Mavlon vs SolidWorks Inspection

You bought seats for OCR. The reading is still yours.

Q: How is Mavlon priced compared to SolidWorks Inspection?

The shapes differ. SolidWorks Inspection is licensed per seat per year, with pricing publicly listed, and every person who needs to balloon or edit needs a seat. Mavlon is priced to your operation's FAI volume: cloud based, no seats, anyone on the team can use it, and plans scale with what you actually process rather than headcount.

Q: Does Mavlon work without SolidWorks?

Yes. Mavlon is a browser application with nothing to install and no CAD dependency. It reads 2D PDF drawings, scanned prints included. SolidWorks Inspection also offers a standalone application for PDFs alongside its SolidWorks add-in, but both are Windows desktop installs.

Q: Can Mavlon take CMM results like SolidWorks Inspection Professional?

Yes. Measured results map back onto the Form 3, and the finished report exports in AS9102, Net-Inspect compatible, and PPAP dimensional formats. In the SolidWorks Inspection family, measurement input is a Professional-tier feature.

SolidWorks Inspection balloons the drawing. The reading is the part Mavlon does.

By Atishay Jain, founder of Mavlon · Updated July 2026

Full disclosure: Mavlon is our product. This comparison is written by the Mavlon team from public documentation, and it says plainly where SolidWorks Inspection is the better choice. Spot an error? atishay@mavlon.co

A renewal-quarter afternoon

You know how this goes

A customer PDF lands. Seven sheets, two hundred features. The one machine with the Inspection seat is free after lunch.

1:00 PM

You open the standalone, run the OCR pass, and start confirming balloons. The clean dimensions go fast.

2:30 PM

The scanned sheets fight back. You retype what the OCR misread and re-balloon the title block callouts by hand.

4:00 PM

Ballooning done. Now the real work: 47 untoleranced dimensions against the ISO 2768 note, two fit classes to expand, flag note 6 on three features.

6:40 PM

The Form 3 is done. The license did the marking. You did the reading. The renewal invoice does not know the difference.

The seat automated the easy part.
The hard part never left your desk.

The belief

Shops think FAI is slow because ballooning is slow, so they license a faster ballooning tool per seat.

The truth

Ballooning is the quick 20 percent. The afternoon goes to interpretation: the general note applied by size band, the H7 expanded to real limits, the flag notes chased across sheets, the datum frames checked one by one. OCR does none of that, on any tier.

The answer

That is Mavlon. AI reads the drawing like a senior quality engineer and hands back a filled Form 3 in 2 to 3 minutes, interpretation included, uncertain items flagged. In a browser, for anyone on the team, priced to the FAIs you run.

What Mavlon does that a seat cannot

An AI that reads drawings like a senior engineer

Interprets, not just detects

General note tolerances applied by dimension size. Fit classes like H7 expanded to actual limits. Flag notes mapped to their features. GD&T frames captured with complete datum references. The work OCR leaves behind, done.

Reads the scans OCR fights

Thirty-year-old prints, faxed revisions, low-resolution customer PDFs. Mavlon interprets the drawing rather than matching character shapes, and flags what it is unsure about instead of guessing silently.

No seat, no queue, no install

Any browser, any machine, anyone on the team. The FAI stops waiting for the person with the license, and nights stop belonging to one workstation.

The new workflow

The order the afternoon should run in

The customer PDF lands. Anyone drags it into Mavlon. No license roulette.

2 to 3 minutes later: a ballooned drawing and a filled Form 3, tolerances interpreted, fits expanded, flags mapped.

Your engineer spends 10 to 15 minutes verifying the flagged 10 percent, instead of building the report from zero.

CMM results map back onto the form. Export in AS9102, Net-Inspect compatible, or PPAP dimensional.

The afternoon is yours again. And next quarter's seat renewal is a real question.

Seats vs usage

The licensing shape is the strategy

SolidWorks Inspection

Per seat, per year. Pricing publicly listed by resellers.

