The SDK is free and complete under the AGPL. What the paid licences buy is the right not to publish your own source. Yearly, per organisation or per product, bought here in a minute.
The whole SDK under the AGPL, for everyone.
One organisation, unlimited developers.
One product, for organisations under €1M revenue.
One product, every other organisation.
€4,999 per year, on top of any paid licence. A reply within 1 working day. Without it, support is the public tracker and best effort — which is what most buyers need.
Commercial or OEM
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. If you are unsure which side you are on, mail sales@pdfluent.com before you buy, not after.
The software is identical in every column. What differs is the obligation that comes with it.
| Free | Commercial | OEM | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every feature of the SDK | yes | yes | yes |
| Unlimited developers | yes | yes | yes |
| Use it in production | yes | yes | yes |
| Publish your own source under the AGPL | required | not required | not required |
| Closed-source internal use | no | yes | yes |
| SaaS where PDF is part of your product | AGPL §13 applies | yes | yes |
| Ship PDFluent inside a product you sell | AGPL applies | no | yes |
| Sell PDF functionality itself as a service | AGPL §13 applies | no | yes |
| Licence key or activation | none | none | none |
| Watermark or page limit | none | none | none |
| Priority support | add-on | add-on | add-on |
Both OEM bands grant the same rights. OEM Startup is the same licence at €2,499 for organisations under €1,000,000 in revenue.
A Stripe order confirmation and a licence document by e-mail, naming your organisation, the button, the product where one applies, and the term. That is the licence. There is no key to install, no activation, and no build that differs from the free one — a check in published source can be removed by anyone holding the source, so it would only ever inconvenience the people who intended to pay.
Nothing breaks. No release stops working, and nothing you have already shipped is affected. What ends is the right to ship further releases under these terms; from then on the AGPL applies, with its source obligation.
Licences bought before 6 September 2026 were perpetual and stay perpetual. Nothing here withdraws or replaces them, and there is nothing to migrate.
Included, and it always was. Nothing in PDFluent contacts a server, so running it with no outbound network needs no permission and costs nothing extra. It used to be sold as an add-on; that was selling something we could not withhold.
The billing portal is where you move between bands, add or cancel priority support, change your VAT details and card, download every invoice, and cancel. We e-mail you a link.
Describe what you are building and we will tell you which button applies — including when the answer is that the free one does.
Ask before you buy