IronCAD 2026: Benefits, Features & Pricing

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On this page

Overview
Pricing and Plans
Features
User Reviews

Overview

IronCAD

4.3

(60)

Pricing

Starting at $1.00 per year

About IronCAD

IronCAD Design Collaboration Suite delivers CAD products to help businesses optimize the engineering design processes and transition between 2D and 3D. The solution delivers services through core applications, such as INOVATE, which enables users to modify, create and share 3D design concepts; COMPOSE, which allows engineering and sales teams to interrogate, comment or view data from any 3D CAD system; DRAFT, which is a 2D CAD solution with 3D integrations and visual interface; and IRONCAD which is a 3D modeling solution with resizing tools and reposition components.

Primary features of the solution include fluid design methodology, drag-and-drop 3D functionality, a parts library and modular design. The software enables users to integrate assembly part data in a unified platform than linking them to external or third-party files.

Support is extended through email, phone and documentation and pricing is available on request.

IronCAD Screenshots

IronCAD Pricing and Plans

Starting price: $1.00 per year

Free Trial

Free Version

Basic

$1.00

per year

No plan information available

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IronCAD Features

Popular features found in 3D CAD
2D Drawing
Animation
Bill of Materials Management
Data Import/Export
For 3D Printing
For Architects
For Manufacturers
More features of IronCAD
3D Imaging
Annotations
CAD Tools
Collaboration Tools
Component Library
Design Analysis
Design Management
Document Management
Drag & Drop
Manufacturing Design Data
Mechanical
Mechatronics
Modeling & Simulation
Presentation Tools
Project Management
Reporting/Analytics

IronCAD User Reviews

Overall Rating

4.3

Ratings Breakdown

35%

55%

10%

Secondary Ratings

Ease of Use

4.5

Value for money

4.4

Customer support

4.5

Functionality

4.2

sofia c.

Verified reviewer

Used weekly for less than 6 months

Review source

Reviewed April 2018

IronCAD has easy-to-use tools that allow a high production in the development of projects for you!!!

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

The dual programming nature of this software allows working with solids created in both ACIS format and Parasolid format, exchanging and / or using any of them indiscriminately, which allows it to handle a large number of files imported and exported from different CAD programs of the market

Cons:

IronCAD has many features that will help you design complex models quickly and efficiently. excellent software

Vendor Response

Thanks Sofia for the positive review!

Replied July 2020

Peter W.

Verified reviewer

Mechanical or Industrial Engineering

2-10 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2020

Innovative Magnetic Technologies Review

To date i am fairly happy with Ironcad. We had to purchase the ironpro mechanical to really make the program beneficial to us. There are many tools with Ironpro that we use daily which have made our job of creating products more efficient. Unfortunately i do not have any other 3D modelling program experience to reference against Ironcad.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Functionality

Pros:

The decision to move to 3d was made because Ironcad was a relatively low cost alternative to the higher cost competitors. I also was drawn to the intuitive drag and drop design philosophy and the flexibility to create assembly down type designs in one model. Also the Caxa integration was very welcome as our company used Autocadd for all its drawings and having Caxa gave us the ability to continue to utilize our existing drawing library along side the new 3d drawings. Without the Caxa portion of the program I doubt we would have used the program for long, and gone back to manual 2d for our products.

Cons:

In the beginning we had a lot of issues with creating drawings which were equivalent in look and feel with that which we had been able to create in 2d Autocadd. The #1 biggest issue was the lack of any CAXA instructional data. The amount of information provided by the company in the form of a user guide is laughable at best. If I did not already have years of experience with Autocadd and CAXA's similarity to Autocadd I doubt i would have been able to get the program to make any sense at all. The only thing that makes Caxa usable is the forums where questions can be asked.

Reasons for choosing IronCAD

Cost. At the time, and with our limited Knowledge on 3d modelling the intuitive design methodology of iron cad seemed very beneficial.

Vendor Response

Thank you for the review Peter. As you pointed out, we focus more on the 3D learning side since CAXA is similar to the AutoCAD use model. However we do see the growth in this area and will invest into more training in that area.

