What HydroCAD Software Solutions does

HydroCAD Software Solutions LLC is a privately held, founder-owned software company that develops and sells the HydroCAD Stormwater Modeling System, a Windows-native Computer Aided Design (CAD) tool for civil engineers used to model stormwater runoff, route hydrographs through ponds and reaches, perform automatic culvert and detention pond hydraulics, and execute pollutant loading and land-use analyses using standard methods such as SCS/NRCS, TR-20, TR-55, SBUH, and the Rational Method. The application is written in Delphi, runs on any Windows PC without requiring additional CAD software, and includes a built-in CAD watershed import and an on-screen routing diagram interface pioneered in 1986; the current release is HydroCAD-10.2, which added cloud-based enterprise license management in 2022.

The company was founded in 1977 as Applied Microcomputer Systems and rebranded to HydroCAD Software Solutions LLC in 2004; it has focused exclusively on HydroCAD since 1990 and is headquartered in Tamworth (Chocorua), New Hampshire, with a 1-10 employee headcount. Go-to-market is purely direct-to-consumer via hydrocad.net and phone support, with no resellers; sales mix includes permanent licenses ($295-$2,395 by node capacity), annual subscriptions (from $195/yr), semester licenses for students and academic institutions, optional annual software maintenance for perpetual licensees, and paid add-ons such as a self-study course and a printed reference manual. The company claims 50,000+ cumulative installations worldwide since 1986, positions itself as the leading US H&H software brand and the largest dedicated H&H supplier globally, and has registered the HydroCAD trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office.

No external funding, parent company, M&A activity, API/SDK, or AI/ML capabilities are disclosed; the product is a traditional locally-installed desktop application whose only networked dependency is a cloud license server for activation and management. Ownership and management structure are opaque (no management_team data), but the operating profile is consistent with a small, profitable, niche-dominant lifestyle business sustained by a long-tenured customer base and steady regulatory demand for stormwater modeling in US civil engineering practice.

Name

HydroCAD Software Solutions

Legal name

HydroCAD Software Solutions LLC

Website

https://hydrocad.net

Company type

Private

Founded year

1977

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

HydroCAD Software Solutions develops Windows-native stormwater modeling software for civil engineers and engineering firms. Founded in 1986 and headquartered in New Hampshire, the company sells its flagship HydroCAD application directly to consumers via perpetual and subscription licenses, with over 50,000 cumulative installations worldwide.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Hydrology and Hydraulics (H&H) Software

NAICS

Software Publishers (513210)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372)

akta.pro primary industry

Water Quality & Watershed/Hydrologic Modeling (SWMM/HEC-RAS, Flood/Runoff/Nutrient) (EUAHAKAF)

Keywords

• Stormwater modeling software
• Hydrology and hydraulics software
• Watershed analysis tools
• SCS NRCS runoff modeling
• Detention pond design

Headquarters

HQ city

Chocorua

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Permanent License Sales: One-time perpetual license purchase with node capacity tiers ranging from 5 to 1000 nodes. Includes 90 days of software maintenance with free updates. After 90 days, maintenance can be extended for an annual fee.
2. Annual License Subscriptions: Annual subscription model starting at $195 for 5-node capacity. Includes software maintenance and all program updates at no extra charge.
3. Semester Licenses: Five-month term licenses for educational use, available for individual students or entire classes up to 25 students, with up to 20-node capacity per file.
4. Software Maintenance: Annual maintenance plans providing all software updates and email support for perpetual license holders not on annual licenses.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels4 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

HydroCAD Software Solutions develops and sells the HydroCAD Stormwater Modeling System, a Windows-native Computer Aided Design (CAD) tool used by civil engineers to model stormwater runoff. The software provides comprehensive hydrology and hydraulics capabilities including SCS/NRCS and SBUH runoff methods, Rational Method calculations, hydrograph routing through ponds and reaches, automatic culvert and pond storage calculations, pollutant loading analysis, and CAD watershed import. The product is sold as a single integrated desktop application via perpetual and annual licenses with node capacity tiers ranging from 5 to 1,000 nodes.

