Some practical tips for your software licensing project

Choosing the right licensing model is one of the most important early decisions when you plan how to license and protect your software. A one-size-fits-all approach is rapidly becoming obsolete, and the model you pick shapes how customers try, buy, and use your product. This article walks through the common licensing models supported by the SoftwareKey System so you can think through what fits your business.

The goal here is not to list every feature of Protection PLUS 5 SDK or SOLO Server. Instead, it gives you a high-level overview of the licensing capabilities you can combine, so you can sketch the blueprint for the techniques most relevant to your product.

Start with a trial or evaluation version

One of the first questions to ask is whether you want to offer an evaluation or trial version. A trial lets prospects test drive your software before they commit to a purchase, and for a strong product it can be a critical step toward closing the sale.

A few questions to work through when designing a trial:

• Should the evaluation be limited to a set number of days, or to a fixed number of launches or executions?
• Should prospects be able to extend the evaluation period if they need more time to assess the software?
• Should the evaluation start automatically on first launch, or should you require the user to activate the trial?
• Should the trial be allowed to run inside a virtual machine? Allowing this can make it easier for a prospect to reset or extend the trial period, especially if activation is not required.
• Should the trial grant access to all features, or only to a subset of them?

It is also a good idea to collect basic contact information (such as name, phone number, and email address) before allowing someone to download and install the trial. That gives you a way to follow up personally and ask for feedback on what they liked, or did not like, about your software.

Perpetual licensing vs. subscription licensing

Two of the most common ways to handle the lifespan of a license are perpetual and subscription.

• Perpetual (non-expiring) licensing. Once the customer purchases the software, they receive a license that does not expire for the life of the product. Historically, most software authors have chosen this model.
• Subscription licensing. The license is valid for a defined period (for example, monthly or annually) and must be renewed to continue using the software. Subscription licensing has grown tremendously, and even large vendors now offer subscriptions for major products.

Limiting software execution to a defined period of time has been a core capability of Protection PLUS since its earliest versions, so both approaches are well supported.

Controlling how a license is used

You will usually want to control how a license can be used, such as limiting how many computers a single license can be installed on. There are many ways to govern access to your software. The most common options include:

• Node-locked (locked to the computer). The license is bound to the hardware of a specific computer and is activated only once per device on first use. Any user who logs into that activated device can then run the licensed software.
• User-based (named user). Each unique logged-in user needs their own activation. If named-user licenses are stored in a central location, a named user can access the software from multiple computers on the network.
• Named computer. A less restrictive option that locks the license to the computer name. Because this is purely a software setting, the customer can change hardware freely, and the license continues to validate as long as the computer name stays the same. This option is used less often by our customers.
• Website DNS name (domain-locked). For web-based applications, you can lock a license to a website DNS name or domain so the software is licensed to run on a specific site rather than a specific machine. This suits products that are deployed and accessed over the web.

Combining models for your product

These models are not mutually exclusive. Most products combine several of them, for example a trial that converts to a subscription, with node-locked activation and a limited number of installs per license. Think about how your customers actually buy and deploy your software, then choose the combination that matches.

Where to go next

To see how these models map to specific features and configuration, refer to the Protection PLUS 5 SDK and SOLO Server documentation in the SoftwareKey help center and the author manual. If you are unsure which approach fits your product, reach out to support and we can help you weigh the options.