- Autodesk Licensing in Australia
Most practices purchase Autodesk software the way they did five years ago. A renewal email arrives, someone confirms the same seat count, the invoice goes through. Nobody checks who signed in last quarter, or whether the graduate who opens Revit twice a month needs a seat. The renewal is the one moment a practice can change what it pays Autodesk. Most let it pass.
We’re NexSys, an Autodesk Elite Partner and Autodesk’s FY25 Customer Success APAC Partner of the Year, and we sell and support Autodesk software for architecture, engineering and construction firms across Australia. Unlike a transactional reseller, we look at your seats before we quote them. Ian Simpson, who runs our Design Technology arm, spent 25 years with Autodesk, Bentley and Bluebeam partners before joining us in 2021.
- The rules
How Autodesk licensing works now: named users, three devices, one instance
Autodesk sells named-user subscriptions. Each subscription is assigned to one person’s Autodesk ID in your Autodesk account and can’t be shared; there are no serial numbers or license manager servers to look after. That person can install the software on up to three devices, and one instance runs at a time. Multi-user network licences, the pool a whole office drew from, are gone: Autodesk ended multi-user renewals on 7 February 2024 after a trade-in that ran from August 2020. If your practice still describes its licensing as “the server”, that model no longer exists, and the rules are the same for large teams and a two-person studio.
For people who don’t need a seat every day there’s Flex: tokens bought in packs, valid for a year, and a day of use draws a fixed number, 7 for AutoCAD, 9 for Civil 3D, 10 for Revit. Someone who opens Revit fewer than eight days a month is usually cheaper on Flex than on a subscription. When someone holds both, Autodesk uses the subscription first, which is what makes mixed fleets workable.
- The prices
Autodesk prices in Australia, and where practices overspend
The AEC Collection bundles Revit, AutoCAD, Civil 3D, Navisworks Manage, 3ds Max, InfraWorks, ReCap Pro and Autodesk Docs among others.
Here’s Ian Simpson’s view, and some resellers would argue with it: most practices overspend on Autodesk by more than they underspend. The Collection is a bargain for the person who also opens Civil 3D or Navisworks and waste for the drafter whose whole workflow is Revit. An audit that only looks for shortfalls is a sales call. Ours counts sign-ins from the Autodesk account reports and says which seats to keep, downgrade or hand to Flex, in writing, before the renewal.
- The catalogue
Which Autodesk products we sell and support: AutoCAD LT to the AEC Collection, 3ds Max and the manufacturing collection
As an Elite Partner we can quote any Autodesk product, but what design firms buy from us is a short list. AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT for 2D drawings and DWG files, the computer aided design software most architects and designers started on, with toolsets for architectural design, MEP, electrical, mechanical design and plant design in full AutoCAD, and the same user interface on Windows, Mac and mobile devices. Revit and Revit LT for building information modelling, Civil 3D and InfraWorks for infrastructure, Navisworks for coordination, 3ds Max for visualisation and animation, and the AEC Collection when a person needs three or more. Autodesk Construction Cloud and Autodesk Docs for the CDE, and Forma for early-stage site design. For the few firms with a fabrication, industrial design or product design side there’s the Product Design and Manufacturing Collection, with Inventor for mechanical engineering and simulation, and we don’t sell Autodesk’s media and entertainment software at all.
Support is the part of the sale that outlasts the invoice, and a web checkout can’t sell it. Installs and the reinstall when a computer is replaced, fleet deployments, Autodesk account administration, version standardisation so the office isn’t split across releases or operating systems, documentation for the individual products, and the 2am call when a licence won’t activate before a submission. Those sit with our design technology team. Not a ticket queue abroad.
- Finance
Two-year terms on structured finance, with ALTO and its cloud services included
For a limited time we offer a two-year Autodesk licensing term on structured finance through our HP Financial Services partnership: predictable monthly payments, no director or corporate guarantees. ALTO, our cloud platform built for AEC workloads and configured for Autodesk, Revit and Autodesk Construction Cloud, is included at no extra cost. It suits a practice that would rather spread a renewal over 24 months than pay it the quarter the insurance falls due.
A caveat. If you’re happy with your reseller, your seats are assigned to the right people and your renewal isn’t for a year, you don’t need to move, and we’ll say so. Moving mid-term rarely pays. Call us three months before the renewal.
- Compliance
Staying on the right side of an Autodesk audit
Autodesk runs a formal audit program, and its own page says any customer may be selected without being suspected of anything: a letter, a scan with Autodesk’s inventory tool, then a licence compliance representative. What it finds in a practice is rarely dramatic: a departed drafter’s seat still assigned, an education licence on a commercial machine, an old perpetual install on a laptop nobody decommissioned. A Perth engineering firm paid $65,000 in 2014 over unlicensed Autodesk products; none of those three takes an afternoon to fix, and our systems audit finds them first.
- Who does it
Licensing advice from professionals who have used the software, including what Autodesk AI and Autodesk Assistant change
Peter Lewis, our design applications specialist, came from Woods Bagot and Bruce Henderson and has run Revit deployments. Ian Simpson established an international BIM consulting practice before he ran ours. When they say a seat should be Flex rather than a subscription, it’s because they’ve watched how that person works. They’ll also tell you what the Autodesk AI features, Autodesk Assistant in Revit 2027 and Smart Blocks in AutoCAD, change about your plan: less than the automation marketing suggests. Purchase, deployment and support sit inside our managed service for clients who want it there, and on their own for practices that only want the reseller.
- Before you call
Autodesk reseller Australia: questions practice managers ask first
Is it cheaper to buy Autodesk through a reseller than direct?
The list price is the same either way; Autodesk publishes it. What changes is what comes with the invoice: a seat audit, Flex for occasional users, two-year finance, and someone to call the night before a submission.
Can we still buy network licences?
No: multi-user renewals ended on 7 February 2024, the pool went with them, and every subscription is now assigned to one person, three devices, one instance at a time, with occasional users on Flex tokens.
Do you sell to businesses outside architecture and engineering?
Yes, but it’s not where our value is: a manufacturing business buying Inventor gets the list price and a competent deployment; a practice on Revit gets people who have run Revit. Contact us.
What about education licences?
Free for students and educators at eligible institutions, unusable for paid work, and our most common audit finding: an education licence still on a graduate’s laptop two years into their first job.
- Keep reading
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Autodesk Elite Partner · Supporting AEC firms since 2013 · Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth