
SketchUp Pro: SketchUp Pro ($695) is the premium version of the software. Make is free-to-use for home, personal and educational use and it begins with a free 30-day trial of SketchUp Pro. Although Make is no longer updated following the November 2017 release, you can still download the installer to use on your computer. SketchUp Make: SketchUp Make is a freeware version that you can download after signing up for a free account. SketchUp comes in three different versions to suit different needs: When Trimble acquired SketchUp, it forked the product into several tiers, keeping the free desktop version around as “SketchUp Make.What Are the Different Versions of Sketchup? The SketchUp web app is decent and might be good enough for many people, but for a long time, the desktop version was completely free, too. If you want the latest full desktop app, you’re looking at $300 a year for personal use. At the time of this writing, the only modern free version of SketchUp is a web app.
SketchUp has changed hands a few times over the years, once having been owned by Google, and currently owned by a company called Trimble. Trimble even warns it might have security problems as it hasn’t been updated since 2017.
However, as of May 2022, the official SketchUp website is no longer offering the free version (SketchUp Make 2017) for download. Update, 5/23/22: This worked when we published it in 2021. Or does it? You can still download a free desktop version if you know where to look. Originally released as free open-source software, the popular 3D-modeling program SketchUp now comes with a premium price tag.