Licences and pricing

SphereHarness is sold per CAD system, per user. One licence covers one CAD system for one person; you buy the ones you use. The AI is not included in the price — you bring your own AI key or AI subscription.

Prices are not published yet: each card on the pricing page says Pricing coming soon, and its Get button leads to the free trial. For a quote, contact us.

One licence per CAD system

There are no plan levels to choose between and no feature tiers. The unit is a CAD system:

Work in one CAD system, buy one licence.
Work in two, buy two — they are priced and counted separately, and either can be added or dropped without touching the other.
Each licence is per user, billed monthly or, at a lower rate, yearly.

The pricing page words this as “One licence per CAD system”, with a “How licences work” section under the cards. For anything larger or unusual, the cards carry a Contact us route.

The CAD systems this site sells licences for: Inventor, NX, Solid Edge and AutoCAD.

No AI tokens are included

This is the part people expect to work the other way round, so it is worth stating plainly: no AI tokens are included — bring your own AI key or coding agent. SphereHarness drives your CAD system and runs no AI on its servers; the model that answers you is billed by whoever supplies it, directly to you.

Choose your AI in the desktop agent: your own API key, stored encrypted on your PC, or a coding agent on your PC such as Claude Code, Codex or Gemini CLI (how). The chat offers the choice the first time you open it.
On a trial, as on a paid seat, the chat runs only once you have chosen one.
What it costs you, and the habits that cut it, are on Spending Fewer Tokens — a recorded macro run reaches no model at all.

Individuals and organisations

How a licence is held depends on who bought it:

	An individual	An organisation
What is bought	One licence per CAD system, for you	A number of seats per CAD system
Who gets to use it	You, always — there is nothing to assign	The members the organisation administrator assigns a seat to
Where it is managed	Nothing to manage	Licences per CAD system in the organisation portal

In an organisation, the licence page shows one column per CAD system and N / M seats under each — how many are in use out of how many are owned — with a tick per member per CAD system. Ticking gives that person a seat on that CAD system; clearing it takes the seat back and frees it for somebody else.

Only an organisation administrator can assign licences. An ordinary member sees what they hold and cannot change it. If you need a seat, ask your administrator rather than support — support cannot assign it for them.

Holding a licence and holding a seat are different things

These two look alike and mean different things, and the difference is most of the confused support requests about licensing:

Your company has not bought that CAD system. Nobody there can use it. Buying is the fix.
Your company has bought it and has not given you a seat. The licence exists; your share of it does not. Your administrator ticking one box is the fix.

No seat, no access — and no trial either. If your organisation pays for SphereHarness and has not assigned you a seat, you cannot use it: not the add-in, not the chat, and not on a trial, whether or not you have your own AI key. SphereHarness tells you “Your organisation has not assigned you a SphereHarness seat. Ask your organisation administrator to assign one.” Only your organisation administrator can fix it — organisation administrators need a seat too, and can assign one to themselves. A seat taken away while you are working ends the session within a minute.

You can install and download the add-in in either case — the seat is checked when the add-in runs, not when you fetch it. See Downloads.

The three refusals

Three messages come up around seats, and each names exactly what to do:

“All N seats are assigned (n/m). Release one first, or add seats.” — the licence is fully used. Take a seat back from somebody who no longer needs it, or buy more.
“This subscription holds no active licence for that CAD system.” — nothing was bought for it, or the licence has lapsed.
“Some of the selected users do not belong to you.” — a partner acting on a list that includes somebody else's customer. The whole request is refused, not half-applied, so nobody is changed by accident; drop the foreign users and send it again.

Trials

Every trial is approved first. Signing up files a trial request and the account waits: it cannot sign in to the portal or the desktop agent, and it holds no licence, until a website administrator approves it. Meanwhile every door says “Thanks - your trial request is waiting for approval. We'll email you when it's approved.” The approval email carries the sign-in and download links. A request that is not approved closes the account, and the email says so. Invited members of an organisation, and people a partner adds, never wait.

The sign-up asks which CAD software you use. An approved sign-up gets a trial subscription with one seat on each CAD system you chose that the site is showing, counted from the day of approval (an administrator can add or remove CAD systems afterwards). A trial is for an individual, or for an organisation whose own subscription is a trial — a member of an organisation that pays is never put on a trial instead of a seat. The length is a setting on the site, not a fixed number of days — check the sign-up page for what yours says.

