SmartDraw Reviews 190

This software was established within the business when I started in 2016. I have updated, buying the desktop version, twice now. I currently use the 2020 release. I have pulled my hair out too many times to count. Typically, my electrical drawing blows out, then the interface locks, and then I have to close it with the task manager. Today, I spend 4 hours on a new wiring design and KaBoom... the walls fell down for the VERY LAST TIME!!! This software has screwed me to the wall over and over again. The interface is easy to use, but the aggravation I open myself up to is taking years off my life. SmartDraw is FIRED, as of today. If I spend $2000 on Autodesk, so be it. The company wastes more money on my salary annually due to these crashes.

Only letting you do a yearly plan for $120 instead of a monthly or just letting you buy your design for $10 is a ripoff and absurd. Absolutely joke. Literally told them I’m just going to remake my design elsewhere because I’m not going to reward this company for deceptive policy.

Very average software which you are sneakily subscribed up to when you pay for a year. Then when you try to cancel to stop paying they say you only had 30 days. Even cancelling your credit card doesnt stop them charging as AMEX allow an old card to be used for ongoing payments!

Its the worst kind of "service" you will come across.

You are buying a program - and then you can't use it after some time. It s*cks. Just DON'T DO IT!

I was having trouble using smartdraw. The program lags and it is slow and it has memory leaks and crashes. It just not worth your time - even if it was free. It is the worst scam I ever fell for. I am sorry to say. AVOID SMARTDRAW - dont get tempted by the many icons and symbols. It s*cks!

I have had SmartDraw for technical engineering documents for several years. I upgraded in late 2022 and found the current version only works if I have an internet connection available. I was given the impression that downloading a desktop version would allow a non-connected working environment, but it does not. A query to user support reports this is true. This is a killer for my use and I would not have upgraded if it has been clear the limitations.

Bugs, bugs, and more bugs. Page orientation changes, I guess because it wants to.
Fill, line, shape, magnification, and quite frankly just about everything else goes, yeah-na.
I can't say anything good about this drawing software, especially compared to Visio.
I might not be an architect but I am an engineer, just can't use this, I have to shut down often hoping to reset.
Sorry, but for me this drawing software is not fit for purpose.
By the way, it's these bad reviews that you 'Smartdraw' should be attending to, I note that your silence is deafening.
I couldn't care less about the pricing, just wanted something that works, sorry, 'Smartdraw' doesn't.

Overpriced and the trial is terrible, and doesn't offer all of Smartdraws capabilities. We did a trial document on this and couldn't even print it out to see what it look like, it says that there's a watermark on it but we couldn't get it to print out nor could we export it. We were still a day within our trial, but it was trying to force us to buy it. We're not buying anything we can't see on paper. It's one thing to look at it on the computer, another thing to look at the end product. Their trial is reasonable, but considering you have to pay all 12 months at once, there is other software out there that does the same thing, for a lot less. That means if you decide you don't like it after several months, you're still stuck paying for the whole entire year. At this point I wouldn't recommend it. Don't be fooled by all the biased reviews, many of those places are paid advertisers, be careful what you believe

Said it was a lifetime subscription and it wasn't. Software was nothing special, I wouldn't have bought it if it wasn't a lifetime deal. It won't even let me log in now with a new subscription. JUNK, STAY AWAY!!!!

Started creating a quick drawing I desperatley needed. I went on to 'save' , and I got prompted to log in or 'create account' - so I logged in using google, then got prompted to pay for subscription...
Not even the slightest option to go back to the drawing I spent time drafting.. felt like I was blackmailed: either you pay or your drawing is gone..
goodbye then... once and forever

I really like this software. It’s easy to use and also fun to create things. You can even do floor plans to furnish rooms, etc. I do wish they had a monthly subscription as I really didn’t need it for a year. Other than that, it’s great and recommended.

Your request (61412) has been updated. To add additional comments, reply to this email.

