When we launched StraySpark, one of the first decisions we made was about licensing. It's not the exciting part of building a tool company, but it might be the most important one. Licensing determines the relationship between a tool maker and the developers who use their tools.

We chose a model that some people think is leaving money on the table: one-time purchase, no subscriptions, no royalties, full C++ source code included.

Here's why.

The Problem with Subscriptions

Subscription models work well for some software. For game development tools, they create problems:

Budget unpredictability. Indie developers and small studios operate on tight budgets. A $15/month tool doesn't sound expensive until you multiply it across 5 tools, 3 team members, and 24 months of development. That's $5,400 for tools that might not ship with your game.

Access hostage. If you stop paying, you lose access. Your project might depend on that tool. Your shipped game might require it for updates. The subscription model creates a dependency that persists long after the initial value has been delivered.

Update pressure. Subscription tools need to justify ongoing payment. This creates pressure to ship features whether they're needed or not, leading to bloated software with features nobody asked for. The tool grows to justify the price rather than the price reflecting the tool's value.

Revenue share anxiety. Some tools take a percentage of your game's revenue. This means you don't know the true cost until after you ship. It discourages success — the better your game does, the more you pay.

One-Time Purchase: Aligned Incentives

A one-time purchase aligns our incentives with yours. You pay once. You get the tool. You own a license to use it in any project, forever.

We still ship updates. We still fix bugs. We still add features. But we do these things because they make the tool better, not because we need to justify a monthly payment. If we stop updating a tool, you still have everything you paid for — and the source code to modify it yourself.

Our licensing model is straightforward:

• Personal license — for individuals and companies under $100k annual revenue
• Professional license — for companies above $100k annual revenue
• No per-project fees — use it in as many projects as you want
• No royalties — your revenue is your revenue
• Lifetime updates — every update to the tool is included

Why Full Source Code

Including full C++ source code with every product wasn't a business decision. It was a trust decision.

You Can Fix What We Miss

No software ships without bugs. When you find one, you shouldn't have to wait for our next release. With source access, you can diagnose the issue, fix it in your project, and keep working. Then report it so we fix it upstream.

You Can Extend for Your Needs

Every project has unique requirements. Maybe you need the dialogue system to integrate with your custom audio middleware. Maybe the placement tool needs to respect your proprietary terrain format. Source access means you're never blocked by our feature roadmap.

You Can Learn From It

Our tools are built by experienced Unreal Engine developers using production patterns. The source code isn't obfuscated or minified — it's clean, documented, and follows Epic's coding standards. If you're learning C++ for UE5, reading production plugin code is one of the best ways to improve.

No Black Boxes in Your Shipped Game

When you ship a game with a plugin, that plugin's code runs in your players' hands. You should be able to audit every line. Source access means you know exactly what's in your build — no telemetry, no callbacks, no surprises.

What We Don't Do

To be specific about what our licensing excludes:

• No telemetry or usage tracking. We don't collect data about how you use our tools. We don't know when you open Unreal, which features you use, or how many instances you place. Your workflow is your business.

• No online activation. Our license keys validate once. There's no periodic check-in, no server dependency, no "phone home." Your tools work offline, always.

• No seat restrictions. One license per person or company. If you grow your team, you don't need to buy additional seats for the same product. We trust you to use the license as intended.

• No transfer restrictions beyond reason. The license is non-transferable, meaning you can't resell it, but you can use it on multiple machines and projects within your organization.

The Business Case

People ask how we sustain this model. It's fair to wonder whether one-time purchases generate enough revenue to support ongoing development.

The answer is that our products sell because they're good, not because they're recurring. Each new tool and each major update brings new customers. Happy customers recommend us to their peers. A developer who saves a week of work with our placement tool tells their game dev friends about it.

We'd rather have 1,000 customers who genuinely chose our tools than 200 subscribers who stay out of inertia. One-time purchases mean every customer is a voluntary customer.

The Industry Context

The game development tool landscape has shifted in recent years. Unity's pricing changes made developers acutely aware of how licensing terms can change unexpectedly. Studios are now more careful about tool dependencies and long-term cost structures.

We built our licensing model before those events, but they reinforced our conviction. Developers deserve tools they can rely on — tools that won't change their pricing model after you've built your project around them.

Our terms of service are clear and won't change retroactively for existing licenses.

What This Means for You

If you buy a StraySpark tool today:

• You own a license to use it forever, in any project
• You get every future update at no additional cost
• You get full C++ source code to read, modify, and learn from
• You're never locked into a payment cycle
• Your revenue stays your revenue

Browse our products to see what we've built, or read the FAQ for detailed licensing questions.

We build tools the way we'd want to buy them. That's the whole philosophy.