A website administrator (for anybody) or a partner (for their own customers) can act on selected users:

Action	What it does
Extend N selected	Adds the number of Days given to the trial's current end date. Extending an already-extended trial does what you expect. There is an upper limit on how far a trial can be stretched.
Re-enable N selected	For a trial that has already run out: a new end date counted from today, the subscription made active again, previous extensions cleared, and the CAD systems that are on offer today granted again.

Both act on a multiple selection, so a class of twenty evaluators is two clicks. A partner's request that names a user who is not theirs is refused in full — see the third refusal above.

On a trial you still bring your own AI key, and the downloads page works normally until the trial ends. When it does, the downloads page says No downloads available and names the status.

One computer at a time: signing out, exiting, working offline, moving

A licence is used on one computer at a time. Each CAD add-in checks it before every operation — from the chat, the ribbon, a macro or anything else — and refuses with “SphereHarness is not licensed on this computer: …” and the reason. Nothing is half done: a refused operation does not start.

How it works. Each CAD add-in holds a short licence lease (4 minutes) signed by SphereHarness and renews it about every minute, straight from sphereharness.io with the sign-in stored on your PC. The desktop agent does not have to be running. The lease names this computer and the CAD systems your account is licensed and seated for.
Sign out (desktop agent → Sign out) releases the licence and deletes the stored sign-in: the next operation in any CAD is refused at once, and in any case within 4 minutes.
Exit the desktop agent without signing out: the licence is released at once so you can use it on another computer, and the sign-in is kept. The next time you run an operation in a CAD on this computer, the licence is taken back automatically — if no other computer holds it. It is never taken back in the background.
In use on another computer. An operation is refused with “This licence is in use on <computer>”. In the desktop agent choose Use here instead (the licence banner, or tray → Licence): the licence moves to this computer at once, the other computer is told “This licence is now in use on <this computer>” and its CAD add-ins stop within 4 minutes. Every move is recorded (who, from, to, when) and your organisation administrator can see it.
Working offline (borrowing). Off unless your organisation administrator allows it (Organisation portal → Licence Policy, with the longest time in hours, at most 30 days). Then the desktop agent offers tray → Licence → Work offline for …, which needs a connection once. The licence is reserved for this computer until you return it or the time ends; other computers are refused with “borrowed by <computer> until …”, and a borrowed licence cannot be taken over. Return now (same menu) gives it back early; signing out also returns it; exiting the agent does not. Individual (non-organisation) accounts cannot borrow.
The clock. The lease carries the server’s time. A computer whose clock is set back, or is far behind, is refused until the date and time are correct.
New licence terms. When the licence agreement changes, leases stop until you accept the new terms in the desktop agent.

Use SphereHarness on several computers

One licence seat is one computer at a time. To work on two or more computers at once, hold more seats: with two seats of Inventor you can use it on two computers at the same time, and a third computer is refused with “All 2 of your licences are in use: PC-A (last seen 12 s ago), PC-B (last seen 40 s ago)…” — naming every computer that holds a seat and when the first one frees.

Which CADs on which computer. The first computer you sign in on gets every CAD you hold; the second gets the CADs you hold at least two seats of; and so on. When the first computer signs out, the next one moves up within about four minutes.
See and free your computers. My licence → Your computers lists every computer holding a seat (its name, a short id such as 3f9a1c, when it was last seen) with Sign out this computer: its seat frees at once and that computer is told at its next contact. It does not take the seat back on its own for 15 minutes; running an operation there, or Use here instead, takes it back at once.
In an organisation. Your tenant administrator sets how many computers you may use per CAD (Organisation → Licence: the number beside a ticked box). Each extra computer uses one more seat of that licence. A website administrator can do the same for any organisation. On My licence, Ask for another computer sends your request to your tenant administrator, who assigns it from your organisation’s seats or orders more.
On your own licence. My licence → Add a computer / order another licence: choose the CAD and how many seats. Purchases are by invoice: you are told an invoice will be sent, the order shows as awaiting payment, and the seats are added the moment the invoice is marked paid. Fewer seats at renewal asks to drop seats at your next renewal. A trial covers one computer.

The desktop agent on its own

The desktop agent — the chat, Windows UI control, the browser, your documents and knowledge, connections and Teams — is included with every CAD licence. For a PC or a person with no CAD system, there is also a Desktop agent only licence: the agent without a CAD add-in. Its price is not published yet; the pricing page lists it as its own card.

