Alibre’s Heavy Discounts Continue

Every since their $99 offer, I have been keeping track of Alibre’s pricing. In an earlier post titled “Alibre’s $99 Offer Continues” I explained how Alibre was still offering Alibre Design Standard for $99 even after their $99 offer ended. I ended that post by saying:

I am now beginning to wonder whether we will see Alibre Design Standard back at $999 in November, where I believe it belongs, or will we see another continuation of the $99 offer?

This morning an Alibre marketing email alerted me to yet another offer by Alibre where you can get Alibre Design Standard for $197 (80% discount), Alibre Design Professional with 1 Year Maintenance for $697 (62% discount) and Alibre Design Expert with 1 Year Maintenance for $997 (58% discount). This offer ends on December 31st.

When Alibre first started discounting their software, their resellers were not too happy. Obviously their margins would be severely hit. Alibre consoled them by saying that after the initial $99 offer ended they would have more customers to sell upgrades to. I am not sure how many were convinced back then. And I wonder how many are still convinced after seeing Alibre coming up with offers one after another. Especially marketing campaigns that urge prospects to purchase directly from Alibre. I regularly receive marketing emails from my local Alibre reseller whose prices are hopelessly above those in the emails that come directly from Alibre itself.

I did a quick survey of a few Alibre resellers and found that not all of them were playing Alibre’s game. Here are a few prices I found for Alibre Design Standard:

• Brainchild Enterprises: $845
• NOVEDGE: $949
• Minitronics: £720 ($1170) WTF?
• USICAD: €1490 ($2192) WTF? squared

I hope the people who bought Alibre Design from these resellers in the recent past had a pretty good reason for doing so.