How Craft Licenses and Renewals Work
Summary #
Paid Craft Licenses are perpetual and include one year of License Updates plus one year of Developer Support. You can pay a small Renewal Price at any time (1 year or 3 years later, same price) to enable License Updates and Developer Support for an additional year.
The Craft License #
Craft CMS 3+ and Craft Commerce 2+ use the Craft License. It’s as close to free open source as we can make it without going out of business.
License Vocabulary Pedantry, aka “Editions” #
Technically, Craft is free! Use it all you want, as much as you want! We don’t charge any money for the Craft License. When you pay us money, it is because you are upgrading your free Craft CMS Solo Edition License to use the Pro Edition of Craft or the Craft Commerce plugin, which aren’t free. When you purchase the Pro Edition, legally speaking, you purchase a license to Craft CMS, Pro Edition, version 3.1.1002 (or whatever). We don’t want to type that every time and you don’t want to read that every time, so we’re going to just say “paid licenses” from here on out to refer to Craft CMS Pro or Team Edition and the Craft Commerce Plugin.
All Paid Licenses are Perpetual #
This means that once you purchase the license, you can use that version indefinitely without paying any additional license fees. If you purchase Craft CMS 5.1.0 Pro, you can use Craft 5.1.0 Pro and all its features forever at no additional cost.
One Year of License Updates are Included with Purchase #
When you update Craft to a new version, you are also licensing the use of that version. In other words, you are legally updating your perpetual license from your current licensed version to the newer version. Usually, people do this to take advantage of whatever new features and updates that version has over the current version. Updates are free for one year with your paid license purchase. This includes any major version upgrades that happen while License Updates are enabled.
You can enable License Updates for an Additional Year at any time by Paying a Reasonable Renewal Price #
“Reasonable price” means 20% of the retail price. This means it is $99 to enable License Updates for Craft CMS Pro or $299 Craft Commerce. That’s ~$9–$25 a month to stay on the latest version plus get Developer Support. We realize these fees are significant for some of our customers, and we don’t want to make light of that. We want you to know that we put these License Update fees to good use on your behalf. These fees help us keep our software updated and supported at a significantly lower cost for the entire Community.
No Penalties, Pay Only When You Want License Updates Enabled or Developer Support #
Don’t need the updates? Don’t need Developer Support? No problem.
There is no Renewal Price difference if you renew one year to the day, 13 months after purchase, or three years after purchase. The License Update Renewal fee has no cumulative penalty or late fee. You only need to pay when you want to enable License Updates or if you want Developer Support (or both).
Legacy Licenses #
The License Renewal Policy only applies to Craft CMS and Craft Commerce licenses purchased on or after April 4th, 2018. All licenses purchased prior are not subject to the License Renewal policy. Specifically, this means that for the core product, these Legacy licenses will never need to pay a fee to upgrade to the latest version. However, please note that this does not apply to 3rd party plugins or first-party plugins purchased on April 4th, 2018, and after.
For example, if a Legacy Craft 2 license updates to Craft 3 and purchases Commerce 2, the Commerce 2 license will have the renewal fees, as will any plugins purchased.
Please note that Legacy licenses do not include lifetime Developer Support.