Best Place to Buy Rhino 6?

I live in Canada and buy all of my software from Novedge including upgrades, as the savings help offset the difference in Canadian dollar value. I was skeptical at Novedge’s low prices at first, so I checked with McNeel in regards to their validity before purchasing. The Mcneel sales rep told me that Novedge was a fully authorized retailer for all of their products, so I was free to purchase anything from them that I wanted from them. I have had no problems registering anything from Novedge, get my key codes almost instantly, and will likely Flamingo or Brazil from them as well.

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I just wanted to mention I sent softball questions to a few re-sellers before I bought Mesh2Surf. Novedge was the last one I contacted, and the first one I got a reply from.

I purchased my first copy of Rhino from Novedge, along with other software in the past. Great reseller, quick to respond. My upgrades have been purchased through Mecsoft/ Rhinocam. Very good CS there as well. You should purchase and not be discouraged. It is great software with great support. (and very affordable as well)

I’ve purchased from them several times (including Rhino & V-Ray). They processed my order and answered all of my questions quickly. I will buy from them again.

I find this forum to be extremely useful, while the staff and Rhino users are probably the most friendly I have ever seen on Internet. It’s an amazing community and is one of the main reasons for me to decide to work with Rhino as a freelancer in the near future. I intend to buy Rhino 6 in a few months, and just wondered will it be considered legal to use it in Bulgaria if I order it from USA-based reseller such like Novedge? Or, maybe if I find someone in USA to buy it for me using my names, in case that Novedge is not allowed to sell abroad.

The Rhino reseller in Bulgaria, CAD Point Ltd., offers Rhino 6 for almost 1200 Euros (995 euros + 20% VAT). Meanwhile, Rhino 6 costs 795 USD (or 716 Euros) in USA offered by Novedge:

Even if that US price comes with a VAT, it’s still 340 Euros cheaper than what I would pay in Bulgaria for the exact same code. By the way, the minimum monthly salary in Bulgaria is 284 Euros before 38% tax. :slight_smile: This is another reason to mention the 340 Euros difference in the price of Rhino 6 sold both in USA and Bulgaria. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t say that Rhino 6 must be a lot cheaper in countries with lower wage.

Also, the guys at the local reseller obviously have somewhat limited knowledge of Rhino. In their training courses they do lots of surface modeling mistakes even on very basic modeling scenarios. I’m hardly impressed and would never rely on that kind of support, be it by the phone or in person. And I doubt that anybody will bother to be on the phone at 3 AM here in Bulgaria. Last year they even didn’t replied my e-mails (sent from two different e-mail clients) for a price quote. Their page for Rhino 6 is somewhat abandoned. Even the price is not listed officially on their website, except for one link to an old promotion that ended several months ago. The support was mentioned above as one of the reasons that justifies the price of Rhino. I’m pretty sure that the USA-based Rhino users have a greater support by more skilled resellers, yet they have access to the program for 340 Euros lower price. I’m aware that bigger and popular resellers like Novedge get Rhino licenses for a cheaper price from McNeal and that’s a normal business practice. However, it’s still the same code sent by e-mail.

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I’m sorry to hear about the situation with the resellers in Bulgaria, but that is not generalized in Europe.

This is not true at all, you have excellent, highly skilled resellers in many countries who offer top-notch training and support, and some of whom post here regularly.

The price-undercutting that Novedge practices is particular to the US market, where the Walmart mentality flourishes.

Part of the price difference is also the fact that the US does not charge sales tax on internet sales (under certain conditions), that is a political decision particular to that country; the difference in sales tax levels between the US and the EU or elsewhere is also political.

But the fact of the matter is that Novedge and all other north American resellers have their sales territory restricted to that area. So, if they sell directly to someone in Bulgaria, they are violating their reseller agreement.

Discussions about “global pricing” for Rhino have been going on for pretty much as long as I have been a member of this community (right around 20 years now).

Doesn’t make it less relevant, though. The different prices resellers offer for the same digital product (even within the same country) is obviously confusing to customers.

