Introduction

This page outlines some of the more common licensing models that are supported by Devolens (formerly Cryptolens). This is not an exhaustive list, and licensing models beyond this list can typically also be supported. If you have any questions, please reach out to our engineering team. Most licensing models are combinations of the same core concepts: products, license keys, features, data objects, activations, and customers. If you are new to these concepts, start with Products, keys, customers, and activations.

Common licensing models

Licensing Model	Description	Implementation
Try and Buy (perpetual)	This model enables you to securely distribute trial versions of your product, which your customer can easily upgrade. A trial license can either be time-limited (eg. 30 days) or not. When it’s not time-limited, it can have a reduced set features (eg. lite version). Once the time limit is reached, it can either disable the entire application or just certain features. The user can later upgrade the same license key to be able to get a full-featured version of the application.	Perpetual license tutorial
Subscription	A subscription is when you give access to your product for a limited period of time. Instead of offering your application as a ‘product’, you can offer it as a ‘service’ (for example, your customers may get additional support together with the product during the subscription period). This model is good because it provides you with a recurring revenue stream.	Subscription model tutorial
Pay per use	By supporting usage-based licenses, you can monetize a group of users that would otherwise not have purchased the product (eg. because it is too expensive). Usage-based licensing is when you charge for usage of specific features. For example, if you have an accounting software, you can charge per created yearly report. If you have a movie editing software, you can charge per created movie or for each conversion to a different movie format. The point is to allow a larger group of people to be able to use your software.	Usage based licensing tutorial
Floating / Concurrent	Floating licenses restrict the number of users that can use the app at the same time. For example, imagine you want your customers to be able to use your application on 10 devices at once. That is, they may have the software installed on 100 devices, but they can only use it on 10 of them at the same time.	Floating licenses tutorial.
SDK licensing	Software Development Kit (SDK) licensing is when you distribute a component, usually a library, that is later going to be integrated as a part of another commercial solution.	SDK licensing tutorial.
User authentication	User authentication lets customers access their licenses with user or customer credentials instead of entering each license key directly. This is useful when one customer has many licenses and you want them to sign in once, retrieve the licenses they are entitled to, and choose the right license for the product or feature they are using. Devolens supports several options, including Customer Portal account authentication, in-app username/password verification, customer secret, and per-user seat counting.	User authentication options.

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Licensing models

Examples

Payments

Features

Security

Common licensing models

​Common licensing models

Common licensing models