Ask us one question — "do I qualify for an evaluation?" — and if the answer is yes, you get three things at once: a short-term Ansys evaluation license for the exact tools your problem needs, live engineering support from an application engineer assigned to your eval, and free self-paced learning content so you ramp up on your own schedule. It costs nothing to ask, and there's no obligation either way. Evaluations are Ansys programs, granted through Ansys and its authorized channel partners at their discretion — our job is to make the request easy and set you up properly if it's approved.
Short-term access to the real, full-capability Ansys products — not a cut-down demo. Scoped to the tools your physics actually needs, running on your problem, your geometry, your data.
An application engineer from an authorized Ansys channel partner is assigned to your evaluation — a person who has solved your class of problem before and helps with setup, meshing, physics, and reading the results.
Self-paced Ansys training — free Ansys Innovation Courses and curated tutorials matched to your tools — so you learn at your own pace between sessions with the engineer, and keep the knowledge afterward.
Search "free Ansys software" and you'll find a lot of half-answers. Here's the real map: Ansys Student is free but size-limited and non-commercial. The Ansys Startup Program is discounted, not free, for companies that qualify. And between those sits the option most founders never hear about: the evaluation license.
An evaluation exists so you can answer, with evidence, the question every founder eventually faces: can this software do what I need it to do? Not on a tutorial model — on your design. You run the actual workflow: import your geometry, mesh it, apply your loads or excitations, solve, and judge the results. If Ansys isn't the right fit for your problem, an honest evaluation shows that too — that's the point of evaluating before you commit to anything, and you're free to compare any other solution alongside it.
Evaluations run the same solvers the primes and national labs use. Nothing is watered down: the same Fluent that certifies aircraft thermal systems, the same HFSS that signs off phased-array antennas, the same Mechanical that qualifies flight hardware. What's limited is time — evals are short-term by design, which is exactly why the assigned engineer matters: you get to a credible result inside the window instead of burning it on setup mistakes.
Real products rarely live in one physics. Evaluations can be scoped across the portfolio so you test the true multiphysics workflow: fluid-structure interaction (Fluent + Mechanical), electrothermal (HFSS or Maxwell + Icepak), EMI/EMC and signal & power integrity (HFSS, SIwave, Q3D), shock and blast (LS-DYNA), mission modeling (STK). If your device couples three physics, evaluate all three — together.
Evaluations are granted by Ansys and its authorized channel partners at their discretion, subject to eligibility and export-compliance screening. There's a short conversation about your project first — what you're building, what you need to prove — so the eval is scoped to succeed. That conversation is exactly what we set up: tell us what you're working on and we'll connect you with a channel partner that can take it from there.
The output of a well-run evaluation is a set of credible simulation results on your own design. That's not a demo artifact. That's the core of a virtual prototype — the thing you put in front of investors, and the preliminary feasibility evidence that strengthens federal proposals to DoD, DOE, NASA, NSF and the other SBIR/STTR agencies.
A stress contour, a flow field, an antenna pattern on your actual design says "we've de-risked the physics" louder than any slide of claims. It shows technical depth and capital efficiency in the same breath.
Grant and contract reviewers reward feasibility evidence. Simulation results from your evaluation can inform the technical approach you describe in Phase I proposals — before you've spent a dollar on physical prototypes. How simulation strengthens SBIR proposals →
The fastest way to find out your design needs a bigger heat sink or a stiffer frame is a solver, not a machine shop. Founders routinely leave an eval with a better design than they entered with.
From first email to running software, the path is short.
One email: what you're building, what you need to simulate, where you are (idea, stealth, incorporated — all fine). We reply in under 20 minutes during business hours.
A short technical conversation maps your physics to the right products — no over-scoping, no under-scoping — and confirms eligibility for an evaluation request.
If approved, licenses are issued, software installed, and an application engineer is assigned. Free self-paced courses are lined up for your tools.
You work the real workflow with an engineer on call. You leave with an answer — and usually with results worth showing.
Tell us what you're building and what you need to prove. We'll tell you exactly what you can ask for — eval, Startup Program, or free learning to start today.
