MicroStation 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
User Reviews

Overview

MicroStation

4.3

(175)

Pricing

Starting at $1,208.00 per year

About MicroStation

MicroStation is an architectural CAD solution designed to help businesses in the construction, petroleum, mining and other sectors create, modify and visualize 2D and 3D designs. Administrators can create annotations, paper plots, 3D physical models and PDFs on a unified interface.

The platform lets designers add 3D reality meshes, geospatial information and point clouds to create construction models. MicroStation allows creators to use built-in templates and include dimensions, symbols, lines and texts in drawings based on project-specific standards. Additionally, teams can analyze various properties of the object including slope and aspect angle to visualize designs in a centralized dashboard.

MicroStation enables operators to select time-based animations, produce realistic movies and preview lifelike visualizations in real-time. Pricing is based on monthly subscriptions and support is extended via FAQs and online portal.

MicroStation Screenshots

MicroStation Pricing and Plans

Starting price: $1,208.00 per year

Free Trial

Free Version

MicroStation VIRTUOSO

$2,284.00

per year

Plan includes:

Flexible for Your Project Needs and Named-User License
Training via Virtuosity Keys

MicroStation on Select

$1,208.00

per year

Plan includes:

License Pooling
Open Access to Bentley’s Entire Portfolio
Portfolio Balancing and Free Software Upgrades

MicroStation in Enterprise 365

Pricing available upon request

Plan includes:

Daily Rates and Success Blueprints
Global Pricing
Unlimited Portfolio Access and Users

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MicroStation Features

Popular features found in Engineering CAD
2D Drawing
3D Imaging
Collaboration Tools
Data Import/Export
Data Visualization
Design Analysis
Design Management
Document Management
Presentation Tools
Version Control
More features of MicroStation
3D Design & Modeling
3D Modeling
Activity Dashboard
Animation
Annotations
Automatic Formatting
Bill of Materials Management
BIM Modeling
CAD Tools
Civil
Comparison View
Compliance Management
Component Library
Content Library
Design Templates
Document Generation
Drafting
Electrical
Floor Plans & Maps
For 3D Printing
For AEC Industry
For Architects
For Manufacturers
Image Editing
Landscape Design
Manufacturing Design Data
Mechanical
Modeling & Simulation
Multiple File Format Support
Multiple Format Support
Project Management
Project Templates
Reference Management
Reporting/Analytics
Sketching and Annotation Tools

MicroStation User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.3

Ratings Breakdown

47%

42%

10%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.0

Value for money

4.1

Customer support

4.0

Functionality

4.2

Arshad R.

Verified reviewer

Education Management

201-500 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed October 2021

MicroStation

I primarily use MicroStation mostly for CAD and like it die to its powerful but yet lightweight processing engine.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

MicroStation appeals to me in every way. Text styles, dimension styles, references, and line styles are among the software's most intriguing features, all of which may be easily altered. Highways can be built in a variety of ways, including with extensive building plans. It is the most trustworthy and high-quality software on the market. The best thing about this show is that it never lets you down. The platform is fairly stable and does not crash all that often. It's good that there aren't any enormous tags on the screen. The various view tabs are useful because moving between them is simple. On the internet, there are a plethora of videos to choose from. The extent to which xRefs can be customized is astounding.

Cons:

The user interface is not very user-friendly or intuitive. Some tasks are simple to do yet need a bit more work in it. Internal programming is used for 3D mouse control, however it does not cover all of the features. Dealing with computer issues is exhausting. The vast majority of first-level IT response is based in Asia, and responses can take up to a day because of which smaller issues may take more than required time to get sorted.

Michael M.

Verified reviewer

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed January 2018

Great CAD product which has evolved into the strongest available

Ease of project creation and distribution. The ability to open DGN files that date back to the 90's as well as other formats.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

MicroStation has great file sizes. Compared to competitors, MS file sizes are a fraction. The amount of control for many of the elements is beyond comparison! Text styles, dimension styles, references, and linestyles can be controlled and manipulated to the greatest extent. This allows for easy use of these objects. Printing in MS is the most reliable, and predictable, of any CAD product I have used. Some products will shift the print from one user to another, even if the same printer is used. MicroStation can/will overcome simple obstacles and yield the same results from printer to printer.

Cons:

Some tools that exist in other CAD platforms need to be implemented in MS. The ability to select an element and trigger a tool that would then select similar objects based on type, level, color, etc. The Select by Attributes tool available is nice and highly functional, but requires too many clicks.

