Is your company paying more than necessary for Autodesk licences?

Is your company paying more than necessary for Autodesk licences?

Many industrial companies pay significantly more than necessary for their Autodesk licences – without realising it.

Cadnor recently helped Elkem reduce its annual Autodesk licensing costs by approximately 43%.

How is that possible?

Autodesk licensing has become much more complex

In recent years, Autodesk has made major changes to its licensing:

• Named User licences
• Flex Tokens
• Collections
• Individual products
• Subscriptions
• Legacy perpetual licences
• Discounted agreements
• Different usage patterns

For many companies, this has created a licensing structure that has evolved over time without a clear strategy.

The result is often:

• users with licence packages that exceed their needs
• expensive collections that see minimal use
• subscriptions for users who rarely use the software
• or the opposite: users who lack access to the right software

The problem is not a lack of data

Many people think licence optimisation is about guesswork.

It isn't.

Autodesk actually has very good reporting tools available in Autodesk Account. The challenge is that the data can be difficult to analyse and translate into concrete decisions.

This is where Cadnor and Cadac Digital Advisor come in.

What does Digital Advisor do?

Digital Advisor analyses the Autodesk License & Usage Report and compares:

• which products users actually use
• how often they use them
• which licence types are most cost-effective
• and how the licence mix can be optimised

Based on historical usage, we provide a specific recommendation for the optimal licensing structure for your company.

What does this mean in practice?

A typical example might be:

A user has a Product Design & Manufacturing Collection because they need Inventor. But they may only use AutoCAD a couple of times a year.

In this case, it can often be far more cost-effective to:

• keep Inventor as a subscription
• and use Flex Tokens for AutoCAD as needed

In other cases, we see the opposite:

A user has separate subscriptions for Inventor and AutoCAD, but actively uses both every month. In this case, it will often be more cost-effective to combine them in a Product Design & Manufacturing Collection.

A simple rule of thumb

As a general rule, we often find that:

• subscription licences are cost-effective when the software is used more than approximately 7 days per month
• Flex Tokens are often the most cost-effective option for more occasional use

But the situation quickly becomes more complex when you include:

• Collections
• discounted agreements
• different user profiles
• seasonal variations
• project-based usage
• and different Autodesk products

That is why licence optimisation should be based on actual usage – not assumptions.

Elkem reduced licensing costs by 43%

By analysing historical usage patterns and optimising the licence mix, Cadnor helped Elkem reduce its annual Autodesk costs by 43%.

This does not necessarily mean fewer users or less functionality.

It is about having the right licence for the right user.

Want to know how much your company could save?

Cadnor can help you analyse your current Autodesk licences and identify potential savings based on actual usage.

Get in touch for a no-obligation review:

Contact us via the contact form