License delivery
Why Digital Products Need Licensing
Selling a digital product without licensing leaves value on the table. Here is why it matters.
KeyDispense blog
Guides on license delivery
Practical, honest advice from the team behind KeyDispense, written to help you do this well.
License delivery
Generating License Keys That Work
A license key has a job to do. Here is what makes one work well.
License delivery
Validating Keys Without Frustrating Users
Licensing should protect your product, not annoy your customers. Here is how to validate gently.
License delivery
Activation Limits and Casual Sharing
Activation limits curb sharing without locking in honest users. Here is how to set them.
License delivery
Handling Refunds and Revocation
When a sale is reversed, the license should follow. Here is how to handle revocation cleanly.
License delivery
Building Licensing Without Building It Yourself
Rolling your own licensing is a project. Here is why you might not want to.
License delivery
Licensing Models for Digital Products
How you license shapes how you sell. Here are the common models and when they fit.
License delivery
Protecting Your Product Without Punishing Customers
Aggressive licensing hurts the people who paid. Here is how to strike the right balance.
License delivery
Scaling Licensing as You Grow
Licensing that works for a few sales must hold up at thousands. Here is how to scale it.
License delivery
How do you activate a license when the customer's machine never touches the internet?
Air-gapped labs, locked-down corporate desktops, and field laptops still need to run your software. Here is how offline activation works without turning your licensing into a loophole.
License delivery
What is the best way to structure trial keys so they convert to paid?
A trial key is a licensing decision as much as a marketing one. What you gate, how long you allow, and what happens on the last day all shape whether anyone buys.
License delivery
What should a developer do when a license key leaks on a public forum?
A key posted on a cracking forum or pasted into a public repository is not a catastrophe if you respond in the right order. Here is a calm playbook.
License delivery
How much device fingerprinting is reasonable for license enforcement in desktop apps?
You need a way to tell one install from another, but every extra hardware detail you collect carries a privacy cost and a support cost. Here is where to draw the line.
License delivery
Why does license issuing break when your payment webhook fires twice?
Payment providers retry webhooks, and they do it more often than you expect. If your license issuing is not idempotent, customers get two keys, or none.
License delivery
Which license lookup tools should support staff have before launch day?
The first week after launch is when licensing questions peak. If support has to ask a developer to run a database query, every ticket takes an hour.
License delivery
When should you migrate existing customers from an old license key format?
Old keys are a liability you can live with for a long time. Knowing when the cost of keeping them outweighs the cost of moving is the whole decision.
License delivery
How do you license a team plan when seats change every month?
Team licensing is where simple per-key thinking falls apart. Seats get added mid-cycle, people leave, and someone always wants to reassign a license on a Friday afternoon.
License delivery
What should a subscription app do when a license check fails at renewal?
Cards expire, banks decline, and your validation endpoint will have a bad day. The app's behavior in that moment decides whether you keep the customer.
License delivery
Which parts of a perpetual license should keep working after the update window expires?
A perpetual license makes two promises with two different clocks: the right to run the software forever, and the right to receive new builds for a while. Here is how to separate them cleanly in your data model, your binary, and your support scripts.
License delivery
Why does a time-limited license break when a customer rolls back the system clock?
Trials, grace periods, and expiry dates all rest on a value the user can edit in ten seconds. Here is how clock changes actually break licensing, and how to defend against them without locking out people whose only crime is a dead battery.