| PDFluent Commercial Licence |
| =========================== |
|
|
| Version 3.0 — 6 September 2026 |
| Innovation Trigger B.V., trading as PDFluent, Netherlands. |
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|
| 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. |
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| 1. Why this licence exists |
| |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| 2. What you get |
| |
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| 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. |
| |
| Optional model files and runtime libraries that the software downloads on |
| your explicit request (for example with `pdfluent models install`) are |
| licensed as follows. Model files trained by PDFluent are licensed under |
| the same terms as the software. Third-party model files and runtime |
| libraries are licensed to you under their own terms, listed in the notice |
| that accompanies them, and are provided as-is; PDFluent gives no warranty |
| or indemnity for them. |
| |
| |
| 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. |
|
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| 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. |
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| 6. Support and updates |
| |
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| 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. |
|
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| 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. |
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| 7. Warranty and liability |
| |
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| 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 |
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|
