SOLIDWORKS for Startups
SaaS Startup Programs Verified June 2026
Free SOLIDWORKS Premium + Simulation + PDM for 1 year (renewable)
Free SOLIDWORKS CAD, simulation, and PDM tools for one year for early-stage hardware and engineering startups.
Who qualifies
Every condition below is taken from the vendor’s own published criteria. Read them before you spend an afternoon on the application.
Startups
The programme is aimed at startups. Vendors read this loosely, but expect to describe the company and what you are building on the application.
Qualifying early-stage, privately held hardware/engineering startups under a revenue cap and operating for a limited number of years can get one year of SOLIDWORKS Premium, Simulation, and PDM Professional at no cost, with the option to renew. Verify current terms at signup.
About SOLIDWORKS for Startups
Quick answer
The SOLIDWORKS for Startups Program grants qualifying early-stage hardware and engineering companies one year of SOLIDWORKS Premium, SOLIDWORKS Simulation Professional, and SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional for free, with the option to renew annually. It's a real commercial license, not a trial or educational version, and it stacks cleanly with AWS, GCP, and Azure credits. If you build physical products and you're under the program's revenue and years-in-business caps, this is one of the highest-ROI grant applications in the SaaS startup world.
If you build anything physical — robots, medical devices, consumer hardware, aerospace parts, EV components — your toolchain will eventually need a real parametric CAD seat. The retail price of that seat is famously painful. The SOLIDWORKS for Startups Program is Dassault Systèmes' answer to that pain point, and in 2026 it remains one of the most generous free CAD grants available to early-stage companies. Here's exactly what you get, who qualifies, and whether it's worth the application effort.
What is the SOLIDWORKS for Startups Program?
SOLIDWORKS is the de facto industry standard for 3D mechanical design in mid-market and enterprise hardware companies. A commercial seat of SOLIDWORKS Premium routinely costs thousands of dollars per year, and once you add Simulation Professional and PDM Professional the total easily clears five figures annually per engineer.
The SOLIDWORKS for Startups Program exists to put that same toolchain into the hands of early-stage companies that can't yet write that check. The program is run by Dassault Systèmes (the parent company of SOLIDWORKS) and administered in partnership with a global network of certified SOLIDWORKS resellers. In 2026 the core offer remains: one year of SOLIDWORKS Premium, SOLIDWORKS Simulation Professional, and SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional — for free — for companies that meet the eligibility criteria.
What's in the bundle?
SOLIDWORKS Premium
Full parametric 3D CAD: parts, assemblies, sheet metal, weldments, surfacing, plastic and mold tooling libraries, and configuration management. This is the top of the SOLIDWORKS desktop line, not a stripped-down edition.
SOLIDWORKS Simulation Professional
Linear static, thermal, frequency, buckling, fatigue, drop-test, and non-linear study types. Enough to validate a mechanical design before paying for physical prototype cycles.
SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional
File management, revision control, workflows, and engineering change orders. PDM is notoriously expensive to license separately, so this inclusion is a quiet but significant part of the bundle.
MySolidWorks eLearning
Hundreds of self-paced training resources, including the official SOLIDWORKS certification prep tracks, useful for ramping a new mechanical hire.
Reseller support
Onboarding and technical support via a certified SOLIDWORKS reseller in your region — a meaningful bonus for first-time CAD users.
Marketing co-branding
Eligible to use the "SOLIDWORKS for Startups" badge and join the program's startup showcase events, which can be useful for press and recruiting.
What's not in the free bundle
The startup grant deliberately stops at the desktop line. The following are not included for free:
- SOLIDWORKS Visualize / Visualize Pro (rendering) — paid add-on.
- SOLIDWORKS Simulation Premium / Flow Simulation (CFD) — paid add-on.
- Simulia Abaqus / CST Studio Suite — paid, separate Dassault product line.
- 3DEXPERIENCE Works roles — paid cloud platform add-on, available at standard commercial pricing.
