If you are reading a PVcase review in 2026, you are almost certainly designing ground-mount solar on ground that is not flat, and you want to know whether a CAD plug-in justifies an enterprise contract. PVcase was founded in Lithuania in 2017 by David Trainavicius and Douglas Geist, acquired the American siting platform Anderson Optimization in June 2023, and now claims 1,800 customers across 80 countries. Our engineering team at Heaven Green Energy has benchmarked it against the rest of the field across 200 MW of built projects. This review gives PVcase full credit for the thing it is genuinely the best at, which is terrain, and is equally plain about the two facts that disqualify it for most buyers: it needs AutoCAD, and it will not tell you what it costs.
Direct answer. PVcase is the strongest terrain-following ground-mount design tool we have benched and scores 31 out of 50 on our review bench. It runs as a plug-in inside AutoCAD or Civil 3D 2021 through 2026, so an AutoCAD licence is a prerequisite. Pricing is quote-only, with industry-observed enterprise deals starting around $10,000 to $20,000 a year. Buy it for sloped utility-scale sites. It is the wrong tool for rooftop.
This review scores PVcase on five published axes, states what can and cannot be confirmed about its pricing, and names the reader for whom PVcase, not a cloud platform, is the correct purchase.
What PVcase Is
PVcase is a family of solar design products built around one core idea: that utility-scale layout should happen inside CAD, on real survey data, rather than on an abstracted plan view.
The flagship is PVcase Ground Mount, which installs as a plug-in for AutoCAD and Civil 3D. It automates the creation of construction-ready array layouts on real terrain, iterating slope, row spacing, pile positions and cabling in a fraction of the time a draughtsman would take. The vendor claims roughly a 90 percent reduction in design time, which is a marketing figure but not an absurd one for the specific task of re-laying a 200 MW site after a boundary change.
Around it sit three more products. PVcase Roof Mount extends the same CAD-driven approach to commercial rooftops. PVcase Yield is a cloud energy-modelling and irradiance simulation tool, which is how the company answers the “but you do not do yield” objection. And the siting and prospecting product, inherited from the Anderson Optimization acquisition in June 2023, handles land screening, interconnection queue data and early-stage site selection.
The AutoCAD dependency is the defining architectural choice and it cuts both ways. It means PVcase inherits every CAD capability your draughtsmen already know, and hands its output straight into a construction document set. It also means the tool is unusable to anyone without AutoCAD, an AutoCAD-fluent designer, and a Windows machine to run both on.
Bring one of your own sites to a free SurgePV demo. We will build the 3D roof from a satellite address, run the 8,760-hour shading simulation, and hand you the SLD, BOQ and branded proposal on the call.
Book a free SurgePV demo → Compare pricingThe 5-Axis Review Bench
The Heaven Green 5-Axis Review Bench is the framework we run before any licence renewal. Five axes, ten points each, published so the score can be argued with.
| Axis | What it measures | PVcase score |
|---|---|---|
| Design and simulation depth | Terrain handling, layout automation, shading, yield modelling | 9 / 10 |
| Compliance and documentation output | Construction-ready drawings, bill of quantities, CAD deliverables | 8 / 10 |
| Proposal and sales workflow | Branded customer output, e-sign, CRM handoff, finance modelling | 2 / 10 |
| Price against value | Total annual cost for the job actually being done | 4 / 10 |
| Support and onboarding | Time to first competent output, documentation, training, response | 8 / 10 |
| Total | 31 / 50 |
The 9 on design depth is earned on one axis that no cloud tool on our bench matched: terrain. PVcase adapts the array to the actual surface, computes grading, and reports the earthworks implication of a layout choice. On a site with 8 percent slope that is not a nicety, it is the difference between a buildable design and a fiction.
The 8 on support and onboarding is high and deliberate. Enterprise contracts come with real onboarding, and the AutoCAD-native design means your existing draughtsmen are not learning a new way to draw, only a new toolbar.
The 4 on price against value is not a criticism of the price, which we cannot see. It is a criticism of not being able to see it. A tool that will not publish a number forces every prospect into a sales call before they know whether it is in their range, and for a small EPC that is a real cost in time.
Key takeaway. PVcase scores highest of any tool on our bench for terrain-following ground-mount design and lowest of any tool for pricing transparency. Both facts follow from the same decision to sell enterprise, and neither is likely to change.
Pricing
PVcase does not publish prices. We checked the vendor’s own pricing-plans page in August 2026 and it contains a call to action, not a number.