Paul Whitney

Aug 19, 2022, 11:35 AM CDT

Chat started: 2022-08-19 04:17 PM UTC

(04:17:41 PM) Paul Whitney: hi, can you explain how a $9.95 purchase becomes a $119 purchase?
(04:20:36 PM) Tyler R.: we only offer a 12 month subscription
(04:21:23 PM) Paul Whitney: That is a lot of money to pay for a single drawing.
(04:22:18 PM) Paul Whitney: You have a great program but it is unaffordable for the average user.
(04:23:35 PM) Tyler R.: most of our users are individual users like yourself.
(04:24:41 PM) Paul Whitney: My entire reno wil be finished in a month or 2.
(04:27:42 PM) Paul Whitney: You should NOT post a price of $9.95. It is in fact not true. The true price is $119.00. It is a deceptive practise to say that it is $9.95.
(04:29:30 PM) Paul Whitney: I have done a lot of work on my design. Now I discover it's nearly $120 to print it. Nothing free or $9.95 about that.
(04:29:50 PM) Tyler R.: That sounds like a big project, I'm sorry I don't have an answer for you other than it does also show billed annually.
(04:30:17 PM) Tyler R.: The free trial allows you to test out SmartDraw and see the features. sorry
(04:32:29 PM) Paul Whitney: Your features are not any better or worse that the free version of Sketch Up. That;s what my review will say... and that you can't print anything without paying $119.
(04:33:41 PM) Paul Whitney: I am sorry that you don't have a more transparent pricing. Would have hapilly paid for 3 months, but a year? Not a chance.

Unless you save every 6 minutes, the software will become buggy and completely mess up your design; IE - zoom feature will add a toilet every time you try and select zoom, walls will start adding arrows even though you have not selected to add arrows, Select and place a door and it will freeze the entire screen. Complete junk for the overly priced piece of garbage it is. Avoid this software.

I am writing an essay for Uni and I drew a strategy map, using SmartDraw, took me 2 days, 2 days I don't really have, and when I reach the end, it has a stupid watermark, that makes it unusable for academic purposes. Awful experience, if it's going to have a watermark you have to tell us before we waste time on this. Will never ever use again and will not ever recomend it.

Okay tool, but dark pricing patterns on the "buy" page which makes me not trust the company.

Right now, the pricing says $9.95 per month, billed annually. That's not $9.95 per month, $119.40. Pricing like that usually implies the ability to switch to monthly pricing, at a more expensive rate - instead, they're using an unethical pattern for pricing.

The tool is fine, but the pricing model makes it an unacceptable business to work with. There are much much better tools available that offer annual AND monthly pricing (Whimsical, Mural, Miro, Figma, etc.).

After creating an account and spending a couple of hours getting used to the program and drawing a floor plan, I named and saved a couple of documents only to find the files would not load when I logged in again. It seems other people have had this problem.

Regarding using this software, anyone familiar with using Autocad or similar will find it clumsy and awkward to use.

Tried their free version to see if I wanted to purchase this. After several hours of working with smart draw, I will pass. Started off ok but when I wanted to break up walls, add etc. I did not like all the effort it took. To me it was so sketchy when trying to lay out a basic floor plan. Just connecting walls, adding walls, or corners was totally annoying when attempting to align with other walls. I found it very aggravating to deal with. I don't have the time to mess with a program that should be simple but to me is not. I will stay with what I been using. Very frustrating program in my opinion.

just a waste of time, takes more time to correct than it does to create.

Horrible program. Don't pay for this program nothing different then the free version. Waste of time and money. If I could give a negative number I would.

At first try, it seems like it will be useful and easy, with numerous initial layouts and tools. But, that's when the troubles begin. First off, it wouldn't create a new document. I opened a new page and suddenly it created a document when I clicked on the template. That was just the start of the bugs and totally bizarre behaviors. Every operation was much more difficult than it needed to be. Many times I couldn't find a way to do simple operations. When I finally had something that was close enough, it printed watermarks over the entire page saying how it was created with a trial version. After all the previous problems that completely convinced to never spend anything on this product.