You don't need software, I have 500 dollar software collecting dust in the closet. have used it once in the past 6 months. Embird is the most reasonably priced software that you can do the most with without it costing you an arm and a leg. Like someone said you can just download designs put them on a zip drive and plug into your machine. emblibrary has nice ones and they usually give you 50% your first buy when you join their website. You do need to download a free software to view your designs on your computer or buy one to edit them(size, density, splitting), but I have yet to really do this and the editing on the dreamweaver has been so far sufficient for my purposes. If I were you I would invest in additional hoops and stabilizer first if you check your other thread I listed some websites for you check for cheap hoops and stabilizer.