Are CAD Tools Really That Cheap?

During Bentley Systems’ recent earnings call, former CEO and current Chairman Greg Bentley told investors that his company could expand its total addressable market by enhancing its products and charging more for them. To make the case, he referenced this 2019 data:

(Slide 5 from https://investors.bentley.com/static-files/1311d60d-edec-4dc1-907e-9252d07dfc82. You can also read a transcript of the earnings call here: https://investors.bentley.com/news-events/events-and-presentations .)

This slide is a little confusing, so let’s unpack it. Using employment and market size data for 2019, Infrastructure engineering (aka AEC) spent $364 on engineering software per engineer while Product engineering (aka mechanical) spent $1,080 per engineer on engineering software. Let’s assume these figures cover CAD, CAD data management, and other design/engineering tools—but not heavy-duty solvers and simulation, project management, CAM, construction, or other downstream tools.

A couple of you said these spend-per-seat numbers were very low compared to what you actually pay. You’re right to be confused. Here’s what’s going on:

The slide above reflects economic modeling, not actual prices. The researchers who created this model estimated the number of engineers and designers from government and professional society data — not easy to do. Then they calculated the size of the AEC and mechanical CAD markets by adding up vendor and other revenue. Finally, market size ÷ # engineers = spend per seat.

This makes for a broad, averaged figure, not something that reflects any individual buyer’s experience. 

The real question is: how do these numbers compare to what you or I might pay? Below are U.S. online store prices, as of Sept 18, 2025, for single-unit subscriptions — your prices will likely be different if you are outside the US, want to work through a reseller, buy in volume, etc. Here’s what I found:

• Autodesk AEC Collection: $5,520/year
• Autodesk Product Design & Manufacturing Collection: $5,040/year
• Bentley Building WorkSuite: $3,773/year
• Dassault Systèmes CATIA: $9,072/year
• Dassault Systèmes Solidworks 3DExperience Standard: $3,384/year
• PTC Creo Design Essentials: $3,190/year
• Siemens NX Design Standard: $7,371/year

I could keep going but the trend is already clear. The results of the economic model, at $1,260 (mechanical) and $460 (AEC) spend/seat, are far below today’s actual list prices. Even with heavy discounts, the economic model implies many engineers are using freeware, pirated software, or no CAD tools at all.

This leads to the next question: Is this economic modeling thing at all useful? Yes. Mr. Bentley had an updated slide for AEC (slide 6 in the deck) with 2023 data, which showed that spend per AEC seat rose from $370 in 2019 to $516 in 2023. This could be due to inflation, to more people actually buying CAD of any kind, or to a further segmentation in the buying population. Mr. Bentley noted that engineers in developed countries spend, on average, over $1,900/year per seat, while engineers in developing regions spend far less—representing an opportunity for Bentley as developing regions spend to catch up.

And, question 3: Is mechanical CAD inherently more expensive than AEC CAD? The ecoomic model says it is, but our price check doesn’t bear this out. Autodesk, which serves both markets, doesn’t show the disparity implied by the model. And the vendors which serve one market or the other, in practice, have prices that are roughly equal across the AEC and mechanical CAD.

Why the disconnect between real life and the economic model? Because market size ÷ number of engineers casts a wide net. It averages: drafters using freemium products, power users running six-figure CAE solvers, and everything in between. The average is useful for spotting trends, but not for benchmarking actual prices.

One thing this exercise made me realize that I hadn’t expected: CAD is cheap relative to the value it delivers. If we spread annual subscription costs across 2,080 work hours/year, that $9,000 per seat is roughly $4/hour. The average U.S. mechanical engineer earns (2024, BLS) around $50/hour. Spending $4/hour to boost the productivity of a $50/hour engineer seems like a very good investment.

TL;DR. AEC and mechanical CAD tools aren’t anywhere as cheap as economic modeling makes them seem — and while they may sometimes seem expensive in the absolute, they are inexpensive compared to the value they deliver. And there’s no huge difference between AEC and mechanical CAD prices for comparable capabilities.