Every person who balloons or edits needs a licensed seat on a Windows machine.

The license renews whether you run two FAIs that year or two hundred.

Professional tier required for measurement input.

Mavlon

Priced to your FAI volume, not your headcount.

Cloud based. No seats. Anyone on the team opens it in a browser.

Plans scale with what you actually process, from a few FAIRs a month to a full quality department.

CMM results, revision tracking, and customer export formats included.

Per-seat licensing made sense when software was a tool a person operates. Mavlon is not a tool your engineer operates; it is work getting done. You should pay for the work, not for the chairs.

Side by side

Different jobs, honestly compared

Criterion	SolidWorks Inspection	Mavlon
Reading the drawing
What automates	Ballooning via OCR: detects dimensions, tolerances, GD&T symbols	The reading itself: detection plus interpretation
General note tolerances (ISO 2768)	Engineer applies by size range, dimension by dimension	Applied automatically by size range
Fit classes (H7, g6)	Designation carried; engineer expands to limits	Expanded to actual limits automatically
Flag notes	You track them across sheets yourself	Mapped to their features automatically
Scanned and legacy prints	OCR quality drops on low-quality scans	Reads scans; interprets rather than matches character shapes
Form 3 output	Template populated with detected values	Pre-filled with interpreted tolerances, uncertain items flagged
After the reading
CMM measured results	Professional tier	Included; results map back onto the Form 3
Deployment	Windows desktop: SOLIDWORKS add-in plus standalone for PDFs	Browser, nothing to install, no CAD dependency
Licensing shape	Per seat, per year (publicly listed)	Priced to FAI volume, unlimited team access
Report standards	AS9102, PPAP, ISO 13485 templates	AS9102, Net-Inspect compatible, PPAP dimensional

SolidWorks Inspection claims reflect Dassault Systèmes' public documentation as of mid 2026. Corrections: atishay@mavlon.co.

If your quality team already owns SolidWorks Inspection and it feels slower than the promise, the reason is structural, not a missing setting: OCR automates the marking, and the marking was never the slow part. The reading is. Moving to a faster detection tool changes the logo on the same afternoon. Moving to interpretation removes the afternoon.

Run your next FAI against your current seat license.

Same drawing, both tools. Count the minutes from PDF to reviewable Form 3, and count who else on your team could have done it.

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Where SolidWorks Inspection genuinely wins

Buy SolidWorks Inspection for what it is genuinely great at.

SolidWorks Inspection ships with many SolidWorks seats, and if your prints originate in native SolidWorks CAD, are dimensionally simple, and your FAI volume is low, the bundled tool may honestly be all you need, at zero additional spend. That is a real recommendation, not a trap. Mavlon earns its keep when the drawings are not yours, not native, not simple: customer PDFs, scans, GD&T-heavy aerospace prints, where interpretation rather than CAD extraction is the actual work.

Frequently asked questions

Is Mavlon a SolidWorks Inspection alternative?

For the drawing-to-Form-3 job, yes. SolidWorks Inspection balloons with OCR and fills templates; the engineer still interprets notes, fits, and flags. Mavlon reads and interprets the drawing, returning a pre-filled Form 3 in minutes, in the browser, with no per-seat license and no SOLIDWORKS required.

How is Mavlon priced compared to SolidWorks Inspection?

Different shapes. SolidWorks Inspection is per seat, per year, publicly listed, and every user needs a seat. Mavlon is priced to your operation's FAI volume: no seats, anyone on the team, plans scale with what you actually process.

Does Mavlon work without SolidWorks?

Yes, fully. Browser application, no CAD dependency, reads 2D PDFs including scans. SolidWorks Inspection offers a PDF standalone too, but both its applications are Windows desktop installs.

Can Mavlon take CMM results?

Yes, measured results map back onto the Form 3, and reports export in AS9102, Net-Inspect compatible, and PPAP dimensional formats. In SolidWorks Inspection, measurement input is a Professional-tier feature.