New Rockwell Subscription Bases Pricing

Has anyone looked at the pricing for the new subscription based pricing model Rockwell is switching to? Adding up prices for a typical set of Rockwell tools (Logix 5, 500, 5000, FactoryTalk) amounts to an annual cost of almost double the current cost of an entire Toolkit!

https://commerce.rockwellautomation.com/rockwell/en/USD/

I'm not surprised, R%^&*^^ have over the years, reduced their outlet supply base (presumably to control pricing), increased prices, purchased some electronic repair centres (some repairs cost almost as much as a new unit), bullied people into contracts originally if no contract wait 4 days, before any response, reduce on-line access to knowledge unless you have a contract, increased rates of updates with little backward compatibility meaning unless you have a subscription your stuffed, the list goes on. I have noticed a number of other larger companies seem to be doing the same thing. Yearly contracts for software is ok if you are a large company that regularly update systems.
Microsoft & many other companies have a yearly subscription & again this is ok but like me to purchase all these yearly subscriptions is out of the question. I have office 2010, this does me fine, why upgrade I virtually never use all the features.

Can't wait for the Rockwell apologists to explain how this is a great thing...

"Can't Afford It To Begin With" + 100% =



Walking over a California mountain at night in an area known for mountain lions with your pockets full of steak - financially.

parky said:

I have office 2010, this does me fine, why upgrade I virtually never use all the features.

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Try LibreOffice: www.libreoffice.org

some years back they all realised that they could rip into the market as they have so much installed base that your forced into their price gouging, all the big player do it, the smaller ones will do when their installed base is large enough. very few are likely to re-engineer their equipment for another vendor.


i used to fly the Rockwell flag but i got sick of stuff that should "just work" easily without a lot of wasted time on setup. their products used to be exceptional (PLC5 is an example... rock solid never failed, powerful in its day) but now ......


Factory talk HMI studio has to be the the worse piece of software i think i have used, if you want to use it with another vendors equipment (say Modbus TCP which is like an industry standard now) you need to run kepware and the package does not have enough flexibility without you having to find a lot of work arounds

EICS said:

some years back they all realised that they could rip into the market as they have so much installed base that your forced into their price gouging, all the big player do it, the smaller ones will do when their installed base is large enough. very few are likely to re-engineer their equipment for another vendor.

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Not defending Siemens as I'm not happy on some of their licensing for certain products like their energy suite or PCS7. But looking at the price for TIA Portal versus RS Studio and overall presence, your assertion doesn't stand.

Out of curiosity, what is the yearly subscription for a Rockwell suite (Logix 5000 + Factorytalk HMI studio) going to cost ?

edit: And is this then a combination of having access to support along with the subscription of software ?
If I am not wrong, in the past you would buy the software, and then you had to pay separately for having access to support.

I often do work for small companies that have problems with existing suppliers & these companies do not like the cost of supplying new versions so what could be a small job of less than £2000 will not support the costs of annual contracts for software, after all I might not use it again for months or years. I tend to use one type if possible (not advertising so will keep it to myself) and their support is good, get good deals on updates.. Often I cannot expect the customer to bear the cost of the full software unless they take it on and would not expect them to, I price jobs with a small contingency for software & equipment, if I didn't do it this way I would loose customers.

EICS said:

Factory talk HMI studio has to be the the worse piece of software i think i have used, if you want to use it with another vendors equipment (say Modbus TCP which is like an industry standard now) you need to run kepware and the package does not have enough flexibility without you having to find a lot of work arounds

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Preach on! There's a few small parts of FTV I like, but overall it's a steamy pile of fecal matter. Sad that there's free software packages that have been around years without 18 revisions and 247 patches that blow it away - not to mention the hardware for that software is a fraction of the cost.
I totally agree about the basic communications setup - I had to go through that kepware hell once and made sure it was the last time.

JesperMP said:

Out of curiosity, what is the yearly subscription for a Rockwell suite (Logix 5000 + Factorytalk HMI studio) going to cost ?

edit: And is this then a combination of having access to support along with the subscription of software ?
If I am not wrong, in the past you would buy the software, and then you had to pay separately for having access to support.

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I calculated that an annual subscription to RSLogix 5, 500 and 5000 (with Structured Text, SFC, FBD, etc add-ons), ControlNet and FactoryTalk will come to around $7800USD/year/user. You can still do a one-time purchase plus maintenance but the one-time purchase prices seem to have nearly doubled as well. As an integrator, not having the maintenance option has never been an option since you never know what versions the customer will be using.

sanger said:

$7800USD/year/user.

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Wow, thats the way to drive out the small guy

geniusintraining said:

Wow, thats the way to drive out the small guy

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They already have the small guy driven out!!

I just paid a tad less than $7500 for the (3) license annual toolkit. I share with two other contractors. Gotta do it, customer's demand it. Or I retire.

Ok, I'm confused. Does this replace Tech Connect (for end user)?