Docs / Organizations
Licensing
Overview
This documentation provides an overview of how licensing and subscriptions work within our product.
Key Concepts
License
Definition: The license is a hard limit set at the root organization (root org) level.
Function: It defines the maximum number of unique users that can be registered in the database.
Implementation: The license is a JSON Web Token (JWT) issued by Cycloid, ensuring data integrity and security.
Subscription
Definition: The subscription is a soft limit that applies a specific plan to an organization by assigning a specific amount of seats.
Starter
Advanced
Entreprise
FinOps & GreenOps only
Multi-plan Support: Multiple subscriptions can exist simultaneously for the same organization. For example, one subscription can allocate 10 seats for platform teams, while another can allocate 20 seats for end-users.
Inheritance: Subscriptions are inherited by default to sub-organizations, sharing the same number of seats.
Customization: Specific subscriptions can be applied to sub-organizations, overriding the inherited subscription.
The platform team is responsible for designing the platform, as well as creating and maintaining all necessary automation. In contrast, end-users consume the platform as a self-service. Consequently, end-users have lighter usage and feature requirements compared to the platform team. At Cycloid, we believe it’s not fair to charge end-users the same price as platform team users. By differentiating pricing, you can scale platform usage efficiently without significant budget impacts.
Inheritance and Subscription Sharing
Organizations and internal sub-organizations
Description
OrgA: Shares its subscriptions with OrgA1 and OrgA2.
OrgA1 and OrgA2: Can use free seats from OrgA's subscription.
Scenario: If there is a free seat in OrgA's platform teams subscription, it can be assigned to a user in OrgA1 or OrgA2.
License: As it applies to unique users in the subscriptions, there could be only 10 unique Platform Teams users in all those subscriptions. It will count as 10 seats in the license.
Managed Service Provider (MSP) Context
Description
MSPOrg is a Managed Service Provider company
AdminOrg: 10 seats for their tech team (platform teams). Created under AdminOrg will share AdminOrg's subscription by default until a dedicated subscription is added.
Customer1Org Subscription: Customer1 buys 30 licenses (end users).
Customer2Org Subscription: Customer2 buys 50 licenses (end users).
Usage Calculation
Example: If all seats are filled:
AdminOrg: 10 platform users
Customer1Org: 30 end users
Customer2Org: 50 end users
Total License Usage: 90/100 users
This means you can only create a subscription (or extend an existing one) of 10 users for a new customer because of the hard limit of 100 users in the license. If you need to have more users available, you need to contact Cycloid to issue a new one.
How to add/update/renew a subscription on organization
To add a subscription, you need to execute a command using our backend binary.
./youdeploy-http-api --config-file /opt/config.yml create-subscription --organization-canonical <ORGANIZATION_CAN> --members-count <NUMBER_INT> --plan-canonical <end_users|platform_teams> --expiration-date <2026-09-14T14:00:13Z>
To update or renew a subscription, you have to add the --overwrite parameter to the command above.
Why is there a License ?
Purpose: Ensures that the data cannot be modified or hacked, serving as the source of truth. It is only applied on the root organization.
The license is implemented as a JWT token issued by Cycloid.
How to acquire/renew a License ?
Contact our sales if you are already in contact with us, else use our contact form on our website to get the license. Then reach the root organization settings to add/renew the licence.
Summary
License: A hard limit at the root org level, defining the maximum number of users on Cycloid setup.
Subscription: A soft limit with plans that can be inherited or customized for sub-orgs.
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