There are many free Revit plugins on the market. Based on our personal experience as well as conversations with hundreds of people who have tried free and inexpensive plugins, we strongly discourage people from using them. Although a plugin may have a low upfront cost, it may cost a fortune in terms of time spent trying to get it to perform as described. And often, it never does. Not only does this frustrate users, if they downloaded the software in hopes of solving a pressing issue, they may miss a deadline and frustrate customers as well.
The Monetary Cost of Ideate Software Plugins for Revit
Developing, marketing, and supporting Revit plugins is complicated, and Ideate Software does it extremely well. While we like to focus on the value of our software, we understand that the monetary cost is important for budgeting, plus it creates a basis from which to determine the cost savings achieved.
Please visit our Bundles page for current pricing on our standard one-year subscriptions for single users, multiple users, and enterprise licensing, as well as our special promotions, which at the time of this post, include six-month get-to-know-us bundles for single and multiple users as well as the option to add Ideate Automation. Subscriptions to individual products are also available. For pricing information, go to our online store and click on each product’s name.
The Reasons Ideate Software Products are Top Revit Plugins
The whole reason Ideate Software is in business is to help companies in the architecture, engineering, construction, and owner-operator industries get the most out of their Revit software. It’s not an add-on to our business. It’s not a secondary or tertiary area of focus. It’s what we do! We are an Autodesk Authorized Developer and a member of the Autodesk Developer Network, meaning that we adhere to strict guidelines established by Autodesk and that they trust us to deliver products and services that strengthen their products and their reputation.
Here are some factors that contribute to our designation as a top Revit plugin developer:
- We create an atmosphere that attracts top talent. A people-first philosophy in which every person is treated with respect, encouraged to share their ideas, and recognized for their successes has led to several people staying with the company for decades as well as new people with outstanding skills joining us. For examples, read this press release about Rahul Verma, who celebrated his 20-year anniversary with Ideate in 2021, and this press release that announces three new hires who brought their talents to Ideate Software within the past year.
- We develop plugins that Revit users want. We don’t ever think we know what functionality to work on next. We know what to do because we listen to Revit users. Because we have been in business for so long, we have a solid base of customers who tell us what they are working on, describe limitations in Revit that they’d like addressed, and provide candid thoughts on our product development ideas before we get to software development. As a business, our goal of course is to attract new customers, so we don’t just rely on our existing customers for direction. We tune into Autodesk Revit forums, we attend industry events across the world, and we ask for thoughts on product development after each of our webinars, which are open to the public and free of charge.
- We put all our products and enhancements through rigorous testing. Our software development team takes great pride in their work. They test their work extensively before releasing new products or enhancements to existing products by providing them to the large group of people in our Beta Test Group who test them in real-world situations. We take their feedback to heart, making adjustments as needed to ensure each product works as described and performs a valuable function.
- We provide meaningful updates at least once a year. We are not a one-and-done company. Every year, we align our software with the new version of Revit, and we make customer-requested and process-improvement enhancements that bring additional value to subscribers. We highlight the enhancements in press releases, lead webinars on the updates, post videos on our YouTube channel, and put step-by-step workflow instructions in our online help files. Of course our top support staff are always available to offer assistance. Here is a video highlighting the enhancements in our May 2023 release:
Ideate Software’s Revit Plugins – An Overview
Here are highlights of our BIM plugins for Revit. Click on the links for more information.
- Ideate BIMLink – Easily edit vast amounts of Revit data by using Ideate BIMLink to import/export Revit data to Microsoft Excel for editing. In addition to robust editing, you can create many Revit elements as well as manage workflows that just aren’t easy or even possible within standard Revit. A small sampling of these varied workflows includes the ability to swap Revit elements, easily manage Revit parameters, rename Revit elements, and flexibly manage Revit sheet revision workflows and sheet/view sets. Ideate BIMLink includes powerful filtering and sorting options to manage and extract the exact Revit data to modify.
- Ideate Explorer – Decrease the time spent on model management by using Ideate Explorer to find and delete incorrect, obsolete, and hidden problem items, including DWGs. Ideate Explorer comes with four additional tools that allow you to manage warnings, navigate through view-based elements, search on parameters, and filter model elements based on specific parametric conditions.
- Ideate Sticky – Easily link, import, integrate, and format non-BIM data into your Revit projects with Ideate Sticky. It combines the ease and flexibility of Excel, Word, and PDF editing with the convenience of a sticky note. Because the documents are live-linked, the Revit files automatically update when the original document is changed.
- Ideate StyleManager - Address the challenges that arise when Revit users load or import content into the model and the corresponding styles automatically come with the content. While management of styles in Revit can be time consuming and risky, it’s easy with Ideate StyleManager, which allows users to analyze, merge, or delete non-standard styles.
- IdeateApps – Streamline time-consuming repetitive tasks with the 10 tools that come with IdeateApps. Developed for both daily Revit users and BIM managers, IdeateApps will put hours back in your day while improving the quality of your Revit models.
In ad
dition to developing the five plugins above to solve persistent problems in architecture, engineering, and construction, and owner-operator workflows, we developed Ideate Automation to boost the power of our Revit plugins by running time-intensive activities in the background. Learn more here.
Stay Connected
Learn more about our top Revit addons.
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If you have any questions, reach out to us. We are here to help you understand and use our Revit plugin solutions.
As in past years, we are proud sponsors of the event, we will showcase our Revit add-ins at a booth on the exhibition floor, and we will deliver a presentation that will give attendees information they can use as soon as they are back at work to reduce the time they spend on Revit data management tasks. 
We were also happy to nominate several of our customers for 
We talk with our customers. Whether they have been with us since we first launched Ideate Explorer in 2008, recently partnered with us when we launched Ideate Automation to boost the power of our plugins, or anywhere in between, we talk with customers.
We are part of the Autodesk Community, which offers several ways to connect, find answers, share knowledge, build networks, and more, including the Community Forums, which are product discussion boards:
We know Revit. Our Software Developers, Support team, Business Development managers, and Customer Success managers know Revit. We are architects, engineers, designers, and others who worked in industry before joining Ideate Software. 
Quickly find and delete incorrect, obsolete, and hidden problem items—even imported or linked DWG’s. Find, refine, and revise elements, including those that aren’t in the Revit project browser. This functionality dramatically decreases the amount of time spent on model management and enhances model performance. 
Don’t work inside of Revit to verify and/or edit data one element at a time. Instead, use 
Share accurate and formatted non-BIM data with your Revit teams by live-linking Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and PDF documents to the Revit file with 
Eliminate problems caused by copying/pasting data from one Revit file to another when styles associated with the original file get copied along with the data. This can clog up the model with incorrect information that can take a long time to remove if working in Revit. You have to remove it, because extraneous data can create model performance problems. With 
Stop spending so much time on tedious tasks in Revit that, when performed on large complex models, can contribute to mistakes, rework, and frustrations. Automate hundreds of common tasks with the 10 tools that come in the