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Licensing Explained

The BinaryCircuits licensing model is designed to be simple and fair. It’s important to understand what is licensed and what is not, especially if you plan to use workflows in production or ship them as part of your own products.

Our philosophy is: We license the tool, not the output.

What Your License Covers

Your BinaryCircuits subscription and licence key grant you access to the tools and services provided by the platform. This includes:

  1. The compiler and tooling: Your licence key (tied to your subscription tier) activates the compiler (TUI/CLI/GUI), enabling you to perform workflow compilations and downloads.
  2. Marketplace access: Your subscription tier determines which workflows you can access, browse, and download from the marketplace.
  3. Compilation/download quotas: The licence enforces the number of compilations or downloads you can perform each month, as defined by your tier (for example, 25/month for Hobbyist).

Your licence is typically machine‑bound, and activation limits are based on your subscription tier. This prevents abuse and ensures fair use of the platform’s resources, while still letting you deploy compiled binaries widely.

What is NOT Licensed

This is the most important part of our model:

The compiled workflow binaries that you create are not subject to a runtime licence from BinaryCircuits.

Once you use your subscription to compile a workflow, the resulting binary file is your property.

  • You can run it as many times as you want.
  • You can deploy it on any number of servers.
  • You do not owe BinaryCircuits any runtime fees or royalties.
  • The binary does not “call home” to enforce a licence check.

Think of it like using a word processor: you pay for the software (Microsoft Word), but the PDF documents you create are yours to distribute and use freely. In the same way, you subscribe to BinaryCircuits for the compiler and marketplace, but the binaries you produce are yours to own and operate without restriction.

This model provides the best of both worlds: access to a powerful, managed platform and true ownership and freedom for your compiled automation logic.

Using Compiled Binaries in Your Own Products

Because BinaryCircuits does not enforce runtime licensing on compiled binaries:

  • You can embed a compiled workflow binary into your own applications or services.
  • You can deploy compiled binaries to customers’ infrastructure (for example, as part of an on‑premise solution).
  • You can scale horizontally (more machines, more containers) without worrying about per‑node runtime fees.

You are still responsible for:

  • Complying with any third‑party licences associated with the workflow itself (for example, licence terms specified by the workflow author, if applicable).
  • Ensuring that your use respects any local laws, regulations, and contractual commitments.

If you are planning a large‑scale redistribution or white‑label offering, the Enterprise tier is usually the right place to start that conversation.

What Happens If You Cancel Your Subscription?

If you cancel or downgrade your subscription:

  • You keep full use of any binaries you have already compiled or downloaded.
  • You will no longer be able to:
    • Compile new workflows beyond the limits of your current (or free) tier.
    • Access premium marketplace content reserved for higher tiers.
  • You may lose access to support levels that were previously included with your subscription.

In other words, cancelling a subscription affects future access and compilation but does not retroactively “switch off” binaries you already have.

Multiple Machines and Environments

BinaryCircuits is designed to support real‑world deployment scenarios:

  • You can deploy a compiled binary across development, staging, and production environments.
  • You can run the same binary in multiple regions or clouds.
  • You can script or automate deployments using your existing tools (Ansible, Terraform, container orchestrators, etc.).

Licence enforcement happens at the tool level (compiler, marketplace access), not at the level of individual servers that run compiled binaries.

Summary – Key Licensing Principles

To recap, the key points are:

  1. You licence the BinaryCircuits tools, not the output.
  2. Compiled binaries are yours to run freely on any infrastructure you control.
  3. Subscriptions control access and compilation, not runtime execution.
  4. Cancelling a subscription does not de‑activate existing binaries.

If you have a legal or compliance team, you can share this chapter with them as a high‑level overview, and refer them to your contract or Enterprise agreement for formal terms and conditions.