Comparison
Licensr vs. the alternatives
All of them can check a license key. The difference is everything around it: who owns the payment, what happens after the sale, and how much you build yourself.
Licensr vs. LicenseForge
LicenseForge publishes a free plan and two paid plans at $2.99 and $4.99 a month. It checks a license key. Licensr costs more because checkout on your payment account, the branded storefront, and the subscription lifecycle are part of the product.
The store and the license server
Best for plugin and app makers who want buyers to pay on their own payment account, get a key from a branded page, and have renewals, grace, and domain enforcement handled for them. Indie is $8.99/mo.
- Stripe Connect, money to your own account, 0% rev share
- Hosted branded buy page + customer portal
- Seat and domain modes + anti-extraction guard
- Full subscription lifecycle (grace, dunning)
- Official JS/TS, C++, C#, and Go SDKs with offline JWT verify on JS, C#, and Go
- Multi-tenant, roles, analytics, audit log
A license-key API from $2.99/mo
Best when you only need to mint keys, lock them to a machine, and validate them from your own app. You sell the key yourself. Free covers 1 product and 10 active licenses.
- Free, then Developer $2.99/mo and Unlimited $4.99/mo
- HWID binding with a self-serve reset cooldown
- Usage-based licenses metered in minutes of runtime
- Copy-paste prompts for a website, a native app, or a Discord bot
Money lands in your own payment account
Licensr connects your own payment account, so payouts, refunds, and chargeback liability stay on your account. LicenseForge's terms say you remain the seller and they are the licensing layer. Their homepage also advertises Stripe checkout with no extra fees.
Revenue share
Both charge a flat subscription rather than a per-sale cut. With Licensr the funds never pass through us.
Pricing (first paid tier)
LicenseForge publishes Free (1 product, 10 active licenses), Developer at $2.99/mo (5 products, 1,000 licenses), and Unlimited at $4.99/mo. Annual billing saves 25%. Licensr Indie is $8.99/mo and includes checkout on your payment account, a branded buy page, and the subscription lifecycle.
Hosted branded storefront (buy page)
Licensr generates /buy/your-slug with your logo and colours. LicenseForge has you generate keys in the dashboard and sell them yourself, on a site you build or in a Discord DM.
Subscription lifecycle (renewal, dunning, grace)
Licensr runs the full Stripe subscription state machine with grace periods and automatic reactivation. LicenseForge centres on time- and usage-based keys.
Customer self-serve portal
Branded magic-link portal where buyers view licenses, free up seats, and open the Stripe billing portal.
Custom transactional emails
Visual template editor for license delivery, renewal, and expiry emails.
License key validation API
Hardware / machine (HWID) binding
Both lock a license to a machine. Licensr calls this seat / node-locked activation.
Self-serve HWID reset with cooldown
LicenseForge exposes an end-user HWID reset with a configurable cooldown. Licensr frees a seat via deactivation from the customer portal or admin.
Domain-mode activation
Bind a license to a domain instead of a machine, essential for WordPress, browser, and SaaS plugins.
Domain-origin guard (anti-extraction)
Even with a stolen API key + license key, the license cannot be used on an unauthorized domain.
Time-limited / expiring licenses
Usage-based (runtime minutes) licenses
LicenseForge can meter licenses by minutes of runtime. Licensr gates by seat/domain caps and expiry, not consumption.
Multiple products under one account
Offline validation (signed tokens, no network)
Licensr issues short-lived EdDSA-signed JWT tokens, verified locally with any JWT library against a per-plugin JWKS. No network call needed after the first fetch. LicenseForge's /api/validate is an online-only check.
Feature-based entitlements
Plans can carry an arbitrary feature_flags JSON object, returned on every validate/activate call. LicenseForge's API returns a flat valid/invalid plus expiry, with no per-plan feature data.
Perpetual fallback (limited access after expiry)
Expired licenses on a fallback-enabled plan return entitlement="limited" instead of a hard cutoff. LicenseForge has no equivalent; a lapsed key is simply invalid.
REST API
Native SDKs
Official SDKs for JavaScript/TypeScript (npm), C++ (CMake git), C# (NuGet + Unity UPM), and Go (go get). JS, C#, and Go verify offline JWTs locally; C++ mints and stores the token today. LicenseForge does not publish an SDK. Their C++ instructions are a raw POST to /api/validate using libcurl or WinHTTP.
Guided integration
Licensr has an in-dashboard walkthrough showing your real keys and slug. LicenseForge leans on copy-paste AI prompts for setup.
Public developer docs
Webhook events + replay
Every inbound Stripe webhook is logged with full payload, status, and a one-click replay.
Multi-tenant (multiple teams / brands)
Each tenant gets isolated Stripe, products, licenses, and users, built for studios and agencies.
Roles & permissions (RBAC)
Revenue & subscription analytics (MRR, churn)
Audit log
Discord selling workflow
LicenseForge tells you to generate a key and send it in a Discord DM, and offers a prompt to build your own /activate bot. They do not ship a hosted Discord bot. Licensr sells through a hosted web storefront.
Free tier
LicenseForge Free is 1 product and 10 active licenses, with API access and HWID binding. Licensr Free includes 25 active licenses and the hosted storefront.
Public pricing page
Run your software business on one platform.
Free tier, no credit card required. From signup to a live, branded buy page in 15 minutes.