Licensing terms, in plain English

The model, in one sentence

Flowdrome is licensed per host — per machine that runs your workflows — with unlimited workflows and unlimited runs on each licensed host. You are not billed per task, per run, or per user. A flat price per machine, and that machine can do as much work as it can handle.

Plans & pricing

Prices are per host. Local pricing in GBP, EUR, and AUD is shown automatically at checkout.

Annual billing (two months free) is available for Starter, Business, and Hosting at checkout. The Sealed tier is for hosts with no internet access: it uses a signed offline entitlement file instead of checking in, is invoiced annually, and is arranged by contacting us — not bought through the self-serve checkout.

How billing works

• These are auto-renewing subscriptions. When you buy, your payment method is charged automatically at the start of each period (monthly or annual) until you cancel. You never have to come back and pay again manually, and we'll never ask you to.
• Our reseller is Paddle. Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for every purchase. They handle payment, sales tax / VAT, invoices and receipts, and payment-related questions. Your card details never touch our servers.
• A failed renewal is not an instant cancellation. If a renewal charge fails (an expired card, say), Paddle retries on a schedule and emails you to update your payment method. Your license keeps working during those retries. Only if the retries are exhausted and the subscription is canceled does your license begin to wind down (see below).
• You can cancel anytime from the account-management link in your purchase and renewal emails. Canceling stops future renewals; it does not, by itself, refund the current period.

Your license key

• One key per host. When you buy, you receive one flk_… key per host you purchased. Enter it on the host's dashboard (Admin → Licensing) or push it from your Nucleus. The key is shown once on the success page and emailed to you — keep the email.
• Licensed hosts check in with flowdrome.com about once a day to confirm the license is active. The check-in reports only the host's identity, version, and workflow count — never your workflow contents or data.
• A key is for one host at a time. You may move a key to a different machine (new hardware, a rebuild) — that's fine, as long as the two are not running at the same time. Running the same key on two hosts simultaneously is not permitted. When we detect it, we notify you and give you time to resolve it; unresolved or repeated simultaneous use may lead to the key being suspended or invalidated. If you need a second host, license a second host.

Working offline

A licensed host does not need a constant connection. If it briefly can't reach flowdrome.com, it keeps running on its last confirmed license — we don't punish a network blip. A host that cannot verify its license for a prolonged period (on the order of a month) may have its paid entitlement suspended until it can check in again. If your hosts genuinely have no internet access, that's what the Sealed / Air-gapped plan is for.

What "reverts to Free" actually does

Free is a real, working tier — reverting to it is not a shutdown. Precisely what changes when a host reverts to Free:

• Commercial use is no longer permitted (Free is for personal / evaluation use).
• Deployed workflows are capped at 25. If the host has more than 25 deployed, the excess is paused automatically — newest first, so the workflows you set up earliest keep running. Paused workflows answer 503 and stop firing; they are not deleted.
• You can't deploy a 26th workflow until you're back under the cap or licensed again.
• Nothing is lost. Every workflow, run history, credential, table, and setting stays exactly where it is. The moment you re-license or reactivate, the paused workflows resume on the next check-in — we resume exactly the ones we paused, and never touch anything you paused yourself.

What we never do

• We never delete your data to enforce a license. Enforcement pauses; it does not destroy.
• We never lock you out of your own data. Your dashboard stays available, and you can export everything, on any tier and in any license state — including expired.
• We never brick a host. The worst case for any license problem is reverting to the Free tier.
• We never read your workflow contents during a license check-in. It reports identity, version, and counts only.

Fair use

The rules above exist so the product can be sustainably built by a small team. We ask you not to work around them — for example by repeatedly buying and refunding to cycle through grace periods, running one key on many hosts at once, or otherwise using enforcement gaps to obtain paid capabilities without a paid license. Doing so may result in a key being suspended or invalidated. If a plan doesn't fit your situation, email us — we would rather find something that works than have you fight the licensing.