Replied July 2020

Stefan A.

Verified reviewer

Machinery

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2020

I can not understand

We have been using Ironcad since 1998 or 1999. We are designing our own machineries using Ironcad, but we are also working as consultants designing machineries for some of our customers using both Solidworks and Inventor, so we have a good experience of the differences.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

It is very easy to design a new machinery in the 3D-scene. It is a great benefit that you can design a hole assy and afterwards select how you like to have your sumassy´s and details.

Cons:

The 2D-interface and funconality making an ICD-file is a totalt disaster. It is depending on the grafic´s, time for update of scene´s is too long, sections is really bad, for example you have to fill in data for welding symbols each time you activate the function instead of getting last data as default, and so on. We have since 1998 reported a lot of ideas´s how to make it better, but unfortunatly we can not see aallmost no improvement

Reasons for choosing IronCAD

The 3D-environment

Graham S.

Verified reviewer

Mechanical or Industrial Engineering

Self-Employed

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2020

Almost Perfect

I design mechanical engineering items for serval customers and I can sit with an engineer and create their new design in real time.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

Most of the features work really well and are intuitive. The speed of being able to create a new design is impressive. The triball is the best tool ever and saves hours of work when positioning parts. Generally it is a solid piece of software and very rarely crashes.

Cons:

It does not work at all well with a high resolution display(3840 x 2160) some of the menu items are so small you cannot read them and in other areas the items overlap. After every new release there are some errors and these are not always fixed before the next version is released. Some of the less used features are feeling a bit dated like the visualization mode.

Reasons for choosing IronCAD

Triball just made everything faster.

Reasons for switching to IronCAD

I wanted the speed of design.

Vendor Response

Thank you Graham for the positive review of the speed of IronCAD. The latest versions of the product should have better support of High Res Monitors. If you are still seeing issues, feel free to contact support.

Replied July 2020

Nick C.

Verified reviewer

Airlines/ Aviation

11-50 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2020

IronCAD - Powerful easy to Use CAD

Easy to use CAD

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

IronCAD has proven to be an essential tool in our company for the last 15years. Unlike similar software, its free design approach allows you to get on with the business of producing designs rather than worrying about model integrity. It has become significantly more powerful as the years go by.

Cons:

There are many basic features lacking, (select by colour, divide a line in equal segments, solve a structural part on dimension or area, mechanism mode trace a 2d path, intersection of 3d parts with your current cross section, decent configuration control date created user etc). Confusion about which 2d drawing environment to choose, i.e. ICD or CAXA Smartmarkup features are an odd addition.

Reasons for choosing IronCAD

Cost

Reasons for switching to IronCAD

Poor 3d support (this was 15 years ago)

Vendor Response

Thank you Nick for the positive review and suggestions for improvements. Thank you for being a longtime use of IronCAD.

Replied July 2020

Mitch C.

Verified reviewer

Design

Self-Employed

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2020

The most flexible product in its class

I have been a user since 1995 when IronCAD was known as Trispectives. It has helped me successfully design and create designs for feature films, theme parks, race cars, yachts and more. Despite its deficiencies I still think its the most flexible and powerful 3D design tool in its class.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I work in the feature film industry where everything is extremely time constrained, fast changing and teams are often geographically dispersed. IronCAD dual kernel and translator add-on allow me to import and work with data from a wide array of sources from CG artists through to civil engineers. IronCADs workflow is much less constrained than other products which makes it easier and faster to develop design ideas and concepts. When it comes time to build, I use add-ons like IC Mechanical to speed up the design of my steel structures and output 2D files for CNC etc.

Cons:

In my long term opinion IronCAD's 2D drawing utilities have always been lack lustre. I have tried both IC's native drawing and CAXA (yes IronCAD has 2 drafting systems!), but neither are fully implemented, efficient or bug free. The good news is that IC does a good job exporting 2D views of your designs so you can draft them elsewhere.

Vendor Response

Thanks Mitch for the review! Great work and a very interesting use of IronCAD!