Verified

Reviewer

Automotive

Self-Employed

Used weekly for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed September 2022

3D AutoCAD

I was able to make some parts for cars that I needed

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

It was concise and professional and easy to use

Cons:

It was costly and time-consuming and sometimes very frustrating

Reasons for choosing MicroStation

No I have switched from one to another just to keep up to date

Calvin "Kal" M.

Verified reviewer

Civil Engineering

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed January 2018

I have been using Microstation to design Highways and complete construction drawings since 1994.

Microstation with GEOPAK is a COMPLETE Highway Design and Construction Plans Production Package. All needed tools are included from Survey Data Reduction to As-Build Plans Preparation. I would never switch from Microstation to AutoCAD!

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The command set and menu has not changed dramatically in last 20 years. So as improved versions are released, there is never a completely new interface to learn. The existing drawing command still work in the new releases. New functionality is added on top of existing tools. Complete tools for design drawing standardization and detailed construction quantity takeoff are unique to Microstation with GEOPAK. The Autodesk Civil3D do not have the same capabilities for quantity measurement, takeoff, and tabulation.

Cons:

The high cost of each design seat to use the software license. The competition has an LT version for less cost. But you get what you pay for. Microstation with GEOPAK is the MOST complete and advance highway design software available.

Korina Shayne G.

Verified reviewer

Warehousing

11-50 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review source

Reviewed October 2021

MICROSTATION at EASE!

CADD production -when exporting it. The constancy and the effort to keep the platform relatively the same over many versions. Element selection, snap control all work properly.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The most impactful is the advancement and intelligence in draftings for any infrastructure professionals that projects to any scale and complexity. The flexibility can give each member of the team the right application to get their work done.

Cons:

Higher purchasing cost, a little expensive ,few quirks do exist. A few tools to be updated and adding a publish type tool for publishing several drawings at a time.

James W.

Verified reviewer

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2018

MicroStation is no doubt the best software working for the development of 3D models.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The file sizes in MicroStation is great. One can easily control the dimension styles, references, text styles and line styles.It is very stable.For daily production it is the main platform.Integrating with the advancement of new technologies, the future of MicroStation software is very bright. MicroStation software allows us to open and covert AutoCad files.

Cons:

The price of MicroStation license is very high but I know it is absolutely because of its quality. So there are no specific cons but there should be some different line styles and font styles.There should be some improvements in word editor. Whatever any thing is, this software no doubt improves our modelling skills.

Craig G.

Verified reviewer

Civil Engineering

501-1000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed January 2018

Easy to use with lots of other capabilities

The easy creation of a 3D model has helped convey design aspects to non-engineers and the public.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

They have a lot of support videos of community forums that have been really helpful on resolving issues or finding best practices for each particular use. The file format makes opening and switching between files much quicker than autocad.

Cons:

No complaints about microstation itself but they have been making a lot of improvements and changes to their 3D package. It's been a difficult to keep up with the all the changes as an original geopak user. Once I got used to the new tools it an helped my efficiency working on projects.

Natalia B.

Verified reviewer

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2018

This software is really a blessing in my work, and it has made my work every time easier for me.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Easy to use with the friendly users. It's multiple screens helps the user to copy items and find stuff on the screen. MicroStation is the best software which allows us to open and convert Autocad files. Dialogue box and reference manager are the great features that this software has. So I would say this is versatile with many functionality.

Cons:

If i talk about the cost license of MicroStation is a little high but i also know that is because of its quality.There are no complaints about itself even they are improving and bringing some innovations about 3D packages .

Barb H.

Verified reviewer

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed January 2018

I have been working with MicroStation for over 8 years now. I really like the program.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Easy to use help is easy to use and get the help you need the features it has are exactly what I need to complete my day to day activities Easy to search for features snapping is great functions to what I need Able to bring in almost any format that I have access to

Cons:

Not able to export to Excel Not able to export to ArcMap sometimes it drops tags, I have had it delete every tag in a project, and have it unrecoverable. Some other glitches like, changing something, saving it. Then later going back and having it not save it at all.

Alice C.

Verified reviewer

Staffing and Recruiting

201-500 employees

Used other for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed December 2018

The most user friendly software with excellent visualization.

It is really easy to use software. I like all its features as it is making my work easier day by day. I would say it is the most preferable software for performing multiple tasks.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I love everything about MicroStation. Its most interesting features include text styles plus dimension styles as well as references and line styles can be easily controlled through this software. There are fantastic ways of designing highways along with complete construction designs. It is the most reliable and excellent software. The best part of this software is that it never crashes.

Cons:

This software works perfectly. I can hardly find cons in it. One of the cons is that MicroStation license is quite expensive but if we look at its quality and output, it surely deserve high price. One thing I want to suggest is that it should include some different line styles as well as font styles.

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