FabCAD is a Computer Aided Design (CAD) software built on Autodesk technology. Developed specifically for fabricators of ornamental and architectural metals. It was created to make generating shop drawings faster, easier, and more accurate for non-technical users. FabCAD automates the drawing of gates, fences, and railings, includes a design library of 16,000 pre-drawn components, and generates a complete bill of materials as you draw. It was founded in 1989 by Dave Filippi, former Fabricator and owner of Colonial Iron Works.

Absolutely! Choose a style and shape from the templates or sketch your own, enter your dimensions, pick your materials, and FabCAD's AutoRail draws the gate to scale with a bill of materials. You can then customize it using the 16,000-component library of castings, forgings, scrolls, and finials.

Like a boss! Enter the rise, run, or angle plus your dimensions and AutoRail generates the railing to scale, including cut angles and a bill of materials. FabCAD draws the railing over the stair treads so parts can be fabricated and test-fit accurately before they reach the jobsite.

Yes. Every drawing produces an automatic bill of materials listing materials, quantities, lengths, and angle cuts, including third-party components for estimating and ordering. The cut list is generated as you draw rather than calculated separately, which is where much of the time savings comes from.

Even better, if you modify a drawing, you can update the bill of materials with one click. All components from our design library will also be included in the BOM, with catalog part numbers.

No experience? No Problem!
Most of our customers have zero CAD experience when purchasing FABCAD. We created FABCAD to be fabricator friendly. AutoRail's automation gets you ~90% there. Most users are up and running with simple designs in just a few hours. You’ll learn basic commands with our Quick Start training. From there, we’ve broken out our training into modules so you can find answers to specific questions quickly or spend time honing more advanced skills.
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If you have CAD experience, you will be up and running in minutes.

Our customers consistently report seeing increased efficiency in two areas: time saved in generating shop drawings and time saved in fabrication.

If you are currently drawing with a standard CAD program, you will save hours of time per week with our automation software. If you are drawing with a pencil, your time savings will be much higher.

Our users reported saving an average of 10 hours per week generating shop drawings. Time saved in fabrication was even higher with 20 hours being typical. It all depends on the size of your shop.

FabCAD is offered on a subscription basis for $299 per month, or $2,495 per year. The annual plan saves $1,093 compared with twelve monthly payments — roughly three and a half months free. Both plans include a single installation, and annual subscribers receive two hours of live one-on-one training. There is no one-time perpetual license. You can switch between monthly and annual and cancel anytime.

If you compare FabCAD's pricing to other drawing engines (without any customization, automation, or fabrication expertise), the answer is clear. There's no other software that offers a better value for the industry.

FabCAD is an investment in you and your shop's success and our customers will tell you it pays off.
FabCAD is much more than a drawing tool – it helps you run your business more profitably from customer inquiry to installation.  You'll be generating accurate drawings to train your shop and ensure they build it right the first time. You can create beautiful demo drawings to easily win the sale and your customer knows exactly how it will look.

So ask yourself: 
How much time am I spending trying to generate drawings that could be better spent elsewhere?
How much am I paying a draftsmen to complete drawings for us?
How much are fabrication mistakes costing the shop?
How many jobs have I lost because we couldn't get accurate drawings and bids complete?

FabCAD helps your shop level up as a better fabricator, manager, and business operator.

We provide support from day one with installation support and a hands-on introduction to the software. All annual subscription customers receive 2 hours of live online training. In addition to that, we have an extensive collection of training movies on our website and YouTube. Quick answers can be handled through email or our toll free support number.

Yes. In addition to the USA, we have customers in the Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and more. You'll have the option to select a metric or imperial version when you download the program.

No. FabCAD is deterministic automation rather than artificial intelligence. In fabrication and construction, accuracy is absolutely critical.

When you enter dimensions and select materials, AutoRail draws the same result every time from fixed engineering rules — it doesn't generate, predict, or guess like AI does. AI is prone to making mistakes for that reason, it's predicting or guessing. Those mistakes are beyond costly... they can be dangerous.

For shop drawings and cut lists that go to the saw, repeatability matters more than novelty: the same inputs always produce the same bill of materials. FabCAD's automation has been refined against real fabrication work since 1989. If a dimension is wrong, it's wrong because it was entered wrong — not because the software invented something.

No, you don't need AutoCAD to run FabCAD. We have the same powerful functionality built into FabCAD. If you're familar with CAD, you'll be blown away by the automation.

You don't need any other software to run FabCAD other than Parallels if you're on a Mac.

The quick answer is: if your computer can run Windows 10 or 11, it can run FabCAD . If you own a MAC, you will need to run in a virtual machine like Parallels to run our software.
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Specifically: 8GB Ram (16 GB recommended) 8 GB of disk space,1920 x 1080 with True Color Display, i5 or i7 Intel processor or equivalent, high speed internet access.

Yes, but not natively — FabCAD is Windows-based software. To run it on on Apple hardware through a virtual machine such as Parallels Desktop, which runs Windows alongside macOS. We've run FabCAD on Mac with Parallels for years.

The other option is to purchase a low-cost laptop or desktop PC and run it there.

Yes — we run one-on-one live demos with a FabCAD specialist who walks you through AutoRail and the design library using your kind of work as the example. Demos are the most efficient way to see whether FabCAD fits your shop, and they're free. Request one through our Contact Us page.

Our base package of FabCAD is in 2D. We have a 3D package available as an add-on and are expanding what you can do in 3D.

But, We recommend you start with 2D. Why? Most of what our customers need to draw can be accomplished in 2D and it's much easier to learn. If you're looking for structural steel detailing or 3D parametric modeling, we're probably not the best fit for that portion of your business.