Product overview

HydroCAD Software Solutions offers the HydroCAD Stormwater Modeling System as its primary product - a single unified CAD-based software application for Civil Engineers to model stormwater runoff. The core product provides comprehensive hydrology and hydraulics capabilities including SCS/NRCS, SBUH, and Rational Method calculations. The product is available in various node capacity tiers (5 to 1000 nodes) with flexible licensing options including permanent licenses ($295-$2395), annual licenses (starting at $195), and semester licenses for academic use. Supporting offerings include the free HydroCAD Sampler for evaluation, an online Self-Study Course for training, and a printed Reference Manual. The company has been developing and refining this single product since 1986, with major version updates approximately every two years, culminating in the current HydroCAD-10.2 release.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• HydroCAD Stormwater Modeling System A Computer Aided Design (CAD) tool for civil engineers to model stormwater runoff. Provides comprehensive hydrology and hydraulics capabilities including SCS/NRCS and SBUH runoff hydrology, Rational Method with automatic IDF curves, hydrograph routing through ponds and reaches, automatic culvert calculations, advanced flow simulations (pumps, float valves, progressive dam breach), land-use analysis, pollutant loading, and built-in CAD watershed import. Runs on any Windows PC with no other CAD software required. Sold as a single integrated desktop application.
• HydroCAD Self-Study Course

Quantifiable outcome

• 10x faster hydrology and hydraulics calculations compared to manual methods
• +2 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered minor.

• Center for Watershed Protection (CWP)minorOthersAssociation with organization serving the needs of stormwater professionals. Listed as a related organization on HydroCAD's links page.
• Association of Watershed and Stormwater Professionals (AWSPs)minorOthersAssociation with professional organization serving stormwater professionals. Listed as a related organization on HydroCAD's links page.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Broad incumbents

• Bentley Systems: Offers PondPack, StormCAD, CivilStorm, and SewerGEMS as part of its OpenFlows hydraulics and hydrology portfolio within the broader Bentley infrastructure platform. Competes with HydroCAD on stormwater design but typically at higher price points and as part of enterprise AEC deployments.
• Autodesk: Provides stormwater and hydrology capabilities via Civil 3D plus the Hydraflow Extensions family (originally Intelisolve, now part of Autodesk). Competes with HydroCAD for engineering firms that standardize on the Autodesk AEC platform rather than a niche point tool.
• ESRI: Provides ArcGIS with Spatial Analyst and hydrology toolset for watershed and stormwater analysis. While not a like-for-like civil engineering design tool, it overlaps where firms use GIS-driven hydrology for land-use, watershed, and floodplain work - adjacent to HydroCAD's watershed and land-use analysis capabilities.

Direct peers

• Streamline Technologies: Developer of ICPR (mentioned in HydroCAD's own legal notices), a stormwater modeling tool widely used for stormwater and watershed analysis. Competes head-to-head with HydroCAD in the same stormwater/H&H niche for civil engineering practitioners and reviewers.
• XP Software: Maker of XP-SWMM and XPSTORM (referenced in HydroCAD's legal notices), offering SWMM-based stormwater and hydrology modeling tools. Serves the same engineering workflows with overlapping functionality and methodology, particularly for SWMM-style continuous simulation.
• Hydrologic Engineering Center (US Army Corps of Engineers): Publishes the free HEC-HMS (hydrology) and HEC-RAS (hydraulics) software widely used by government agencies and engineering firms. While free rather than commercial, it competes on methodology acceptance and is often the regulatory default, especially for FEMA flood studies.
• Boss International: Developer of StormRAT, RiverCAD, SewerWorks, and StormShed - H&H modeling software explicitly listed alongside HydroCAD in their competitive set. Targets the same civil engineering users with comparable hydrology, hydraulic, and stormwater design tools.
• Dodson & Associates: Developer of HydroCALC (cited in HydroCAD's legal notices), a hydrology calculation tool used by civil engineers. Competes in the same H&H computational niche with comparable runoff analysis capabilities.
• Intelisolve: Producer of Hydraflow Storm Sewers and Hydraflow Hydrographs (named in HydroCAD's legal notices), offering stormwater and hydrology tools. Targets civil engineers with overlapping drainage design and hydrograph generation use cases.
• Intergraph (now Hexagon PPM): Developer of StormWorks (referenced in HydroCAD's legal notices), an H&H modeling tool. Provides comparable stormwater design capabilities within a broader engineering software portfolio.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about HydroCAD Software Solutions