PDFluent Commercial Licence
===========================

Version 3.0 — 6 September 2026
Innovation Trigger B.V., trading as PDFluent, Netherlands.

This licence replaces version 2.0 of 31 August 2026, which described the same
rights sold as a perpetual licence through a signed order form. The rights are
unchanged. What changed on 6 September 2026 is how the licence is bought and how
long it runs: four self-service prices, yearly, bought on the website in a
minute. Version 1.0 of 2 May 2026, which described licence keys, tiers and an
expiring evaluation, described a product that no longer exists.

Licences granted under version 2.0 or earlier were perpetual for the versions
they named and remain so. Nothing in this text withdraws or replaces them.


1. Why this licence exists
--------------------------

PDFluent is published under the GNU AGPLv3 (the LICENSE file). That is the
default, and it is the complete product: no feature is withheld, no key is
required, nothing expires.

The AGPL asks something in return. If you convey the software, or let users
interact with a modified version over a network, you must offer those users the
corresponding source under the same licence. For many organisations that is
fine. For some it is impossible — because the surrounding product is closed, or
a customer contract forbids it, or the legal department will not accept a
copyleft obligation in a shipped binary.

This licence is the alternative for exactly that case. You are not buying
features. You are buying the right not to publish your own source.


2. What you get
---------------

On payment of the fee, PDFluent grants the licensee a non-exclusive, worldwide
licence, for the term in section 8, to use, modify and distribute the PDFluent
software in the licensee's own products, without the obligations of the AGPL.
What the licensee conveyed to its own customers during the term stays covered
after it: the term bounds which releases may be taken under this licence, never
how long what was already shipped may be used.

Specifically:

  a. Distribution of the software as part of a compiled product, without
     supplying source to the recipients.
  b. Operation as a network service, without the AGPL section 13 obligation.
  c. Internal use of any kind.
  d. Deployment in environments without network access. Nothing in the software
     contacts a server, so this needs no permission and costs nothing extra.

The scope of one licence and its price are in section 2a below. Nothing in the
software distinguishes a licensed build from an unlicensed one, so nothing stops
working when a licence ends: see sections 5 and 8.


2a. The four prices
-------------------

All yearly, in euro, excluding VAT, bought at https://pdfluent.com/sdk/pricing
and cancellable at any time in the billing portal there.

  Commercial      999   per organisation. Grants b and c, and a for a product
                        the licensee does not sell PDF functionality from.
                        Unlimited developers.
  OEM Startup   2,499   per product. Grants a, b and c without that limit, for
                        an organisation whose revenue is below EUR 1,000,000,
                        declared by the licensee at the time of purchase. Above
                        that threshold the OEM price applies from the next
                        renewal.
  OEM           9,999   per product. The same grants, every other organisation.
  Priority      4,999   Not a licence. A support subscription: a reply within
  support               one working day, on working days. Section 6 otherwise
                        applies.

The rule that decides Commercial from OEM, which is the only distinction
between them that matters:

  If your customers pay you for PDF functionality that PDFluent provides — a
  conversion API, a PDF/A service, an OCR service, hosted PDF tooling — that is
  OEM, not Commercial.

Building PDF handling into your own product is Commercial. Selling PDF handling
to your customers is OEM. A licence covers one organisation or one named
product, as stated above; a second product is a second licence.


3. What is not covered
----------------------

Several components in the repository are forks of third-party open-source
projects and remain under their own permissive licences. They are not PDFluent's
to relicense and need no licence from PDFluent. `NOTICE` records which they are;
`docs/licensing/boundary.toml` is the machine-readable version.

This licence covers the components on PDFluent's side of that boundary.


4. Attribution
--------------

Documents produced by the software carry "PDFluent" in the PDF `/Producer` entry
and in XMP metadata. Under this licence you may remove or replace that string in
your build. So may an AGPL licensee: the attribution term that once required
that string to be preserved was withdrawn with the move to AGPL-3.0-only, and
nothing replaced it. What a commercial licence changes is the copyleft, not
the branding.


5. What this licence does not contain, and why
----------------------------------------------

No telemetry, no licence key, and no check of any kind in the software.

Stated accurately rather than aspirationally: until 6 September 2026 the build
still carried tier checks from the previous model, so an unlicensed binary
reported `Tier::Trial` and refused some capabilities. Those checks are gone
(issue #226). No code in the software reads a key, refuses a capability, or
marks output, and `scripts/ci/no_licence_key_in_a_binding.py` refuses a change
that puts one back. It was never a condition of this licence — a commercial
licensee's rights come from this agreement, not from a check in the binary.

This is deliberate, not an omission. Published source means any technical check
can be removed by anyone who has the code, in minutes, so such a check would
only ever inconvenience the people who intended to pay. The obligation here is
contractual, and it is enforceable in the ordinary way.

Consequently there is nothing to install, nothing to activate, and nothing that
can break in production because a file expired or a server was unreachable. A
licence that lapses is a change in what the licensee may do, never a change in
what the software does.

What a licensee receives is the order confirmation issued at purchase and a
licence document naming the licensee, the licence, the product where one
applies, and the term. Those two together are the licence, and they are the
deliverables. A signed order form is available for a licensee whose procurement
requires one; it is not the ordinary route and it changes nothing about the
rights.


6. Support and updates
----------------------

This licence grants rights to the software. It is not a support contract and
does not promise response times or fixes. Every release published during the
term may be taken under it, which is what a licensee is buying when they renew.

A response time is promised only where priority support is bought (section 2a),
or where a separate services agreement says so; either prevails over this
section.


7. Warranty and liability
-------------------------

The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or
implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness
for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, PDFluent's aggregate
liability under or in connection with this licence shall not exceed the fees
paid by the licensee for it. Nothing in this licence excludes or limits
liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for
intentional misconduct or gross negligence.


8. Term and termination
-----------------------

The licence runs for the term paid for and renews yearly until the licensee
cancels. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid term.

When the term ends, the licensee's rights under section 2 end with it. Nothing
breaks: no release stops working, nothing already shipped is affected, and no
code in the software consults this agreement. What ends is the right to convey
or operate releases under this licence rather than under the AGPL. Rights
already granted to the licensee's own customers for versions already shipped are
not affected, and neither is anything the licensee shipped during the term.

The licence also terminates on a material breach that the licensee has not
remedied within 30 days of written notice.


9. Law and forum
----------------

This licence is governed by the laws of the Netherlands. Disputes are submitted
to the competent court in the district where PDFluent has its registered seat,
without prejudice to any mandatory consumer or statutory forum.


10. The agreement
-----------------

For a self-service purchase, the agreement is this text together with the order
confirmation and the licence document described in section 5. Those record the
licensee, the licensed scope, the product where one applies, the term and the
fee. Where they conflict with this text, they prevail for the facts they state.

Where a licensee's procurement requires a signed order form, the licensee, the
licensed scope, the fee and any agreed support are recorded in one signed by
both parties, and that form and this text together are the agreement. Where they
conflict, the order form prevails.

The template is `docs/licensing/order-form.md`. It is a template and not an
agreement: an order form binds only once it is filled in and signed by both
parties.

Contact: sales@pdfluent.com
