No, not any more. SketchUp’s own plans page lists three core subscriptions and no free tier. The cheapest way in is Go at $10.75 a month billed annually, or $19.99 month to month. (Checked September 2026.)
Two things are still free, and neither is a plan. A 7-day Pro trial, which takes no credit card. And SketchUp for Schools, free for primary and secondary students who sign in with a Google Workspace for Education or Microsoft Education account.
This catches people out, because for years the browser version was free for personal use. If you learned SketchUp on that, the version you remember is not on the price list today.
Checked 16 September 2026 against sketchup.com plans and pricing
Nowhere on the plans page does it say a free tier was removed. It simply is not there, and the phrase people search for still is: the trial page opens with an invitation to get started for free, which means seven days.
You find out the rest after installing. The iPad app is free to download and then asks for a subscription before it will let you build anything, and that gap is what the recent one-star reviews are about.
“I learned sketchup because it was free for private use.”
“you can’t even use the app to create anything without signing up for a subscription”
“Either make the app free to download and use. Or make the app paid from the get go.”
The split is unusually wide. The iPad app averages 4.5 from 17,845 ratings, while SketchUp’s Trustpilot page sits at 1.3 from 71 reviews. The App Store rating is years of modelling; the Trustpilot page is almost entirely billing and access.
Go is $10.75 a month on an annual plan and $19.99 month to month. Pro is $33.25 against $99.99. That is a three-fold gap on Pro, so a month of trying it properly costs more than a quarter of a year committed. Decide which you are doing before you pick.
Annual subscriptions can be refunded within 14 days of the transaction or the renewal date; monthly ones within 7 days of the initial purchase. Renewal is automatic unless cancelled, and the renewal date starts that clock again.
On a Mac the ladder stops at Pro. V-Ray, Scan Essentials and the Revit importer sit in Studio, and Studio is listed for Windows only — worth knowing before planning a rendering workflow around it.
“You move with your finger. You draw with your pencil. It’s that simple.”
“After 15min playing with this new iPad version, I am thrilled with what I see.”
“it will not let you use anything unless you pay there ridiculous prices”
“i cancelled a subscription 3 times and yet they still charged me”
“doesn’t let you test anything out prior to committing to the monthly subscription price”
Nobody is arguing that SketchUp models badly. Every recent complaint is about the way in and the way out — signing up, being charged, cancelling. That is the shape of a tool that removed its free tier without retiring the reputation it built on one.
Free is enough if
You will hit the paywall if
If the requirement is genuinely free and permanent, the honest answers are Sweet Home 3D for rooms and Blender for everything else — both open source, neither with a tier to expire. Every browser planner on this list is free in the same partial way SketchUp used to be.
For the question on this page — how do I model in 3D without paying — SketchUp is no longer the answer and we are not either. Sweet Home 3D or Blender is.
Decato is not a modeller. It starts from a floor plan you already have and ends with real products you can order, fitted to the room and priced. That is a different job from drawing the geometry yourself, which is what SketchUp is for.
Not as a plan. SketchUp’s plans page lists Go, Pro and Studio and nothing free; the free routes are a 7-day Pro trial and SketchUp for Schools for primary and secondary education (Checked September 2026).
Only at primary or secondary school, through SketchUp for Schools with a Google Workspace for Education or Microsoft Education account. Students and educators elsewhere pay $55 a year, and universities are quoted $30–$50 a seat (Checked September 2026).
No. The trial page states plainly that no credit card is required, and it runs for seven days with the full Pro toolkit (Checked September 2026).
Go, at $10.75 a month billed annually or $19.99 month to month. It covers the web and iPad versions only — no desktop modeller and no LayOut (Checked September 2026).
They measure different things. The 4.5 average comes from 17,845 ratings of the modelling app over many years; the 1.3 on Trustpilot comes from 71 reviews that are mostly about subscriptions, charges and cancellation (Checked September 2026).