Wrote

Starting 564 USD/year.

I dropped dead at that cost !
It hasn't even be Beta tested !
It needs so much doctoring from Studio.
Too many Royalties to pay for what Engineers don't use
Tanks ... Jean.

Hello my dear Andrey,

Thank you very much for developing SMath Studio, it helps me a lot in my current training, I have recently been studying Engineering. Since I found out about your program, it has honestly made it easier for me in a great way and I think it is excellent, but since I am a student Andrew we all start from scratch, and unfortunately I don't count with the necessary resources to acquire a license due to my current situation but I would love to acquire one in the future when I already have the financial means, Andrew... Is it possible to have a permanent license just to remove the watermark or a license to personal use, is that for the delivery of forms the water markjavascript:__doPostBack('forum$ctl03$PostReply','')a does not look so presentable..........I hope you consider me . Best regards Andrew

Wrote

I have spoken to a few folks in my company and general consensus is that a Mathcad alternative needs to provide a quantifiable cost saving. I will absolutely keep using SMath myself, but it will be an uphill battle to get couple licenses for the folks who work with me.

Same here.

SMath is great, I absolutely love the program. Unfortunately, SMath has some limitations compared to Mathcad, i.e. no autosave, tabbed interface, no embedded excel spreadsheets, and more. That is okay, as there are workarounds for some of those limitations, and the program was free (big incentive). However, with the license fees being almost as high as those of Mathcad, it would be difficult to justify choosing SMath. Furthermore, small companies or even small teams in large companies might find it difficult to afford multiple annual licences (regardless of the country of origin).

There is nothing wrong with charging organisations license fees, but with the fees being as high as they are, it will be almost impossible to convince my organisation to purchase any licenses.

Artur

Andrey,

Getting paid for work you do is just a right thing to do, many of the users of SMath are salaried employees who are paid salaries for the work they do in smath. Obviously yourself and development team need to be compensated for the hard work you do.

With this in mind, I am curious about the intent of having advanced noncommercial license and unlimited commercial license. Is unlimited license geared towards companies or individual people? What is the purpose of noncommercial advanced license? Who would be its target user?

As an individual worker who works for a large corporation I have no input on what software company buys for us to use, but I can make decisions about software I use myself. Which means that the cost for using software comes out of pocket, and while my wife will be ok if I pay 150$ per year to use software I like she will be against 564$.

Andrey, is it the intent for individual engineers who like your software to pay 564$ out of pocket? If yes than I have no other comment, if no perhaps there can be a different approach (say higher coast for floating license and lower cost for individual license). Keep in mind that all my colleagues that will choose to use SMath will pay for it themselves, since company already has a Mathcad license

P.S.: I would also add that if you are still deciding what to do it would be worth to roll back the watermark for the time being so that not to scare off current users till you have decided 100% on the pricing structure

Hi Andrey,
I just read about your decision on prices and functionality for SMath and I would like to ask you for a free Advanced license for personal use.

Best regards,

Thiago Pereira.

I'm not sure that people are aware, but there is an option for permanent licenses. If you look at the cost table here: https://smath.com/en-US/PriceList/html the price of a permanent license is <2x yearly license. I agree this is a little bit of a shock to the system, but having the options to pay once, rather than a yearly subscription, is extremely beneficial in my opinion.

Wrote

Is it possible to have a permanent license just to remove the watermark or a license to personal use, is that for the delivery of forms the watermark a does not look so presentable..........I hope you consider me

Hello. I think we can agree on it.
Please just e-mail me and copy this request into the email body. We'll be glad to help you and provide a free license till the date convenient to you!

Best regards.

Wrote

I just read about your decision on prices and functionality for SMath and I would like to ask you for a free Advanced license for personal use.

Hello, Thiago Pereira.
Done. you should receive a separate e-mail with an e-license.
Best regards.

Hello

Wrote

However, with the license fees being almost as high as those of Mathcad, it would be difficult to justify choosing SMath

Wrote

Andrey, is it the intent for individual engineers who like your software to pay 564$ out of pocket?

