CAD seats shouldn't cost more than junior engineers.
Consulting engineers and architecture firms live inside CAD, BIM, and document control software. AutoCAD, Revit, SolidWorks, Siemens NX — premium tools with premium annual seats. We find the workloads where FreeCAD, BRL-CAD, and OpenProject genuinely cover the brief, and keep premium seats only for the roles that need them.
Three pains specific to engineering.
CAD and BIM per-seat annual licences
R30k to R60k per engineer per year across AutoCAD, Revit, SolidWorks. For a 15-person firm, that's the cost of another engineer.
Document management SaaS
Drawing revisions, transmittals, submittals. Proprietary document systems priced per project or per user. Self-hosted Nextcloud with version control handles the same workflow.
Client portal and e-signature overhead
Every project has sign-offs. Per-envelope e-signature billing compounds on large jobs. Self-hosted alternatives remove the variable cost.
Your typical stack
About R2 719 800 a year.
Engineering firms typically run this stack. Click any tool to see the open source replacement and the migration plan.
What we do for engineering
Savings is just the start.
Engineeringfirms also come to us for the security, compliance, and build work that goes with the stack swap. Here's what that usually looks like.
The things your sector cares about.
Drawing version control and professional liability
Self-hosted document management with immutable revision history protects you in disputes. Git-backed systems give cryptographic proof of change history.
ECSA / SACAP compliance
Professional body obligations on record-keeping and confidentiality. We configure retention and access controls that meet both bodies' requirements.
Client NDA and confidentiality
Self-hosted collaboration keeps privileged client work out of foreign data stores. Clean answer to every client security questionnaire.
Free audit. No pitch.
A 30-minute call. We look at your current stack, your headcount, your compliance posture. You get a written assessment with exact Rand numbers. You decide from there.