Pricing

Pay for active licenses, nothing else.

No seats, no events, no surprise bills. Self-host is free under MIT.

Planned pricing

For the managed edition, which is not open yet. You would pay for active licenses, not seats or events. The self-hosted edition is free under MIT.

Most popular

Pro

For makers shipping to real customers.

€29 / month

Join the waitlist
  • 250 active licenses
  • Unlimited products
  • Webhook events
  • Email support

Or start smaller

  • Free

    For prototypes and side projects.

    €0
    / month
    • 100 active licenses
    • 1 product
    • Community support
    • Open-source SDK
    Join the waitlist

  • Business

    For teams scaling to many products.

    €49
    / month
    • 2,000 active licenses
    • Custom key prefix (white-label)
    • Unlimited products
    • Webhook events
    • Priority support
    Join the waitlist

Self-hosted

Available now

Run Paperkey on your own servers. Single Postgres, single Docker compose, source open. Drop the SaaS dependency the day a customer asks.

Free, MIT

Get the repo
  • Unlimited everything. No active-license cap, no per-seat surprise bill.
  • Postgres + Docker + Caddy. Your servers, your backups, your data.
  • MIT-licensed. Fork it, audit it, ship it inside an airgap.
  • Same SDK + MCP. Customers and AI agents never know the difference.

Frequently asked questions

How does Paperkey compare to Keygen, LicenseSpring, or Cryptlex?

Paperkey is opinionated for indie devs shipping local-first apps (desktop, CLI, IDE extensions, plugins): open-source SDK, predictable pricing, integration your AI agent can wire up. The competition targets enterprise, with quotes, demos, and seat-based pricing. We are deliberately not that.

Can I self-host the API?

Yes. The full monorepo (API, dashboard, marketing site) is MIT-licensed. Single Docker compose, single Postgres, no phone-home. PAPERKEY_MODE=selfhost flips Stripe and email to optional, lifts the active-license cap, and hides billing UI. See SELFHOST.md in the repo.

What counts as an "active license"?

A license that has at least one activation in the last 30 days. Revoked or expired licenses do not count.

Is the fingerprint privacy-respecting?

The SDK hashes a small set of stable system identifiers (machine ID, MAC, CPU class) and never sends raw values to our servers. CI mode swaps in environment-derived identifiers so build pipelines do not consume activations.

What happens if Paperkey disappears?

You own your data and the code. Export licenses + activations from the dashboard at any time, and the entire stack is MIT — clone the monorepo, point your SDK at your own instance, keep running. SELFHOST.md walks through the deploy.

Is the managed edition available?

Not yet. The managed edition has a waitlist on paperkey.dev and no launch date. The self-host edition is available today under the MIT license, free, with no license cap.

Who runs the API?

You do, for now. Self-host is the only edition available, so uptime depends on your own infrastructure. The SDK replays the last positive verdict for up to 72 hours when your API is unreachable.

How fast does revocation propagate?

Revocation is immediate at the API layer: the next validate call returns license_revoked, typically under one second after the dashboard click. There is no edge cache to bust. The SDK re-validates on app launch and on a schedule, so a revoked license stops working at the next online check.

Do you support offline activation?

Activation requires a network call: the server must record the new fingerprint slot. Once activated, validation is offline-tolerant: the SDK caches the last positive verdict and replays it for up to 72 hours when the API is unreachable. Authoritative negatives (revocation, expiration) are never cached. The grace window is configurable.

What happens if your servers go down?

Apps already activated keep running for up to 72 hours thanks to the SDK validate cache. With the self-hosted edition, the server is yours, on your own infrastructure, with the same API contract.

How do I migrate from Keygen, Cryptlex, or Lemon Squeezy?

Export your existing licenses and activations from the current vendor, then POST them to /licenses (we accept arbitrary key formats via the product config). The SDK in your shipped app stays the same. Email hello@paperkey.dev for a 30-minute walkthrough against your real data.

The managed edition is not open yet

Leave your email to hear when it opens. There is no date. The self-hosted edition runs today, under the MIT license.

Join the waitlist Self-host it today →