CATIA licenses which are the most expensive I've seen are roughly $600/month per user. Where are you seeing "thousands of dollars per seat"?

CATIA with plugins can go up to 100k a year. That’s what we currently pay

100k per seat? That's crazy. How do you even hire or train employees with software that expensive?

	▲	numpad0 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		One guy retire and a college graduate goes in.

CFD might reasonably be considered part of CAD and something like ansys costs about as much as catia. Still only doubles it though.