---
url: https://docs.sunlicense.com/faq.md
description: >-
  Short answers to the questions we hear most - pricing and plans, offline use
  and BuiltByBit's DRM rules, moving from another license system or SunLicense
  V1, refunds, and what SunLicense AI and the MCP tools do with your data.
---

# Frequently asked questions

Short answers, each with a link to the full page. Something missing? [Ask us](/support).

## How much does SunLicense cost? Is there a free trial? {#pricing}

The **Free** plan costs nothing and stays free: 3 products, 100 licenses, 10,000 license checks a month and one team
seat, with offline licenses, store integrations, the SDKs, the CLI and the Discord bot. **Lite** ($5 a month or $50 a
year) raises that to 5 products, 2,500 licenses, 250,000 checks and 3 seats, and adds SunLicense AI, the customer
portal, automations and your own key designs. **Standard** ($20 a month or $200 a year) makes products, licenses,
checks and seats unlimited and adds product downloads, protected files, webhooks, white-label and priority support;
on every plan, your customers' license checks keep working even when you're over a limit. Prices are in USD and payment runs through Paddle, our merchant of record, so the invoice comes from
Paddle with the right sales tax or VAT. There's no standing free trial (Free is the way to try it); trials and
discounts come as offers shown under **Billing**, and until 31 December 2026 Standard is $100 a year for
[early supporters](/guide/plans#early-supporter).

Full comparison: [Plans and billing](/guide/plans).

## What happens when my buyer's server is offline? Is it allowed on BuiltByBit? {#offline}

Your app checks the license online first and trusts a clear answer. When SunLicense can't be reached (network error,
timeout, 5xx), it falls back to a signed [offline license file](/guide/offline-licenses) that it verifies with your
public key, without any network; a file is trusted for 30 days after it was created, or until the license expires
if that's sooner. With [core unlock](/guide/protection#core-unlock) the SDK also keeps the last valid unlock for 7
days on that machine, so a short outage needs no file at all. Our [plugin templates](/guide/templates) keep running
when SunLicense is unreachable and only switch off on a clear "no" (revoked, expired, too many servers).
BuiltByBit allows license validation in resources, and its
[Recommended DRM Designs](https://creators.builtbybit.com/Recommended-DRM-Designs-2e976807173b80af832bea572e12ad5a)
page asks for this design: a check at startup and a fallback, not a kill switch, when the server is down. The
[BuiltByBit integration](/integrations/builtbybit) writes each buyer's own key into their download through
BuiltByBit's *External license key* placeholder; say in your listing that the resource checks its license online.

## How do I move from another license system or from SunLicense V1? {#moving}

Start in the dashboard under **Products → Import**. Imports from **Gumroad, Keygen and LicenseGate** run on their own:
upload the export and your products, customers and licenses come over with the same license keys, and your buyers
aren't emailed. For **any other system**, choose *Import from another license system* and send the export (a
spreadsheet of keys and emails is fine): we do the import and keep your keys wherever we can. From **SunLicense V1**,
choose *Import from SunLicense V1* and add V1's `data/sunlicense.mv.db` or a V1 backup (Managed Hosting needs no file);
products, customers, licenses with the same keys, their machines and IPs, blacklists and API tokens move, and plugins
you already shipped keep working. An import checks your plan first and imports nothing if it wouldn't fit.

Details: [Imports and tasks](/guide/imports-and-tasks) and [SunLicense V1](/v1#moving-from-v1-to-cloud).

## Can I get a refund? {#refunds}

No: payments for SunLicense are final, so subscription fees, renewals, upgrades, unused time and prepaid months
aren't refunded, in full or in part. **Billing → Cancel subscription** stops the next renewal; you keep your plan
until the end of the period you paid for, then move to Free with nothing deleted. If we charged you by mistake (a
duplicate charge, or a charge after you cancelled in time), email <hello@sundevs.net>
within 30 days with the invoice and we'll reverse it. Rights you have under laws that can't be excluded by contract
still apply. Refunds you give your own customers are up to you: [revoke their license](/guide/concepts) so the
refunded copy stops working.

The full text: [Refund policy](/legal/refunds).

## What do SunLicense AI and the MCP tools do with my data? {#ai-data}

**SunLicense AI** (in the dashboard, Lite and Standard) sends your question, the page you asked from, matching docs
sections and what its tools return, which can include customers' names and emails but never a full license key, to
Google's Gemini API, on a paid account whose terms don't let Google use it to improve its products. With your
organization's own Anthropic or Google key, it goes to your account with that provider instead. Your conversations
are visible only to you and kept until you delete them, and questions and answers never go to our logs, error
tracking or analytics. With **`sunlicense mcp`** or a connected app such as claude.ai or ChatGPT, SunLicense receives
only the tool calls (the tool's name and its arguments), never your prompts, chats, files or code; what the tools
return goes to your AI app's provider under your own agreement with them, and we keep only a daily count of calls.
Keys stay masked unless you ask to reveal one, changes wait for your confirmation, and we don't sell your data or
use it for anything but running SunLicense.

Details: [SunLicense AI](/guide/sunlicense-ai#your-data), [claude.ai and ChatGPT](/guide/remote-mcp#privacy-and-data),
[AI assistants (MCP)](/cli/mcp), the [Privacy policy](/legal/privacy) and [Subprocessors](/legal/subprocessors).
