Selling software with licence keys

If you sell software, EmbPay can issue a licence key automatically on purchase and give you an endpoint your application calls to check it.

What a key looks like

EMBP-7K4M-9XQP-2WRT-H8YN

The prefix is yours to choose, up to eight characters. The rest is random, drawn from an alphabet that leaves out the characters people mistype — no zero against O, no one against I or L.

Activation limits and expiry

Set an activation limit to cap how many machines may use one key; the default is one. Your software sends a machine identifier when it activates, and re-activating the same machine costs nothing extra. Deactivating a machine frees its slot, so a customer moving to a new laptop can do so without asking you.

Set “valid for” in days to make keys expire, or leave it blank for a lifetime key. Expiry counts from when the key was issued, not from first activation.

How the buyer receives it

The key appears in the order confirmation email under “Your licence key”, and in the buyer's customer hub. It is not shown on the checkout success page, so a buyer who closes that page has not lost anything.

Two things to know

• Refunding an order does not revoke its licence key. If you refund a customer, the key they were issued keeps validating until you deal with it.
• There is no licence management screen in the merchant dashboard yet. You can see keys against their orders, but revoking one is not something you can do yourself — email support.