The rule the desktop agent applies when you sign in is one sentence: you may use the agent if you hold a desktop-agent-only licence, or a licence for any CAD system. A licence bought before per-CAD licences existed counts too. With neither, the agent signs you in but will not start a chat, and says:

“Your subscription does not include the SphereHarness desktop agent. To use it you need either a licence for any SphereHarness CAD add-in, or a desktop-agent-only licence. Ask your organisation administrator or your reseller, or contact us on the SphereHarness website.”

Who grants it. A website administrator or your reseller, from their Users page (Agent-only licence → Grant). In an organisation it is one more seat, assigned to that member, and it appears as a Desktop agent only column in the organisation's licence table, where the administrator can move it like any seat.
What it installs. The Desktop agent (no CAD add-in) installer on the Downloads page. See Installing the agent on its own.
No CAD operations. The CAD add-ins still need their own CAD licence; an agent-only licence lists no CAD system.

The Tenant Admin licence

Tenant mode puts your organisation's settings, macros, automations, variation templates and skills on your company's own organisation server, and every PC picks them up. The Tenant Admin licence is what lets that server accept changes. It is held by a person — the tenant administrator — not by the server.

What it is. The right to activate and renew your organisation server, so that the tenant administrator (and the people the administrator grants publishing to) can save settings and grants, and publish, import and remove library items. It runs no CAD add-in and is not a desktop-agent licence.
Who needs it. Only the person who administers the organisation server — one licence per administrator, not per server and not per member. That person also holds a CAD add-in licence or a desktop-agent-only licence beside it: a Tenant Admin licence on its own activates nothing, and the agent says “a Tenant Admin licence needs a CAD add-in or desktop-agent licence beside it”.
Members need nothing new. Their CAD add-in licence, as today. The organisation server never checks members' licences.
How it is used. The administrator signs in to SphereHarness in the desktop agent and clicks Activate with your SphereHarness sign-in (Settings → Organisation; how). The server keeps a 30-day licence lease that the administrator's agent renews by itself once a day while signed in. Nothing goes on the server — no licence file, no key — and the server never contacts SphereHarness.

When it expires (the seat is taken back, the subscription lapses, or nobody renews it for 30 days) the organisation server becomes read-only. Members keep every setting and library already published and their PCs still sync — nothing is taken off a PC. Every save, grant, publish, import or removal is refused by name, with the date: “The Tenant Admin licence for this organisation server expired on …”. The administrator signing in again renews it, or clicks Activate. The document index and company connections on the same server are not affected.

It also gates the company channels. The company WhatsApp number and Telegram bot on the organisation server (Channels & Messaging): changing a company channel or approving a pairing is a licensed write, and delivering messages and pairing need an active (or expiring) licence. When it has expired, a person who messages the company bot gets a reply saying the organisation server's licence has expired; every pairing is kept and works again once the licence is renewed. Members still need no licence for it, and a personal bot (Just me) never uses the Tenant Admin licence.

Who grants it. A website administrator or your reseller, from their Users page (a Tenant Admin licence column beside Agent-only licence); in an organisation it is one more seat, assigned to that member, in the organisation's licence table. It is listed on My licence like the others. There is no automatic trial seat; on a trial, your reseller or the site can grant one.
Price. Not published yet. The pricing page lists Tenant Admin as its own card, per administrator, with Pricing coming soon.

A CAD system you cannot see

A website administrator can hide a CAD system from the site. Hidden means the site simply does not show it: no price card, no mention in the help or the examples, no trial seat for new sign-ups, no installer offered, and it is not on the order forms.

Hiding is a catalogue decision, never a revocation. A licence somebody already holds on a hidden CAD system keeps working exactly as before — the add-in runs, the seat counts, the subscription bills. Only the shop window changes.

Common questions

Can I move a seat from one person to another? Yes. Clear the tick on one member and set it on another; the seat is released and taken in one step. Nothing is lost — chat history and personal memory belong to the account, not to the seat.

Do I need a seat for the desktop agent? Not if you hold any CAD system: every CAD licence includes the agent. Without a CAD system you need a Desktop agent only licence.

Does a second CAD system cost a second AI subscription? No. Your AI key is yours and is used by whichever CAD system you are working in.

Who do I ask about an invoice or a quote? If a partner sold you the licence, ask them — they hold your commercial relationship. Otherwise use Contact us on the pricing page.