Replied July 2020

Brian B.

Verified reviewer

Architecture & Planning

Self-Employed

Used daily for less than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2020

Consider Both Sides Of The Product

Overall I am more productive within the IronCAD model environment due to the Tri-Ball and the fewer limitations on creating parts and assemblies. I am disappointed in the documentation environment but have been told that the development team is continually enhancing the software.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Building and working within the model. The Tri-Ball is at the top of the list. This adds a very flexible method for navigation and positioning in the model. The ability to work with fewer constraints or even none. The flexibility within the history tree is awesome. The catalogs are a nice touch. Ability to use both parasoilid and/or ACIS. Support is top notch. Compared to past experiences. My support contact is quick to respond and exhibits the drive and ability to get a resolution. This is enhanced due to the fact that my contact actually uses the product in his company.

Cons:

Documenting in the drawing environment. The documentation environment needs to be more mature and current. Navigating in the sheets is cumbersome and clunky. Text and symbol features, placement and manipulation are inconsistent and lacking. Tools for adding additional line work on the sheets are cumbersome to add, manipulate and edit. Navigating with a 3D mouse control is sporadic.

Reasons for switching to IronCAD

Autodesk license scheme. Solidworks long term cost. IronCAD's flexible model enviroment works best for my projects.

Keith W.

Verified reviewer

Automotive

Self-Employed

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2020

3d Printing and Prototyping with Ironcad

As an inventor and president of an inventor group, I find that Ironcad is indispensable. I have designed things for members and made prototypes for them. I also build models and really can not live without the ability to design and print many parts.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Functionality

Pros:

I have been a user before it was called Ironcad. It was called Tryspectives then. Many years ago. I have upgraded twice since then. When given the opportunity to show others how easy it is to use, they seem to be quite impressed. Especially over parametric software. Ironcad does this also but I do not use it much. I do 3D printing of prototypes and Ironcad is great at producing solid models and easy to modify models if needed. Everything I think up is modeled in Ironcad to empty my head for the next project. I currently use release 2015.

Cons:

The thing I wish it did better is free form modeling. Mechanical stuff is great. Free form is more difficult. Also the ability to work with .stl ( Triangulated mesh ) files. It will import them but with no ability to modify. I would be using 2020 if the cost were lower but as a one person company, revenue is down. That OK as 2015 does most of everything that I need.

Tommy O.

Verified reviewer

Mechanical or Industrial Engineering

Self-Employed

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review source

Reviewed July 2020

simplicity and speed

I have very good experience with ironcad Has worked for many years with ironcad (started with version 2) Since most of what I do is about automation, usually one machine, ironcad fits perfectly, compared to colleagues working in other systems (Solidworks, AutoCad 3D)

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

Very efficient way of working. Can be worked from sketch to finished production drawings, without leaving IronCad. Completely independent of constrains (simple and forgiving way of working). Simple drawing rules (compared to Solidworks) Has worked as a consultant for major Swedish companies that have design departments Has drawn in front of large audiences who are amazed at the simplicity of ironcad Which has been a strong selling point for getting a job for my company

Cons:

Surface modeling tools are not really good Sometimes you would like to have better tools Solidwork has better tools for the plastics industry Works a lot with molds for plastic, cutting tools for sheet metal etc. Measurement has improved, but there is still room for improvement I have contact with other designers who use ironcad They complain about the 2D tools (?)

Souleymane D.

Verified reviewer

Mining & Metals

5001-10000 employees

Used monthly for less than 6 months

Review source

Reviewed August 2023

For your plan designs or modeling, choose IronCAD.

IronCAD is still a design software used by engineers and designers for product modeling and documentation.

Ratings Breakdown

Ease of use

Value for money

Customer support

Functionality

Pros:

I really enjoyed the functionality based on the Dual Kernel design technology in IronCAD, which allows users to create 3D models using parametric modeling techniques. Additionally, it allows importing multiple file formats.

Cons:

I didn't quite like the interface and some of the features in IronCAD. I only used it for a few months for a construction project, and it ultimately didn't help me much.

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