Subscription 3 Year (upfront) ÷ 12 = monthly 2 x my current SSA/month

These all include 1 seat license for: Archicad, BIMcloud SaaS & BIMx Pro

A (new Perpetual v27 + BIMcloud Basic license + SSA*) "X" + (BIMcloud SaaS) "Y" x 12 (1 Year) cost = "Z" in my currency:

• "Z" ÷ 12 (1 Year) = 1.62 x Archicad Collaborate Subscription monthly
• "Z" ÷ 12 (1 Year) = 2.75 x Archicad Collaborate Subscription 1 Year calculated monthly
• "Z" + Year 2 SSA* (2 Years) ÷ 24 = 1.68 x Archicad Collaborate Subscription 1 Year calculated monthly
• "Z" + Year 3 SSA* (3 Years) ÷ 36 = 1.35 x Archicad Collaborate Subscription 1 Year calculated monthly

Note: * the Perpetual calculation is based on SSA not increasing.

From this we see what the options look like for existing users on Perpetual licenses looking to buy additional licenses. It is clear that the Archicad Collaborate Subscriptions are good value options in this cases. New users can only take Collaborate Subscription, so no difference for them.

Where it gets tricky is for existing Perpetual license holders considering to convert their Perpetual licenses to the subscription model.

1. After paying an upfront lumpsum for our Archicad + BIMcloud Basic licenses, our ongoing cost have been the SSA fee, essentially pre-paying for the upgrade to the next version (and some support services & preferential rates on Learn & access to exclusive tools). And remember this excludes BIMcloud "Pro" on premise / SaaS.
   > So switching to Subscription in real terms, actually does mean a higher fee to budget for, compared to current SSA.
2. What bugs many / most existing Perpetual license holders in this conversation that it seems Graphisoft's subscription pricing does not consider the long term commitment made by these users. What I mean here is, the only way to get the subscription at the offered discount rates is to pay upfront.
   > Affordability is a real problem here for many users. Those that can't afford to pay min. 3 years upfront will pay more for subscription than they have been paying for SSA/Forward).
   > Users will also RE-pay for their licenses exactly the same as new users & the discount also is the same for everyone. From this perspective, it is a loss to long term users that can not be ignored.
3. A few practical things that are unclear is:
   Say we convert to or even new users working with Collaborate Subscription (Archicad + BIMcloud SaaS + BIMx Pro):
   > Is BIMcloud "Pro" on premise available in this subscription? If yes, will it be at extra cost or not?
   > Will project files done on BIMcloud SaaS be accessible as .PLNs on local computer / server with a Perpetual license?
   > If a user's subscription lapses / are terminated, will project files done on BIMcloud SaaS be accessible as .PLNs on local computer / server as demo mode and/or be usable with any Perpetual license?
   (Is access to a user's project files secured or will there be scenarios where a user will lose access to the Archicad project files, no matter the version? - as it has been in Archicad since the beginning).
   > Will Archicad + BIMcloud Basic + BIMx remain as the base Perpetual license package and maintained on future versions?
4. Add to "3" here, the total lack of clarity as to how Perpetual licenses will work (access, availability - ignoring cost), the decisions really becomes extremely difficult to navigate.

> Any chance we can get some answers?

I believe these (and others raised here) are real concerns that could impact our practices directly, concerns that can not responsibly be ignored by anyone in professional practice (let alone legal liabilities we face with clients & our professional bodies). 

Everything considered, change is unavoidable in innovation (yes) and the unknown can be scary (for sure), but I can see the value in these changes on Graphisoft's side & us (the user's) side in the long term. Yes, we have choices and for some it will be more difficult than for others. It will be a real sad day for anyone to have to leave the Graphisoft & Archicad community by whatever factor, a community we are proud to be members of. As long as Graphisoft have answers and can assist users to transition (accepting the change) in a way that works for both them & us, it will all work out in the end.