Free jewellery CAD software: what is actually free, and what you can sell from it

Short answer: Blender with the free JewelCraft add-on is the only free option with real jewellery tools, and you may use it for paid work. FreeCAD is free and open source too, but has no jewellery tools. Fusion for personal use, Onshape Free, SketchUp Free, Shapr3D's free plan and Plasticity's trial cost nothing but rule out commercial work, so they suit learning rather than selling. If you are weighing up professional software, Rhino's 90-day full evaluation is the best free way to learn it.

Terms below were checked on each maker's website on 22 October 2026. Free tiers change often, so read the current terms before you build a business on one.

Blender with JewelCraft: the free option built for jewellery

Blender is a free, open-source 3D program, and its licence lets you use it for any purpose, including commercial work. On its own it is a polygon modeller and renderer built for animation and visual effects. What makes it usable for jewellery is JewelCraft, a free add-on released under the GPL-3.0 licence.

JewelCraft adds gems, prongs and cutters, a component library, spacing between gems for close settings, weight estimates in precious alloys and colour-coded gem maps. Version 3 added automatic prongs and a gem spacing constraint, and needs Blender 4.5 or later.

The limits are precision and portability. Blender works in meshes rather than exact surfaces, and it cannot export STEP, so it suits renders, organic forms and learning better than a calibrated pavé field or a file someone else will need to edit. Since Blender 5, the Mac version runs on Apple silicon only. Blender for jewellery design covers installing and setting it up.

FreeCAD: free and exact, but no jewellery tools

FreeCAD is a free, open-source parametric modeller under the LGPL licence, currently at version 1.1, for Windows, macOS and Linux. Unlike Blender it models exact solids, and its makers state that the files you produce are yours. It is built for engineering, though: its official add-on index has no jewellery workbench, so stones, seats and prongs are all modelled by hand.

In our view it suits precise, geometric parts, such as a signet blank or a clasp, and is hard work for anything organic or stone-heavy.

Which free CAD software does not allow commercial use?

Several capable programs are free only on terms that exclude commercial work. If you sell what you make, or design for a business, treat these as learning tools.

• Autodesk Fusion for personal use: “for personal, non-commercial projects only”, limited to individuals generating less than US$1,000 a year, and not for use in primary employment or company environments. Import and export file types are limited.
• Onshape Free: for non-commercial use only, and every document you create is public. The paid Standard plan, which allows commercial use and private documents, is US$1,500 per user per year.
• SketchUp Free: a web version that its maker says is not for commercial use. It can export STL.
• Shapr3D Basic: up to two projects and basic-resolution STL and 3MF export, for non-commercial, personal use only. Pro is US$299 per seat per year.
• Plasticity Starter: a 30-day trial with no commercial use allowed. The Indie licence, US$175, is perpetual and allows commercial use.

None of these has jewellery tools, so even for learning they teach general CAD rather than settings and stone layouts.

Tinkercad: fine for a first shape

Tinkercad is Autodesk's free, browser-based CAD tool for beginners, and its terms say Autodesk claims no ownership of what you make. It builds shapes from simple blocks, which makes it a gentle first step and too basic for stone settings.

Free sculpting tools

ZBrushCoreMini, once the usual free way into sculpting, has been withdrawn: Maxon ended it on 30 September 2025. ZBrush for iPad has a free plan with 28 brushes and no plug-ins; Maxon's pages do not say whether it may be used for commercial work, so check before you sell from it.

Nomad Sculpt is not free, but it is cheap: a one-off US$19.99 on iPad and iPhone, with a separate desktop version for Windows and macOS that you can try for free.

Free trials of the professional tools

If you are deciding what to buy, a trial teaches more than any free tool, because you learn the software you will actually use.

• Rhino 8: a 90-day evaluation of the full program, after which saving and plug-ins stop working. A permanent licence is US$995, or US$195 for education.
• MatrixGold: a 15-day free trial, offered in selected regions.
• RhinoArtisan: a 15-day trial.
• 3Design: a free trial, with prices given on request.
• Plasticity: the 30-day Starter trial above.

Rhino vs MatrixGold sets out what the two most common professional options cost once a trial ends.

Which free route should you take?

• You want jewellery tools and may sell what you make: Blender with JewelCraft.
• You need exact, editable solids for geometric parts: FreeCAD.
• You are learning and will buy professional software later: Rhino's 90-day evaluation, started when you can practise every day.
• You want to sculpt organic forms: ZBrush for iPad's free plan to try it, Nomad Sculpt to keep going cheaply.
• You are a business: skip the non-commercial tiers entirely.

What free software does not save you

The licence is the smaller cost. The larger one is the time it takes to model to a standard a caster and a setter can work with: a watertight solid, walls thick enough to fill, seats cut to measured stones. Why outsourced CAD files fail at the bench lists the faults that free and paid software alike will let you make.

If you need a handful of production files rather than a new skill, outsourcing your jewellery CAD is priced per design, only when there is a job, and the full software comparison covers the paid options.