What can be stated honestly:
| Line item | Figure | Confidence |
|---|---|---|
| PVcase Ground Mount licence | Not publicly listed | Vendor confirms quote-only |
| Industry-observed enterprise entry | Roughly $10,000 to $20,000 per year | Industry-observed estimate, not vendor-confirmed |
| Required AutoCAD or Civil 3D seat | Roughly $2,000 or more per seat per year | Autodesk list pricing, varies by region and term |
| Additional modules (Yield, Roof Mount, siting) | Not publicly listed | Priced separately by quote |
We will not invent a per-seat figure. Numbers circulating at “$18,000 per seat” or “$300 per user per month” are third-party estimates from resellers and review aggregators, and they vary by an order of magnitude depending on project volume and which modules are bundled. Treat any specific figure you read, including ours, as a range to test in a call rather than a price.
⚠️ Watch out
The AutoCAD licence is not optional and is not included. Budget it as a second line item per designer, plus the Windows hardware to run CAD properly. That combination is often the larger of the two numbers for a small team.
For a like-for-like cost picture across the category, our solar design software pricing comparison lists the tools that do publish, and the PVcase alternative guide ranks the replacements if the quote comes back too high.
What PVcase Does Best
Terrain, and it is not close. PVcase reads real survey and elevation data and lays the array onto the actual surface. Row spacing responds to local slope rather than an assumed flat plane. Table positions shift to stay within the racking manufacturer’s tolerance for north-south and east-west slope. Grading volumes are computed rather than guessed. If your sites are hillsides, quarries, reclaimed land or anything with more than a few percent fall, this is a capability with a direct construction-cost consequence.
Automated re-layout. Utility-scale design is not one layout, it is forty. The boundary moves because an easement appeared. A wetland buffer expands. The interconnection point relocates. In a manual CAD workflow each of those is days. In PVcase it is a re-run. That is where the vendor’s 90 percent time claim actually comes from, and it is the honest version of it.
Construction-ready output. Because the work happens inside AutoCAD, what comes out is a drawing set, not a picture of a drawing set. Pile positions, cable routes, bill of quantities and the array geometry all land in the same file the civil and structural teams are already working in. Heaven Designs, our engineering arm, does ground-mount layout and design work daily and the value of a CAD-native handoff is not theoretical.
Automated 3D cabling. DC and AC cable routing generated from the layout rather than drawn by hand. On a 100 MW site the cable schedule is a meaningful slice of the bill of quantities, and getting it from the model rather than a spreadsheet removes a genuine error class.
Slope and shading analysis together. Because the terrain is real, inter-row shading is computed against real geometry rather than a flat-ground assumption. Flat-ground row spacing on sloped terrain is one of the most common and most expensive yield errors in ground-mount design, and our solar shading analysis software guide covers why it happens.
Where PVcase Falls Short
It requires AutoCAD. This is the single largest limitation and it is structural. You need an AutoCAD or Civil 3D licence for versions 2021 through 2026, a Windows machine capable of running it, and a designer who is fluent in CAD. For an established engineering firm that is a non-issue. For a growing installer whose designers work in a browser, it is a second product to buy, a second skill to hire for, and a second thing to support.
The pricing is opaque. Quote-only pricing works as a filter, whatever the intent behind it. Small buyers cannot self-qualify before they reach a salesperson. If you are a five-person EPC, budget a discovery call before you know whether the product sits in your range.
It is the wrong tool for rooftop residential. PVcase Roof Mount exists, but the whole design philosophy assumes a CAD workflow and a project large enough to justify one. A 6 kW house does not need automated grading. It needs an address, a roof outline, a shading check and a proposal by Friday.
No proposal or sales workflow. There is no branded customer proposal, no e-signature, no financing table, no CRM. That earns 2 rather than 1 only because the drawing output can be attached to a technical submission. This is a design and engineering tool and it does not pretend otherwise.
Yield is a separate product. PVcase Yield is a genuine cloud simulation tool, but it is a separate purchase from Ground Mount, which means the bundle question comes back in every negotiation. And on the financed projects we have worked on, the lender’s technical advisor has still wanted a PVsyst run. Our PVsyst review covers why that particular moat has held.
- ✓ The strongest terrain-following layout engine in the category
- ✓ Automated grading with earthworks volumes computed
- ✓ Construction-ready output inside AutoCAD or Civil 3D
- ✓ Automated 3D DC and AC cable routing
- ✓ Re-layout after a boundary change takes minutes, not days
- ✓ Siting and interconnection screening from the Anderson acquisition
- ✗ Requires a separate AutoCAD or Civil 3D licence
- ✗ No published pricing at any tier
- ✗ Wrong tool for rooftop residential and small commercial
- ✗ No proposal, e-signature, financing or CRM output
- ✗ Yield modelling is a separately priced product
- ✗ Requires a CAD-fluent designer, which is a hiring constraint
Get a design workflow audit. Tell us your project mix and current tool spend. Our engineers will map what you actually need against what you are paying for, at no cost. Talk to our team.
