Is QCAD worth the price?
QCAD's pricing is extremely generous, offering a fully functional 2D CAD software with CAM and nesting capabilities completely for free.
This makes it an exceptional value, especially for individuals or small businesses needing robust CAD without a budget. It's best for hobbyists, students, and small workshops looking for a powerful, no-cost CAD solution.
Pricing Plans
Free
Free
- Layers
- Blocks (grouping)
- 35 CAD fonts included
- Support for TrueType fonts
- Various Metrical and Imperial units
- DXF and DWG input and output
- Printing to scale
- Printing on multiple pages
- Over 40 construction tools
- Over 20 modification tools
- Construction and modification of points, lines, arcs, circles, ellipses, splines, polylines, texts, dimensions, hatches, fills, raster images
- Various powerful entity selection tools
- Object snaps
- Measuring tools
- Part library with over 4800 CAD parts
- Very complete and extremely powerful ECMAScript (JavaScript) scripting interface
- Command line tools (dwg2pdf, dwg2svg, dwg2bmp, etc.)
- QCAD/CAM: G-Code export
- Nesting
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
No paid support options mentioned
Potential learning curve for new users
No cloud collaboration features
Which Plan Do You Need?
Budget-conscious individuals
Hobbyists and students
Small workshops needing CAM
How QCAD Compares to Competitors
Compared to commercial alternatives like AutoCAD LT (starting around $60/month or $485/year), QCAD offers a phenomenal value by being completely free. Even against other open-source options, its inclusion of CAM and nesting without cost is a significant differentiator, as many open-source CAD tools require separate CAM plugins or have fewer features.
QCAD Pricing FAQ
How much does QCAD cost?
QCAD is free to use. No subscription or one-time fee is required for the core product.
Does QCAD have a free plan?
Yes. QCAD offers a free plan called "Free". It includes: Layers, Blocks (grouping), 35 CAD fonts included.
Is there a cheaper alternative to QCAD?
Yes. Popular alternatives to QCAD include Bluebeam, SketchUp, Rhino 3D, Bizagi Modeler. Free alternatives include SketchUp. Compare them side-by-side on Toolradar.
Cheaper alternatives to QCAD
1 of 4 direct competitors below offer a free plan. Per-seat pricing varies up to 60% across this set.