- Electrical (SOLIDWORKS Electrical) packages — paid add-on.
SOLIDWORKS for Startups vs other CAD / startup programs
| Program | Cost | What you get | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| SOLIDWORKS for Startups | Free for 1 year (renewable) | SOLIDWORKS Premium + Simulation Pro + PDM Pro | Early-stage hardware startups |
| Autodesk Fusion for Startups | Free for 1 year (terms vary) | Fusion 360 (cloud CAD/CAM/CAE) + extensions | Hybrid software/hardware teams wanting browser-friendly CAD |
| Onshape for Startups (EDU/Startup) | Discounted/free plans | Cloud-native CAD + PDM | Distributed teams that prefer SaaS over desktop |
| Self-funded commercial SOLIDWORKS seat | ~$4K–$10K+ per year per seat | Same tools as the grant, paid | Companies that don't qualify for the grant |
✓ Apply if you:
- Build a physical product (robotics, medtech, EV, aerospace, consumer hardware, industrial)
- Are pre-seed to seed (and in some cases early Series A)
- Are privately held and under the program's revenue cap
- Plan to hire or contract a mechanical engineer in the next 12 months
- Need to deliver production-grade drawings to enterprise customers or partners
✗ Skip if you:
- Are a pure software / SaaS company with no hardware product
- Are already past the revenue or years-in-business cap
- Run a macOS- or Linux-only engineering stack and can't provision Windows
- Need advanced CFD / Abaqus-grade FEA on day one (those are paid add-ons)
- Are a public company or a subsidiary of a large corporation
What the credit covers
- SOLIDWORKS Premium 3D CAD — full parametric design, sheet metal, weldments, surfacing, and plastic/mold tooling libraries
- SOLIDWORKS Simulation Professional — linear static, thermal, frequency, buckling, fatigue, and non-linear study types
- SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional — file management, revision control, and engineering change orders
- Renewable one-year terms (subject to annual eligibility review)
- MySolidWorks eLearning library with hundreds of training resources and certifications
- Access to certified SOLIDWORKS reseller for local technical support
- Eligibility for SOLIDWORKS community events and startup showcases
- Compatible with mainstream CAM, rendering, and ECAD add-ins via the SOLIDWORKS partner ecosystem
- Use of branded 'SOLIDWORKS for Startups' mark for marketing
- Free updates to new releases during the active term
- Optional paid upgrades to Simulia/3DEXPERIENCE add-ons
- Globally available (subject to regional terms and reseller participation)
Programme tracks
Verified June 2026. What SOLIDWORKS for Startups publishes for each stage — confirm on the application, since credit programmes are re-cut more often than list pricing.
| Track | Value | Who it is for | What it includes |
|---|---|---|---|
| SOLIDWORKS for Startups — Standard Bundle | $0 | 1 year (renewable) | SOLIDWORKS Premium 3D CAD · SOLIDWORKS Simulation Professional · SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional · Free for qualifying startups · Renewable on annual review |
| Add-on (paid) — Simulia / 3DEXPERIENCE | Paid upgrade | Annual | Access to Simulia simulation on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform · Cloud-based collaboration and data management · Available at standard commercial pricing · Not part of the free startup bundle |
How to apply
4 steps. The last one is the part most people skip.
- 1
Open SOLIDWORKS for Startups through the link on this page
It carries our referral tag. The terms you get are identical either way, and it never changes what this page says about the programme.
- 2
Have the eligibility evidence ready
Applications are checked against one condition — startups. Incorporation date, cap table and a one-line description of what you are building cover most of it.
- 3
Ask for the expiry window in writing
SOLIDWORKS for Startups does not publish how long the credit runs, and unused balance is almost always forfeited. Get the activation and expiry dates confirmed before you plan around the grant.
- 4
Know the rate you land on when it runs out
Qualifying early-stage, privately held hardware/engineering startups under a revenue cap and operating for a limited number of years can get one year of SOLIDWORKS Premium, Simulation, and PDM Professional at no cost, with the option to renew. Verify current terms at signup.