Who Should Buy PVcase
Buy PVcase if you design ground-mount solar on terrain that is not flat, at a volume that justifies an enterprise contract. That reader is specific, and for them nothing else we have benched is a serious substitute.
- Utility-scale developers and IPPs. Multi-hundred-megawatt pipelines with repeated layout iteration. The re-layout speed alone pays the contract.
- EPCs with an existing AutoCAD-based engineering department. You already own the licences and the skills. PVcase slots into a workflow rather than replacing one.
- Anyone whose sites have real slope. Hillside, terraced, reclaimed or otherwise irregular ground. A flat-plane layout tool can hand you a design the civil contractor then has to rework on site. Heaven Designs’ guide on pile foundation design for ground mount shows how directly terrain feeds into foundation cost.
- Teams doing early-stage land screening. The siting product inherited from Anderson Optimization is a genuine capability that most tools on our bench do not have at all.
- Firms where the deliverable is a construction drawing set. If what you hand over is a DWG, buying a tool that starts and ends in DWG removes a whole conversion step.
For these five readers, PVcase beats SurgePV on the axis that decides the project, and we will say so on our own site.
💡 Fast tip
Before the sales call, work out your annual sloped-ground megawatts. If it is under about 20 MW, ask for the quote anyway but expect the AutoCAD line item to dominate your total.
Who Should Not
Rooftop residential installers. The design assumptions PVcase is built around, terrain adaptation, grading and pile positioning, do not apply to a 6 kW house. Start with our best solar design software ranking instead.
Small commercial EPCs under about 500 kW per project. The AutoCAD dependency plus an enterprise contract is a large fixed cost against a project size that does not need automated grading.
Teams without CAD fluency. If nobody on your team drives AutoCAD daily, PVcase is a hiring decision disguised as a software decision.
Sales-led installers. No proposal, no e-signature, no financing table. If your bottleneck is conversion rather than layout, look at our solar proposal software guide.
Anyone who needs a price before a sales call. That is not a small group and it is a legitimate requirement. Tools that publish exist, and our solar design software pillar lists them.
PVcase vs SurgePV
Disclosure, stated plainly: SurgePV is a sister product of Heaven Green Energy and we run it on our own EPC projects. That is first-party operating experience and also a commercial interest. The table names SurgePV’s weaknesses alongside PVcase’s.
| Axis | PVcase | SurgePV | Honest verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Terrain-following ground-mount layout | Best available, with automated grading and earthworks volumes | Multi-tilt, multi-array ground-mount templates, no automated grading | PVcase wins, decisively |
| Sloped-site accuracy | Adapts to real survey surface | Assumes a simpler ground model | PVcase wins |
| Rooftop residential and small C&I | Wrong tool by design | AI 3D roof from a satellite address, built for this | SurgePV wins, decisively |
| CAD integration | Native, runs inside AutoCAD and Civil 3D | DXF and DWG export to AutoCAD | PVcase wins on depth, SurgePV wins on not needing a CAD licence |
| Yield simulation | Separate product, PVcase Yield | 8,760-hour module-level, P50/P75/P90, included | SurgePV wins on bundling |
| Proposal workflow | None | White-label proposals in 9 languages, e-signature | SurgePV wins |
| Pricing transparency | Quote-only at every tier | $1,299 per user per year on the 5-User Team plan, published | SurgePV wins |
| Prerequisites | AutoCAD licence plus Windows CAD hardware | A browser | SurgePV wins |
| Siting and land screening | Yes, from Anderson Optimization | No | PVcase wins |
| Drone and as-built capture | No | No | Neither. Buy a capture tool if you need this |
| Structural stamping | No | No | Neither. This is an engineering service |
| Racking database | Deep, tied to real racking geometry | Thinner than its 70,000+ module and 12,000+ inverter libraries | PVcase wins. This is a named SurgePV weakness |
| Brand recognition | Strong in utility-scale since 2017 | Launched 2025, thin recognition, has to be explained | PVcase wins |
SurgePV’s weaknesses sit in that table on purpose. Its racking database is the weakest of its three component libraries, and against a CAD-native tool built around racking geometry that gap is visible. It launched in 2025, so recognition is thin. It does no drone capture and no structural stamping. And it does not do automated grading at all, which on a genuinely sloped site is disqualifying rather than merely inferior.
Verdict. These tools do not overlap as much as their category label suggests. PVcase is a terrain and CAD product bought by engineering departments. SurgePV is a design-to-proposal workflow bought by installers and EPCs whose volume is rooftop and small ground-mount. If your projects are hillside utility-scale, buy PVcase and do not agonise over it. If your projects are rooftops, PVcase would be an expensive way to make your work harder.
How Heaven Green Energy Uses This In Practice
Our project mix is roughly 70 percent rooftop, so PVcase is not a production tool for us. We have used it on evaluation for land-based work and we know exactly where it would have helped.
