Price terms as published

Each line is the vendor’s own wording, split from the price capture checked on 2026-10-26. Nothing here is rounded, converted or re-worded — the full sentences stay in the review below. Lines that carry only a price continue the plan named on the line above, in the vendor’s own order.

4 price terms for zCAD AI
#Plan / termChecked
1Free (Personal, during Beta)2026-10-26
2Online Standard $58.90/user/mo2026-10-26
3Online Pro TBD2026-10-26
4Enterprise custom2026-10-26

One-liner: zCAD AI is a cloud-native, AI-driven CAD platform where you describe a part or assembly in plain language (or drop in a reference image) and get back an editable, dimension-driven parametric solid — not a static 3D mesh — which you can keep changing in a browser CAD editor and export as STEP into your existing toolchain.

Everything below was checked against the official site and pricing page (fetched 2026-10-26) and the Product Hunt launch (October 24, 2026). This is an official-terms entry: I did not generate a model, so nothing here is a hands-on verdict.

Verified facts (official site + pricing page + Product Hunt, 2026-10-26)

Attribute Value Source
Products zCAD. AI (text/reference image → parametric CAD assembly) and zCAD. Online (browser parametric modeling, drawings, teams) zcad.ai, fetched 2026-10-26
Output Parametric solid assembly carrying driving dimensions, geometric constraints and assembly mates; multi-part assemblies “with mates between parts” zcad.ai + Product Hunt description
Input Text prompt and/or reference image; “function, mounting interfaces, controlled dimensions, and the relationships that must hold” zcad.ai
CAD data exchange Reads SolidWorks, CATIA, NX, Inventor, Solid Edge, STEP, Parasolid; exports STEP (and STL/3MF/OBJ during Beta) zcad.ai
zCAD. Online modules Parametric modeling, assemblies (interference detection, BOM, motion simulation), sheet metal & weldments, engineering drawings, static analysis & rendering, real-time co-editing, version history zcad.ai
Beta status “zCAD Beta is live — all available features, free” zcad.ai home
AI credits Shared account-level credits across zCAD. AI and zCAD. Online; 200 credits/month on Standard, reset monthly; private models with any paid plan zcad.ai pricing
Launch Product Hunt daily #1 / Launch of the Day on October 24, 2026; #8 on the Oct 19–25 weekly leaderboard producthunt.com awards + weekly leaderboard
Tech note Built with the OpenAI API for reasoning and structured output Product Hunt “Built with”

Getting it running

zCAD runs in the browser — there is nothing to install. You sign up on zcad.ai (the site currently pushes a free “Start free” flow during Beta) and the two products share one account: zCAD. AI generates the starting assembly from an engineering description or reference image; zCAD. Online continues the same model with no export/import step in between. The workflow the vendor illustrates runs from a single mounting bracket (“a bracket has to hold a sensor on an existing hole pattern; the spacing is fixed, the height is not — describe it once, measure it, then change the height”) up to a welded machine frame with guarding and interference checks. The same account carries your AI credits, so generation and editing draw on one pool; paid plans unlock private models and commercial use.

What it costs

Read from zcad.ai/pricing on 2026-10-26 (prices in USD, billed monthly; yearly saves about 17%):

  • Online Personal — Free. One seat, non-commercial use, public models with no private option. During Beta it includes “all available modeling tools” and “all export formats”; after Beta it keeps a reduced feature set with STL, 3MF and OBJ exports. 500 MB uploads, 50 GB storage.
  • Online Standard — $58.90 per user/month (Beta price). Private models and commercial use, all supported import/export formats, team workspace + full version history, online support, 200 AI credits each month (reset monthly). Up to 9 seats, 1 GB uploads, 1 TB storage.
  • Online Pro — TBD (coming soon). Advanced CAD capabilities, higher AI generation allowance, multi-part and batch generation.
  • Enterprise — Contact sales. Teams of 10+, PDM seats managed in-organization, plan scope agreed with sales.

The vendor labels the Standard price “Beta price” and says beta end dates “will be announced separately” — treat $58.90 as a launch-era number that can move. AI generation draws from your credit pool; the exact credit cost per prompt is not listed on the public pricing page.

How it differs from alternatives

  • Text-to-3D mesh generators (Meshy, Tripo, Womp) produce stylized, game-ready mesh assets — great for prototypes and visuals, but a mesh has no dimensions, no constraints and no assembly logic. zCAD targets the opposite pole: “real parts, not just shapes,” with driving dimensions and mates, so the output is a CAD assembly you can edit and manufacture from.
  • Traditional parametric CAD (SolidWorks, Fusion, Solid Edge) is where zCAD’s models end up anyway via STEP. zCAD’s bet is that the starting point should be a prompt, with the editor as the follow-through — the vendor explicitly frames it as AI generation + browser CAD in one connected workflow rather than a replacement for desktop CAD.
  • Programmatic CAD (OpenSCAD): OpenSCAD defines geometry in code; zCAD is prompt/image-driven parametric generation with a visual editor, aimed at engineers who want to describe intent rather than write CSG scripts.

Where to stay honest

  • Beta framing everywhere: “all available features, free” applies to the Beta window; the after-Beta shape of the free plan is explicitly reduced (STL/3MF/OBJ only). Standard’s $58.90 is a “Beta price” and Pro is unannounced, so all figures here can change before freeze.
  • Generation quality is unverified here: I did not run a prompt, so “it produces manufacturable assemblies” is the maker’s claim, not a tested result. Typical launch uncertainties — how many AI credits a complex assembly consumes, how often prompt→CAD needs manual repair — are not stated publicly.
  • User responsibility stays: the vendor itself notes tolerances and materials remain the engineer’s call, and scenarios like fixture design assume you still validate against real hardware.
  • No affiliate or promotion relationship: independent directory entry, numbers dated 2026-10-26.

Who it’s for

  • Hardware, fixture, mechanical design and product design engineers who want a faster starting point for parts that must fit existing hardware
  • Teams that need one connected AI→CAD→drawings pipeline in the browser without installing desktop CAD
  • Makers and hobbyists who want real, editable parametric models (free Personal tier during Beta)
  • Not for: game/VFX asset creators who need stylized mesh output (that is the mesh-generator market), or organizations that cannot accept cloud-hosted CAD and Beta-era pricing.

Sources