As I already mentioned we will be glad to provide a discount to you - just e-mail me and copy your message from the forum.
You are absolutely right - this price is for teams who uses SMath Studio in their daily work with commercial purposes. For individuals who uses software alone and just want to remove watermarks Advanced version for $48 is a good enough choice I believe (please, let me know if not).

I want to be clear: we don't want to shock everyone who believed in us, we are ready to provide you convenient conditions and even free licenses... please just talk to us. The thing is that some people wants to pay because they just can support development, others can not, but we want to work with any client and that is why we are ready to be flexible here.

Best regards.

@all

Please don't use PM or messages here in the forum to request free Advanced license. It is too easy for me to miss these messages.

Please contact me by sending your request to support e-mail.

Thank you!

Wrote

Wrote

I just read about your decision on prices and functionality for SMath and I would like to ask you for a free Advanced license for personal use.

Hello, Thiago Pereira.
Done. you should receive a separate e-mail with an e-license.
Best regards.

Ty, m8. Cheers ^^

Hi Andrey,

Thank you for clarifying what happened! You need to receive for your work, off course! I would like to kindly ask for a free advanced license, recently i only use smath to develop and maintain a simple, but advanced softwares for reinforced concrete made with smath viewer.

I distribute this program free of charge with the community on my github: https://github.com/hildebrandopsj/DIMI-S

If it's not possible, don't worry, i'm learning C# and rewrite the application one day.

Thank you for all you efforts and wish you good luck.
Best regards.

While it is very understandable that a fee be charged for this great program, the pricing, in terms of amounts and scheme, is very unfortunate. This is particularly true given the availability of Mathcad, Maple Flow, Calcpad, etc.
I was relatively satisfied using Mathcad Prime at home and at work, but was frustrated by being unable to use the single professional license while working either from home or from the office. I decided to switch to SMath, both at home and at work, despite the lack of polish and updates.
My company's license for Altair Simulation products also allows me to use Maple Flow (at no additional cost), but I wanted to support SMath and help it gain popularity. So I instructed my company not to renew the Mathcad license.
If the choice is now between paying nearly the same cost for either SMath or Mathcad Prime, then unfortunately the choice to return to Mathcad (or in my case, switch to Maple Flow) is clear.
Additionally, I absolutely hate the subscription model. I realize that it is the most profitable model for the company but it makes no sense to me unless the company is providing me with computing resources and continuous fixes/upgrades. I much prefer to purchase and own a version of the program. If the company continues to develop and enhance the capability of the software with features that are valuable to me, then I will consider paying to upgrade to the newest version. This is the model that the NVR software BlueIris uses. I am sure other companies use this license model too.
I hope you will consider restructuring the current licensing scheme.

Thank you.

Wrote

While it is very understandable that a fee be charged for this great program, the pricing, in terms of amounts and scheme, is very unfortunate. This is particularly true given the availability of Mathcad, Maple Flow, Calcpad, etc.
I was relatively satisfied using Mathcad Prime at home and at work, but was frustrated by being unable to use the single professional license while working either from home or from the office. I decided to switch to SMath, both at home and at work, despite the lack of polish and updates.
My company's license for Altair Simulation products also allows me to use Maple Flow (at no additional cost), but I wanted to support SMath and help it gain popularity. So I instructed my company not to renew the Mathcad license.
If the choice is now between paying nearly the same cost for either SMath or Mathcad Prime, then unfortunately the choice to return to Mathcad (or in my case, switch to Maple Flow) is clear.
Additionally, I absolutely hate the subscription model. I realize that it is the most profitable model for the company but it makes no sense to me unless the company is providing me with computing resources and continuous fixes/upgrades. I much prefer to purchase and own a version of the program. If the company continues to develop and enhance the capability of the software with features that are valuable to me, then I will consider paying to upgrade to the newest version. This is the model that the NVR software BlueIris uses. I am sure other companies use this license model too.
I hope you will consider restructuring the current licensing scheme.