The clearest case was a 12 MW ground-mount site in Gujarat with about 6 percent fall across the array area. Our initial layout used uniform row spacing derived from flat-ground geometry. On the downslope rows the effective pitch was tighter than intended and winter morning inter-row shading was worse than modelled. We caught it during the shading review, re-pitched the affected block, and the correction cost about four days of redesign. A terrain-aware layout engine would have produced the right pitch on the first pass. That is the specific value PVcase sells and we can attest to the cost of not having it.
The counterexample is the rest of the pipeline. A 60 kW factory roof in Morbi or a 10 kW home in Ahmedabad needs an address, a roof, a layout, a single-line diagram, a bill of quantities and a proposal the customer can sign. Running an AutoCAD plug-in for that is slower than doing it by hand. We design those in SurgePV, and where the structural side needs proper calculation we route it to Heaven Designs for STAAD.Pro structural calculations rather than expecting design software to produce a stamped drawing.
Sibling reviews in this series cover RatedPower, the closest automated utility-scale competitor, plus Aurora Solar and Scanifly. For the wider category see our utility-scale solar design software guide.
Where our EPC team helps directly:
- Ground Mount and Solar Parks: land-based projects where terrain and row geometry decide the return.
- Industrial Solar EPC: 100 kW and above, turnkey, with performance guarantees.
- Commercial Solar: 10 to 100 kW rooftop with net metering handled.
- Solar Calculator: a 60 second sizing and savings estimate before any of the above.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does PVcase cost in 2026?
PVcase does not publish pricing. Its own pricing-plans page carries a call to action rather than a number, and every module is quoted separately. Industry-observed enterprise deals commonly start somewhere around $10,000 to $20,000 per year and scale with project volume and module bundle, but that is an estimate rather than a vendor-confirmed figure. Budget an AutoCAD or Civil 3D licence separately at roughly $2,000 or more per seat per year, because it is a hard prerequisite.
Does PVcase require AutoCAD?
Yes. PVcase Ground Mount installs as a plug-in for AutoCAD or Civil 3D and supports versions 2021 through 2026, including AutoCAD 2026. There is no standalone or browser version of the ground-mount product. That means an AutoCAD licence, a Windows machine able to run CAD comfortably, and a designer who is fluent in it. For firms that already have all three this is free. For everyone else it is a second purchase.
Is PVcase good for rooftop solar?
PVcase Roof Mount exists, but the product family is built around a CAD workflow and project sizes that justify one. For residential rooftop work the design assumptions are wrong: you do not need automated grading, terrain adaptation or pile positioning on a 6 kW house. You need a satellite roof model, a shading check and a proposal. A cloud design platform will produce that in a fraction of the time and without an AutoCAD dependency.
Does PVcase do yield simulation?
Yes, through PVcase Yield, which is a cloud energy-modelling and irradiance simulation product priced separately from Ground Mount. There is also a QuickYield function inside the layout tool for fast estimates during iteration. For a project raising debt, expect the lender’s technical advisor to still want a PVsyst report. In our experience that is the format named in financing documents regardless of what the design tool produced, so confirm the requirement with your lender.
What did PVcase acquire from Anderson Optimization?
PVcase acquired Anderson Optimization in June 2023. Anderson built a solar siting and prospecting platform covering land screening, parcel data, interconnection queue information and early-stage site selection, mostly for the American market. That capability now sits alongside the design products, which means PVcase covers the pipeline from finding a site to issuing a layout. Most of the design tools on our bench have nothing in the siting stage at all.
PVcase or RatedPower for utility-scale design?
They solve overlapping problems differently. PVcase is CAD-native and excels at terrain adaptation and construction-ready drawing output. RatedPower is cloud-based and excels at rapid automated site studies and comparative feasibility across many candidate sites. Both are enterprise, quote-only purchases. If your team lives in AutoCAD and your sites are sloped, PVcase. If you are screening many sites quickly and want the output in a browser, RatedPower.
Can PVcase produce customer proposals?
No. There is no branded proposal builder, no e-signature, no financing table and no CRM handoff. PVcase produces engineering deliverables: layouts, drawings, cable schedules and bills of quantities. Teams that need a customer-facing proposal pair it with a separate proposal platform or, more commonly at this end of the market, produce commercial documents outside any design tool entirely.
Is PVcase worth it for a five-person EPC?
Usually not, and the maths is straightforward. An enterprise contract plus five AutoCAD seats plus CAD-capable hardware is a large fixed annual cost. Unless your five people are designing sloped ground-mount at volume, the capability you are paying for goes unused most weeks. A published-price cloud platform that covers design, drawings and proposals will fit a small EPC’s actual workload better. Revisit PVcase when terrain becomes the constraint.
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