Where this programme wins and loses
What works
- Industry-standard toolset, $0 price tag Hardware founders get the same SOLIDWORKS Premium, Simulation, and PDM Professional used by Fortune 500 engineering teams — tools that retail at thousands of dollars per seat per year.
- Stacks perfectly with cloud credits Because SOLIDWORKS runs on the desktop, the credit complements (rather than overlaps with) AWS Activate, GCP, or Azure credits — so you can spend your infra credits on compute and your SOLIDWORKS grant on CAD.
- Renewable, not a one-shot As long as you stay under the program's revenue and operating-time caps, you can re-apply each year, giving early-stage companies multiple years of runway on the toolchain.
- Real simulation, not a toy version You get Simulation Professional — not a stripped-down viewer — meaning you can validate structural, thermal, and frequency analyses on real prototypes before paying for test cycles.
- PDM included PDM Professional is notoriously expensive and is often the second-hardest tool to get after the CAD seat. Including it is a meaningful, often-overlooked part of the bundle.
- Reseller + MySolidWorks support Qualifying startups get access to certified resellers for onboarding and the MySolidWorks self-serve training library — useful for founders hiring junior mechanical engineers.
What doesn't
- Narrow eligibility This is for privately held, early-stage hardware/engineering startups with revenue and time-in-business caps. Software-only startups, bootstrapped solo founders in some regions, and post-Series-B companies typically don't qualify.
- Desktop-bound, Windows-only SOLIDWORKS Premium only runs on Windows. If your team is macOS/Linux-first, you'll need to factor in a Windows machine or VM for the seat.
- Year-to-year renewal is not automatic Renewal requires re-confirming eligibility each year; if you cross the revenue cap mid-year (e.g., land a big pilot), your next renewal could be denied.
- No Simulia/3DEXPERIENCE in the free bundle Advanced CFD, Abaqus FEA, and the cloud 3DEXPERIENCE platform are paid add-ons — so founders needing high-fidelity CFD or topology optimization will need to budget separately.
The bottom line
For qualifying early-stage hardware and engineering startups, this is one of the most generous free CAD programs in the world — it includes Premium, Simulation, and PDM (not just a viewer) and is renewable, making it a clear buy for the right company. If you're a software-only startup or already past the revenue/years-in-business cap, this isn't for you.
SOLIDWORKS for Startups FAQ
The questions we actually get asked about this programme.
Ask us something elsePrivately held, early-stage companies developing physical products or hardware, typically under a defined revenue cap and operating for a limited number of years. Eligibility is reviewed by Dassault Systèmes SOLIDWORKS and may vary slightly by region. Verify current terms at signup.
SOLIDWORKS Premium (3D CAD), SOLIDWORKS Simulation Professional, and SOLIDWORKS PDM Professional for one seat, plus access to MySolidWorks training. Cloud 3DEXPERIENCE tools and Simulia CFD/Abaqus are not included in the free bundle.
The standard term is one year. Qualifying companies can re-apply annually and the program is renewable on continued eligibility, so a startup can use it for multiple consecutive years.
Yes — it's the same commercial edition, not an educational or trial version. Output files, drawings, and simulations are production-grade and can be carried into a paid subscription at the end of the term.
The startup bundle is typically granted per company on a single seat. Additional seats must be purchased at standard commercial pricing. Check with your local reseller — some regions run multi-seat variants.
SOLIDWORKS Premium is Windows-only. macOS and Linux users will need a Windows machine, a Boot Camp partition, or a Windows VM. Dassault's 3DEXPERIENCE Works roles are browser-based and may be a complementary option.
Yes. SOLIDWORKS for Startups grants a desktop tool license, while AWS Activate, GCP, and Azure credits cover cloud infrastructure. They don't overlap, so most hardware startups stack both.
Review times vary by region and reseller, but typically a few business days to a few weeks. Have your company registration, founder IDs, and a short description of your product ready before applying.
