Sell software online with licence keys your app can verify, and no revenue share.
Selling a desktop app, a plugin, a script or a small SaaS licence has one requirement the other digital products do not: the buyer needs a key, and your software needs a way to check it. Merchant-of-record platforms will do that for a percentage of every sale and a say in your refunds. A checkout with a licence-key endpoint does it for nothing per sale, on your own Stripe account.
Overview
EmbPay issues a key on every successful purchase, in a format you choose the prefix for, and gives your application a public endpoint to verify and activate it. You set how many machines one key may activate and whether it expires. Payment is a direct charge on your own Stripe account, and the installer or archive ships alongside the key as an expiring download.
How software and licence keys are priced in practice.
Utilities and plugins commonly sell in the tens of dollars; professional tools and developer libraries in the hundreds; team and site licences above that, usually as a higher activation count.
Activation count is the natural pricing axis. A single-seat key at the base price and a five-machine key at a multiple of it are the same product with two pricing options and two activation limits. For subscriptions, a yearly key with an expiry set to 365 days makes the licence itself stop validating when the term ends. Upgrades from an older version sell well as a coupon on the new product.
Pricing options that fit
- One-time licence — a perpetual key, lifetime or with a “valid for” in days.
- Subscription licence — a key minted with the first payment for a recurring plan.
- Several options — single-seat and multi-seat prices on one product, each with its own activation limit.
One product can carry up to six pricing options; the buyer chooses at checkout. Full detail in subscriptions, split-pay and pay-what-you-want.
Selling software and licence keys with EmbPay takes three steps.
- 1
Create the product
In the dashboard, add a product with a name, description and price. Choose how it is delivered: upload a file, point to a hosted URL, issue a licence key, or show instructions after purchase.
- 2
Package your software and licence keys
Upload one build per product: the installer or a zip of the binaries, up to 500 MB. If you ship Mac and Windows builds, either zip both together or make a product per platform and offer the other as a bump. Your download page can also stay on your own servers, using the hosted-URL delivery type, with EmbPay providing only the key. Licence keys look like EMBP-7K4M-9XQP-2WRT-H8YN with your own prefix of up to eight characters.
- 3
Share the link or embed the checkout
Every product has a hosted page you can link from anywhere, and an embed snippet for your own site. Connect your Stripe account and buyers can pay; until then the page says the product is not on sale yet.
The parts of EmbPay software and licence keys sellers actually use.
Every item here is enforced in code, on the free plan unless it says otherwise.
Keys your app can verify
A public verify endpoint takes a key, a machine identifier and the product id, and returns whether the key is valid, with a rate limit per IP. Activate and deactivate calls manage machine slots so a customer can move to a new laptop without emailing you.
Activation limits and expiry
Default one machine per key; raise it for team licences. Set “valid for” in days for a term licence or leave it blank for lifetime. Expiry counts from issue, not first activation.
Key delivery that survives a closed tab
The key is in the confirmation email under “Your licence key” and in the buyer's customer hub. It is deliberately not shown on the success page alone.
Webhooks and an API
Signed webhooks for order and subscription events on every plan; a REST API on Pro to create checkouts and products from your own systems. Idempotency keys are supported on checkout creation.
What a sale costs you: Stripe's fee, and nothing else.
EmbPay platform fee
On every plan, including free. There is no per-sale percentage and no per-order charge anywhere in the payment path.
0%
Stripe processing
Billed by Stripe on your own account, as on any card payment. Usually 2.9% + 30¢ for a US domestic card; other countries differ.
Stripe's rate
Monthly
Free covers two products. Pro adds unlimited products, licence keys and API keys. Neither takes a cut.
$0 or $29
Work out the exact Stripe fee for your country and price with the Stripe fee calculator.
Selling software and licence keys: the questions we get.
Which plan do I need?
Licence-key products and API keys are both on Pro, at $29 a month. Creating a licence product on the free plan returns a clear upgrade message. Pro takes no percentage of sales.
What happens to a key when a subscription is cancelled?
Today, nothing automatic: the key issued with the first payment keeps validating until it reaches its expiry. Set “valid for” to the billing interval so a yearly licence lapses when the year does, and rely on that rather than on cancellation events.
Can I revoke a key after a refund or a chargeback?
Not from the merchant dashboard yet. Refunding an order does not revoke its key. Contact support to have a key revoked; if you need self-service revocation today, EmbPay is not there yet and this page would rather say so.
How does the verify call work offline?
It does not; verification is an HTTPS request. The usual pattern is to verify on activation, cache the result locally with a grace period, and re-check periodically. The endpoint returns a normal response with a valid flag for unknown keys, so check the body rather than the HTTP status.
Is EmbPay the merchant of record?
No. You are. Charges are made directly on your own Stripe account, refunds and tax are yours, and no platform sits between you and the money. That is the trade against merchant-of-record services: no revenue share, but the compliance is yours.
Start selling software and licence keys on the free plan.
No card required. Build the product and rehearse the checkout in test mode, then connect your Stripe account to be paid.
Also selling ai prompts, notion templates, videos and stock footage or pdfs? Or see everything you can sell with EmbPay.