Thank you.

SMath is offering permanent licensing. You do not have to adhere to subscription model. See my post here: https://en.smath.com/forum/yaf_postsm82438_11-09-2023--License-Agreement-changed--Terms-and-conditions-made-common-for-all.aspx#post82438

Greetings,

I would just like to remind those people who do not like the watermark and who want to use the program for 'free' (or at least as an unrestricted personal use): You can always install one of the previous Stable versions (e.g., v0.99.7822 was the last version that had the simple EULA with no restrictions on personal/commercial use).

You will have to remember to uncheck the option: "Check for Updates" as you are locking yourself into an older version; but each version does have is own EULA (not the current EULA). You will be running an outdated version with those bugs/issues that have since been resolved/improved in the v1.00+ versions, but you will not have the waterstamp.


May this be of Good Help;
⚜ Kenny Lemens, P.E. ᵂᴵ

Wrote

You can always install one of the previous Stable versions (e.g., v0.99.7822 was the last version that had the simple EULA with no restrictions on personal/commercial use).

Keep in mind that currently it appears that older Smath versions are not able to retrieve and update plug-ins anymore.
It is not clear yet if this is a temporary situation or, on t he other hand, a permanent phase out of plug-ins related to old SMath versions
See relevant post here

Wrote

but you will not have the waterstamp

That is really unethical! Shame on you for even proposing this. I suggest you re-read Wisconsin's state PE code of ethics, and carefully. Are you even current on your CEU's- perhaps you want to take and pay attention to a proper, in-person, live ETHICS course this biennium.

Bottom line, if you are using this as a tool for your work, you gotta pay. Its not different than the tithe you pay for your license or other analysis tools.

sinneD

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Wrote

but you will not have the waterstamp

That is really unethical! Shame on you for even proposing this.

sinneD,

I am not advising you to hack or steal the current version to get around the waterstamp (i.e. v1.00+), I am merely informing you that the EULA for the old versions (v0.99-) do not have any such commercial restrictions; hence the commercial water stamp did not even exist before the war happened. In fact, you were not required to create a user account to use the software for these older versions, now you are. When in doubt, review the EULA that is saved to your computer upon install.

To your point, it would not be ethical to purchase a private version and use it for commercial purposes (so just saying you "purchased a license" is not sufficient per the current EULA for the new versions, i.e., v1.00+). Below is a screen shot of my personal private plan, limited to my private, personal computer only:


With that being said, I will warn you about the 3rd Party Plugins that are posted online. For instance, the Maple plugin is a powerful tool that addresses the shortcomings of SMath's Symbolic Engine; however, it may not be in your best interest to use it if you are concerned about ethics: see following thread: https://en.smath.com/forum/yaf_postsm12404_Maple-Tools.aspx#post12404).

Thank you for brining up ethics, I truly do enjoy ethics and take pride in being ethical; you may enjoy this service from noonpi: https://noonpi.com/ethical-dilemma-october-2023/. In the future, I ask if you could attempt to private message me before you publicly accuse me of violating the code of ethics, least should my reasons be sound.

May this be of Good Help;
⚜ Kenny Lemens, P.E. ᵂᴵ

Wrote

That is really unethical! Shame on you for even proposing this.

Dude, chill.
I know Andrey monetized SMath because of financial difficulities of him.
Yet in the past he also said "Smath will always be free".
I presume that's why a lot of people contributed to the project.
I am not saying "he can't do this". Smath is his child, he can do whatever he wants.
But I understand people who wishes Smath to stay as free-to-use.

Hello to All,

I am using SMath in the classroom.
I provide handouts of solved problems to the class.
Unfortunately, the watermarks at the header and footer with double-line characters take the attention than the material of the problem itself.
A single watermark (either at the footer of the header) with single-line characters will make the educational material more presentable.

Thank you Andrei and Team for the nice (educational) product.

The Best,
Basile