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KeyDispense overview, features, pricing, and FAQ/Author
About Julien Jimenez, the founder behind KeyDispense/author/Blog
Guides on license delivery/blog/Why Digital Products Need Licensing
Selling a digital product without licensing leaves value on the table. Here is why it matters./blog/why-digital-products-need-licensing/Generating License Keys That Work
A license key has a job to do. Here is what makes one work well./blog/generating-license-keys/Validating Keys Without Frustrating Users
Licensing should protect your product, not annoy your customers. Here is how to validate gently./blog/validating-keys-without-frustrating-users/Activation Limits and Casual Sharing
Activation limits curb sharing without locking in honest users. Here is how to set them./blog/activation-limits-casual-sharing/Handling Refunds and Revocation
When a sale is reversed, the license should follow. Here is how to handle revocation cleanly./blog/handling-refunds-revocation/Building Licensing Without Building It Yourself
Rolling your own licensing is a project. Here is why you might not want to./blog/licensing-without-building-it/Licensing Models for Digital Products
How you license shapes how you sell. Here are the common models and when they fit./blog/licensing-models-digital-products/Protecting Your Product Without Punishing Customers
Aggressive licensing hurts the people who paid. Here is how to strike the right balance./blog/protect-product-without-punishing/Scaling Licensing as You Grow
Licensing that works for a few sales must hold up at thousands. Here is how to scale it./blog/scaling-licensing-as-you-grow/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./blog/offline-license-activation-flow/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./blog/trial-keys-that-convert/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./blog/leaked-license-key-response/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./blog/device-fingerprinting-license-enforcement/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./blog/duplicate-webhook-license-issuing/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./blog/support-tooling-license-lookup/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./blog/migrating-legacy-license-keys/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./blog/team-seat-license-changes/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./blog/grace-periods-failed-renewals/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./blog/perpetual-license-update-window/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./blog/clock-rollback-license-expiry/Complete guide
Everything a small software team needs to know about issuing, validating, limiting, and revoking license keys, from choosing a model to scaling past your first thousand customers./guide/Compare options
From a key checked by a formula in your binary to a hosted API that handles the whole lifecycle, here is how the common ways to license a digital product stack up on the criteria that matter./compare/Glossary and FAQ
Plain definitions for the terms you will meet when issuing, validating, and managing license keys, plus straight answers to the questions small software teams ask most./glossary/Free tools
Free calculators and planners/tools/Build vs Buy Licensing Cost Calculator
Estimates the first-year and three-year cost of writing your own license key system versus paying for a hosted licensing API, for small software teams deciding where their engineering hours go./tools/build-vs-buy-licensing/Perpetual vs Subscription License Revenue Calculator
Compares revenue per customer from a one-time perpetual license with paid upgrades against a monthly subscription with churn, for developers choosing a licensing model./tools/perpetual-vs-subscription/License Validation Request Volume Estimator
Estimates monthly validation calls, average and peak requests per second, and the resulting API bill for a given number of active licenses, for developers sizing a license check service or picking a plan tier./tools/license-validation-volume/Which licensing approach is right for your product?
Answer eight quick questions about how you sell, where your software runs, and how much you want to own, and we will point you to the setup that fits./quiz/License Key System Launch Checklist
A pre-launch checklist covering key generation, validation, activation limits, lifecycle events, protection, and support tooling for a digital product's licensing system./templates/license-system-launch-checklist/License Lifecycle Transition Worksheet
A planning worksheet for mapping every business event, from purchase to refund to transfer, onto a license status change, an activation rule, a customer-facing message, and an owner./templates/license-lifecycle-transition-worksheet/Disclosure
How this site is funded/disclosure/Legal notice
Publisher and hosting information/legal/Privacy policy
How your data is collected and protected/privacy/Terms of service
The terms that govern use of the service/terms/
KeyDispense overview, features, pricing, and FAQ/Author
About Julien Jimenez, the founder behind KeyDispense/author/Blog
Guides on license delivery/blog/Why Digital Products Need Licensing
Selling a digital product without licensing leaves value on the table. Here is why it matters./blog/why-digital-products-need-licensing/Generating License Keys That Work
A license key has a job to do. Here is what makes one work well./blog/generating-license-keys/Validating Keys Without Frustrating Users
Licensing should protect your product, not annoy your customers. Here is how to validate gently./blog/validating-keys-without-frustrating-users/Activation Limits and Casual Sharing
Activation limits curb sharing without locking in honest users. Here is how to set them./blog/activation-limits-casual-sharing/Handling Refunds and Revocation
When a sale is reversed, the license should follow. Here is how to handle revocation cleanly./blog/handling-refunds-revocation/Building Licensing Without Building It Yourself
Rolling your own licensing is a project. Here is why you might not want to./blog/licensing-without-building-it/Licensing Models for Digital Products
How you license shapes how you sell. Here are the common models and when they fit./blog/licensing-models-digital-products/Protecting Your Product Without Punishing Customers
Aggressive licensing hurts the people who paid. Here is how to strike the right balance./blog/protect-product-without-punishing/Scaling Licensing as You Grow
Licensing that works for a few sales must hold up at thousands. Here is how to scale it./blog/scaling-licensing-as-you-grow/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./blog/offline-license-activation-flow/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./blog/trial-keys-that-convert/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./blog/leaked-license-key-response/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./blog/device-fingerprinting-license-enforcement/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./blog/duplicate-webhook-license-issuing/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./blog/support-tooling-license-lookup/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./blog/migrating-legacy-license-keys/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./blog/team-seat-license-changes/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./blog/grace-periods-failed-renewals/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./blog/perpetual-license-update-window/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./blog/clock-rollback-license-expiry/Complete guide
Everything a small software team needs to know about issuing, validating, limiting, and revoking license keys, from choosing a model to scaling past your first thousand customers./guide/Compare options
From a key checked by a formula in your binary to a hosted API that handles the whole lifecycle, here is how the common ways to license a digital product stack up on the criteria that matter./compare/Glossary and FAQ
Plain definitions for the terms you will meet when issuing, validating, and managing license keys, plus straight answers to the questions small software teams ask most./glossary/Free tools
Free calculators and planners/tools/Build vs Buy Licensing Cost Calculator
Estimates the first-year and three-year cost of writing your own license key system versus paying for a hosted licensing API, for small software teams deciding where their engineering hours go./tools/build-vs-buy-licensing/Perpetual vs Subscription License Revenue Calculator
Compares revenue per customer from a one-time perpetual license with paid upgrades against a monthly subscription with churn, for developers choosing a licensing model./tools/perpetual-vs-subscription/License Validation Request Volume Estimator
Estimates monthly validation calls, average and peak requests per second, and the resulting API bill for a given number of active licenses, for developers sizing a license check service or picking a plan tier./tools/license-validation-volume/Which licensing approach is right for your product?
Answer eight quick questions about how you sell, where your software runs, and how much you want to own, and we will point you to the setup that fits./quiz/License Key System Launch Checklist
A pre-launch checklist covering key generation, validation, activation limits, lifecycle events, protection, and support tooling for a digital product's licensing system./templates/license-system-launch-checklist/License Lifecycle Transition Worksheet
A planning worksheet for mapping every business event, from purchase to refund to transfer, onto a license status change, an activation rule, a customer-facing message, and an owner./templates/license-lifecycle-transition-worksheet/Disclosure
How this site is funded/disclosure/Legal notice
Publisher and hosting information/legal/Privacy policy
How your data is collected and protected/privacy/Terms of service
The terms that govern use of the service/terms/
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