MicroSurvey CADvs
Autodesk Revit
Autodesk Revit: If your work is building modelling rather than land survey drafting
MicroSurvey CAD
Survey drafting and COGO on an IntelliCAD engine, sold outright rather than by subscription
As of 1 September 2026, MicroSurvey CAD starts at $2945/one-time. A land surveying CAD package from a Hexagon-owned vendor that competes with Carlson and Civil 3D by not being AutoCAD. Softwr lists it under CAD. MicroSurvey CAD is made by MicroSurvey Software Inc., part of Hexagon, available on Windows.
Overview
What MicroSurvey CAD does
MicroSurvey CAD combines coordinate geometry, traverse adjustment, field data reduction, contouring and legal description writing with a drafting environment. It is built on the IntelliCAD engine, so it opens and saves DWG files natively without an AutoCAD licence beneath it. Field data comes in from total stations and GNSS receivers, is reduced and adjusted, and drafts into a plan without moving between applications. The company sells editions named Standard, Premium and Ultimate, with a listed price of 2,945 US dollars for a floating network licence including one year of maintenance and support. The commercial argument is licensing independence. A firm running Civil 3D pays Autodesk for AutoCAD and then again for the civil tooling, on subscription, forever. MicroSurvey is a perpetual purchase on its own CAD engine, so a two-person survey practice that draws plans and writes descriptions can own its tools outright. MicroSurvey Software is part of Hexagon, which owns Leica Geosystems, so instrument integration on the Leica side is well handled and the roadmap is set inside a very large hardware group rather than by an independent software company. Buyers are small and mid-sized land surveying practices in North America, particularly those doing boundary, topographic and as-built work. The trade-off is ecosystem: engineering consultants who must exchange live Civil 3D corridor and pipe network models with clients will find DWG compatibility is not the same as feature compatibility.
What people use it for
- A boundary surveying practice that wants to reduce field data, adjust the traverse and write the legal description in one package
- A firm that refuses to pay an AutoCAD subscription but must deliver DWG files clients can open
- A survey office standardised on Leica total stations that wants instrument data flowing in without a translation step
- A two-person practice with irregular workload that wants to own its software outright rather than lose access if it stops paying
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about MicroSurvey CAD.
- DWG compatibility is file-level, not feature-level, so Civil 3D corridors, pipe networks and other object-enabled entities do not arrive intact and collaboration with engineering consultants remains awkward
- Only one price is listed publicly, for the floating network licence, and the differences between the Standard, Premium and Ultimate editions are resolved through a reseller conversation rather than a published comparison
- It is Windows only and the installed base is concentrated in North America, so support, training material and experienced staff are much harder to find elsewhere
- IntelliCAD lags AutoCAD on newer drawing format features and on third party plug-in availability, so a firm depending on a specific AutoCAD add-in will not find an equivalent
- MicroSurvey now sits inside Hexagon alongside Leica Geosystems, which means the product competes for investment with a much larger portfolio, and buyers of a perpetual licence should ask about the release cadence commitment before assuming years of updates
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of MicroSurvey CAD
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- MicroSurvey CADvsBentley MicroStation
Bentley MicroStation: If your clients work in DGN and you need to exchange with an infrastructure design office
- MicroSurvey CADvsGlobal Mapper
Global Mapper: If you need format conversion, lidar and terrain analysis more than survey drafting and legal descriptions
Pricing
What MicroSurvey CAD costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
MicroSurvey CAD, floating network licence
$2,945 /one-time
- Perpetual licence, shared use with no USB dongle
- Includes one year of maintenance and support
- Standard, Premium and Ultimate editions differ in included modules
- Renewal of maintenance is optional and priced separately
Edition upgrades and add-ons
On request
- Premium and Ultimate edition pricing quoted by MicroSurvey or a reseller
- Point cloud and scanning modules priced separately
- Reseller pricing varies by region
Capabilities
Features
Coordinate geometry
Traverse, inverse, intersection and curve solving with a full point database
Traverse adjustment
Least squares and compass rule adjustment with reporting suitable for a survey record
Field data reduction
Raw data from total stations and GNSS reduced, edited and audited before drafting
IntelliCAD drafting
Native DWG read and write without an AutoCAD licence
Legal descriptions
Metes and bounds descriptions generated from the drawn boundary
Surface and contours
Digital terrain models, contours and volume calculation
Point cloud viewing
Scan data brought in for as-built and monitoring work
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Do I need AutoCAD to run it?
No. It is built on the IntelliCAD engine and reads and writes DWG natively without an Autodesk licence.
Is it a perpetual licence or a subscription?
Perpetual. The listed 2,945 US dollar licence includes one year of maintenance and support, after which maintenance is optional.
Who owns MicroSurvey?
Hexagon, the same group that owns Leica Geosystems.
Will Civil 3D drawings open correctly?
The geometry will. Civil 3D object data such as corridors and pipe networks will not come through as editable objects.
Keep looking
Where to go from MicroSurvey CAD
- MicroSurvey CAD alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- MicroSurvey CAD pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- MicroSurvey CAD badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All CAD softwareThe full category
- Best CAD softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
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- Inventor
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for MicroSurvey CAD, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
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