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Never said it did…

How is that different from any other retail product? Even on Amazon, there are (sometimes radically) different prices for the same item… Not to mention in brick-and-mortar stores.

My point is not to say that Rhino should be a cheaper program in developing countries. It’s already one of the more affordable free-form NURBS modelers of its type (even though with shortcomings to various modeling tools like more intuitive surface point editing, fillet edges, blend surface etc that hopefully will get better in Rhino 7), and is actually owned for life rather than “rented” for a year as is the case with many of the popular CAD programs. That makes it the sweet spot for many people. While MOI is 3,3 times cheaper than Rhino, it lacks some basic tools, so I still consider Rhino to be the more complete package of the two.
I just wanted to know whether McNeel will consider a Rhino license bought from USA to be illegal for use in Bulgaria? :slight_smile:

As for the resellers, I compared only my local Rhino reseller in Bulgaria with Novedge from USA, because I have seen training videos from both and the USA-based one has considerably more skilled staff. Not to mention the obvious lack of communication, barely supported Rhino page and “hidden price” in the Bulgarian reseller’s website. Novedge, on the other hand, is obviously better in that regard. This is why I mentioned that USA-based customers receive much better service by their local reseller. :slight_smile:

As for company taxes, in Bulgaria we have just 10% flat company tax rate, which is the lowest in the entire EU. Despite that, the Bulgarian Rhino reseller CAD Point Ltd. sells Rhino 6 for 1194 Euros with mandatory 20% VAT, while for example Rhino 6 in Finland is 1165 Euros despite that the latter country have a 24% VAT and twice as high company tax rate of 20%. This makes me think that there is no obvious reason for the price of Rhino 6 in Bulgaria to be higher. If I can use Novedge’s price, I would definitely order from USA.

Sounds like you would make a good reseller!
Have you considered it?

My priority is to develop a supercar and it takes years of hard work, so I don’t have the time to devote myself to a customer training and support.

Rhino resellers are not keeping licenses in stock, nor do they have to deal with different shipping costs from different locations. I agree that resellers can be an extra value for their customers in providing technical support and answers to questions regarding the software, but as far as I know there are no guarantees in that they do so and that that is included in the price you pay. There are also no reviews of resellers to rely on, as there is on amazon.
I guess buying a rhino license is similar to supporting your local hardware store and buying from them instead of the cheaper option you can find online, just because it helps them to keep in business and when you need to you can physically go there in case you very urgently need a specific bolt. Or you can call them up if you have a question regarding using a tool, since they have the knowledge and experience you know you can rely on.
The difference here is that you don’t have the option to buy online (so to speak, obviously you buy online from any reseller), in case you are self-sufficient enough and don’t need somebody local to help you out. And you don’t know if the company you’re buying from even knows Rhino and would be able to help you out if you need to.

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@Rhino_Bulgaria, the only reason if you ask me is because CAD Point are the only one. So go ahead and create their competition with reduced prices. There’s also lack of good marketing. Just look at the events mentioned by Bob every now and then. None of them is even close to Bulgaria. If you put in some effort and time, find some sponsors you could make an event and boost that hypothetical company. :wink: Maybe invite @DavidRutten to show some tricks to our countrymen.

Regarding CAD Point:
Hate to admit but I also used non-legit version of Rhino for a while. I was using legit Rhino at work and non-legit at home learning it.
Reason being I was a student with my 60 euro scholarship and 250 euro salary.
I contacted CAD Point asking for a way to pay with installments (or however it is called). CAD Point refused. Not only that, they ridiculed the idea. I did not know back then about the Educational license and they didn’t tell me. I was at the end of my study and didn’t want to lose my license when I graduate. Years after that I realized it’s allowed to use an educational license for commercial purposes. :man_facepalming:

Customer support and reselling might help you achieve that :wink:

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I’m afraid that I’m not good at Rhino in many occasions as I mainly focus on car body surfacing and corresponding body plug models. Basically I’m an amateur regarding anything like GH, rendering, lighting, materials, Rhino script etc. :smiley: With my very limited knowledge I would not feel ready to provide a proper training and support to customers.

