This is a price list, not a review. Every figure below was read off the vendor’s own website on 31 July 2026 and is quoted as published. There are no rankings here and no opinions about how well anyone’s software works — those depend on your job, and you can try most of them for nothing.
One disclosure before the table: SawKit is ours. It is in the comparison because leaving it out would be its own kind of dishonesty, and it is marked so you can weigh what we say about it accordingly.
The table
| Tool | Platform | Free tier | Paid | Model |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CutList Optimizer | Web, Android | Limited calculations per day, with ads | Silver, Gold | Subscription, monthly or annual (10% off annual). Also a 3-day pass at $4.90 |
| CutList Plus fx | Windows only | Trial | Silver $89 · Gold $249 · Platinum $499 | One-time, stated as “no annual fee” |
| SawKit (ours) | iPhone, iPad, Mac | 10 parts, 3 projects, 1 stock type | $24.99 | One-time |
What the table does not tell you
CutList Optimizer’s monthly price is not on its public pricing page. The page lists what Silver and Gold include and says billing is monthly or annual with 10% off for annual, but the actual figures render inside the application after you pick a currency. The only price stated openly is the $4.90 three-day pass. You will find third-party sites quoting a monthly number; we are not repeating one we could not read from the vendor ourselves.
CutList Plus fx’s editions differ by much more than price. The jump from Silver to Platinum buys inventory tracking, costing and reporting — not a better layout engine. If you only want cutting diagrams, the cheapest edition is the relevant one; if you run a business on it, the expensive one may be a bargain. Compare the feature lists, not the numbers.
A trial is not a free tier. CutList Plus fx has a trial; CutList Optimizer and SawKit have versions that keep working indefinitely with limits. Those are different things when you use the tool twice a year.
SawKit is new. It went on sale on 13 August 2026 for iPhone, iPad and Mac, so there is not yet a body of reviews or download figures to weigh against the price.
Renting versus buying
The one structural difference worth thinking about is not the size of the numbers but their shape.
A subscription costs nothing to start and never stops. A one-time purchase costs more on day one and then stops. Which is cheaper depends entirely on how long you keep using it — and cut list software is the kind of tool people use for years, in bursts, with months of nothing in between.
Work out your own break-even. Take the monthly price of whatever you are considering, divide the one-time price of the alternative by it, and that is how many months you need before buying wins. Then ask honestly how many years you expect to be cutting sheet goods. For most people who own a saw, the answer makes the arithmetic straightforward.
There is a second consideration that is not about money. A tool you have bought keeps working if the company behind it loses interest. A tool you rent stops when the billing stops, whichever side stops it. If your cutting plans matter to a business, that is worth something.
None of which means subscriptions are wrong. If you need a cutting diagram twice this year and never again, a free web tier or a $4.90 pass is obviously the right answer, and buying anything would be a waste.
Checking this yourself
Prices change and this page will go stale. The primary sources:
- CutList Plus fx — cutlistplus.com, pricing and system requirements
- CutList Optimizer — cutlistoptimizer.com, subscription plans
- SawKit — the homepage here, and the App Store listing
If you find something on this page that is out of date or wrong, tell us and it gets fixed: the address is on the support page.
Related
- A cut list optimizer that actually runs on a Mac — the platform question on its own.
- How to cut a sheet of plywood with the least waste — the part no software does for you.