The H-Factor

Autodesk offers renting AutoCAD (and other products) versus an outright buy of them.Does it make sense?

Here are some scenarios where rental may make sense:

• You plan to hire an intern for the summer to help out in your design department
   
• You have a project that will last two or three months and need another seat of Navisworks Manage for that period
   
• You are just starting out or need to add another seat of AutoCAD and don't want to stretch your cash flow to pay for a new seat up front
   
• You want predictability in your budget, and rental can make that a fixed cost

Aside from the reduced amount of money needed up front to add a new seat of whatever, one advantage of Autodesk rental is that it includes the latest version of the software, so you do not need to pay a separate maintenance subscription fee.

Looking at the prices, does it make sense to Rent versus Buye? Well, we need to figure in the annual AutoCAD Subscription Fee (currently $545 SRP) to get our answer.

Let's look at a five year period for this one:

Annual Rental – $1680 (list) x 5 = $8400

New AutoCAD – $4195 (list) + 545 x 5 = $6920

Still cheaper to buy the AutoCAD and get it on subscription than rent it. But since renting is always more money than buying just about anything, that shouldn't be a suprise, should it?

So, when is the rental beneficial? Probably when you don't have the money lying around, and need to preserve cash flow. There are probably tax advantages, too, but I don't know anything about that.