I agree that monopoly or lack of competition plays a huge role for many local companies in Bulgaria “to feel safe” and sell goods and software at considerably higher cost than the exact same stuff abroad, despite the lower corporate tax rate, lower VAT and multiple times lower wage rate compared to other countries.

As for the development of a supercar, trust me, it’s very expensive and there is a good reason for car enthusiasts across the USA and some well developed countries in Europe to not rely on their own funding and seek for an angel investment or crowd funding instead. Reselling Rhino licenses in Bulgaria will hardly help, especially if I count the time I have to invest into that rather than actual development. :slight_smile:

They are actually, the stock is virtual, but it’s still stock… paid for in full in advance.

There are also an awful lot of physical product sellers that do not have to deal with that either - nor inventory for that matter - they just take orders and drop-ship from someone else’s warehouse. Shipping costs aren’t really a big deal (in most of the western markets anyway).

In theory, with Rhino support by the reseller is supposed to be guaranteed - but you’re correct, in reality it is not necessarily, depends on the reseller.

Yep. Best way to find out is to call them on the phone. If they’re willing to talk with you and answer your questions, in 5 minutes you can probably determine if they know what they’re talking about…

But in the end, all this is moot. Because there are two possible scenarios here, and neither one really works.

  1. One-world pricing - a license costs the same everywhere in the world. This is not reasonable on several levels, one being that for this to be correct, the standard of living also needs to be the same everywhere, i.e. the value of the item is the same everywhere. Another is that it’s difficult to control the prices unless the company exercises complete control over its resellers on pricing or there is only a single source for the item (i.e. you could only buy from McNeel). And if prices are not controlled, then they will just continue to go down (water flows downhill), kicking most if not all of the smaller players out of the game until there are only one or two big players left (the current situation in the US already). That might satisfy a certain set of consumers (Rhino users) - but not all, as much of the community is also built on the reseller network and the fact that Rhino is more than just widget you buy from an app store. And even at “universal” rock-bottom prices, Rhino licenses will still be considered to be too expensive for some parts of the world, while becoming ridiculously cheap in others.

  2. Prices adapted to the local economy. This also presents a multitude of more or less difficult problems. One is it’s very difficult to be granular enough. Using Bulgaria as an example, it is in the EU, so the Euro is worth the same there as it is in Germany or France, even though the standard of living (salaries, etc.) is not the same. The Rhino reseller in Bulgaria has to buy their licenses from McNeel Europe, and they cost the same in Euros everywhere in the EU. The reseller cannot lower the price indefinitely, otherwise they cannot make any money. So one would need to have a granularity that is much finer, not only country by country, but perhaps even within the same country… This is also very difficult to manage, plus you can add to it the problem of local price control as in scenario #1 above.

So, no matter what you do, there will always be some degree of “price injustice” somewhere. I don’t think the problem is really solvable given the different economic and political systems we have in the world today.

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Thanks for explaining that @Helvetosaur,

Still one thing gets unexplained, but that is not so much question to you rather than CAD Point.

Leaving standard of living aside. Why is the price in Bulgaria higher? Even small profit in Bulgaria will be huge by the fact that 1 EUR = 2 BGN.

I don’t know much about what margin is given by McNeel to the resellers for discount. But I know what Dassault Systemes give. It’s upto 75% off. Any percent lower than 75% will produce the reseller of DS profit.

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McNeel reseller discounts are public:

So, if you only buy in small quantities, the margins are relatively small (compared to Dassaut)

It’s not - it appears to be 995 Euros, which is MSRP (less tax) in Europe. Local tax is added on top of that.

When you have products with over-inflated prices, you can afford to give huge discounts…

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:smiley: yeah you maybe right about that.

That explains why people (resellers) stockpile.

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If you can, yes… If you know you’re going to sell a number of licenses in a year and you have some cash that you can invest (two conditions that don’t apply to all resellers though), it’s definitely an advantage to buy in the largest quantities possible. It’s money in the bank.

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