---
title: Licensing & Billing
description: How Sencho licensing works, including trials, activation, and subscription management.
---

Sencho uses an open-core model. The **Community** tier is free forever with unlimited nodes. Paid tiers unlock advanced features: **Skipper** for solo operators and **Admiral** for teams.

<Tip>
  *Our tier names are inspired by the meaning of Sencho (船長), because you're the captain of your container fleet.*
</Tip>

## Plans

| Tier | Price | Accounts |
|------|-------|----------|
| **Community** | Free | 1 admin |
| **Skipper** | $5.99/month billed annually, $7.99/month, or $249 lifetime | 1 admin + 3 viewers |
| **Admiral** | $41.99/month billed annually, $49.99/month, or $1,499 lifetime | Unlimited |

Lifetime pricing is an early-adopter offer available for a limited time only.

### Feature breakdown

**Skipper** includes everything in Community, plus:
- Fleet View with drill-down
- Webhooks and stack labels
- Atomic deployments and fleet-wide backups
- Auto-update policies

**Admiral** includes everything in Skipper, plus:
- Unlimited admin and viewer accounts
- Scoped RBAC (deployer, node-admin, auditor roles)
- SSO, audit log, and host console
- API tokens and private registries
- Notification routing
- Scheduled operations

## Free trial

Every new Sencho installation starts with a **14-day Skipper trial**. No license key or credit card is required. Skipper features like fleet management, webhooks, atomic deployments, and auto-update policies are unlocked during the trial so you can evaluate them with your real infrastructure. Admiral-exclusive features (SSO, audit log, host console, scoped RBAC, unlimited accounts) require an Admiral license.

When the trial expires, Sencho automatically reverts to the Community tier. No data is lost.

## Upgrading your plan

You can upgrade directly from **Settings > License** in your Sencho dashboard. The upgrade cards shown depend on your current tier:

- **Community users** see both **Skipper** and **Admiral** options with feature highlights and direct checkout links.
- **Skipper users** see an **Admiral** upgrade card for when you need unlimited accounts and team features.
- **Admiral users** are on the highest tier, so no upgrade cards are shown.

Clicking an upgrade button opens the Lemon Squeezy checkout in a new tab. After completing the purchase, you will receive a license key by email.

<Frame>
  <img src="/images/licensing/license-community.png" alt="License settings showing Skipper and Admiral upgrade cards for Community users" />
</Frame>

## Activating your license

1. Go to **Settings > License** in your Sencho dashboard.
2. Paste your key into the **License Key** field at the bottom of the page.
3. Click **Activate**.

Sencho validates the key against Lemon Squeezy and unlocks your tier's features immediately.

## License validation

Active licenses are re-validated every **72 hours** against the Lemon Squeezy API. If your instance goes offline, there is a **30-day grace period** before it degrades to the Community tier.

## Managing your subscription

Once your license is active, you can manage your subscription in two ways:

- **From the License page:** Go to **Settings > License** and click **Manage Subscription**. This opens the Lemon Squeezy billing portal where you can update your payment method, view invoices, cancel, or switch plans.
- **From the profile menu:** Click your profile icon in the top bar and select **Billing** for quick access to the same portal. This option is hidden for lifetime licenses.

<Frame>
  <img src="/images/licensing/license-admiral-active.png" alt="License settings showing an active Admiral subscription with Manage Subscription button" />
</Frame>

### Lifetime licenses

Lifetime licenses do not have a recurring subscription, so the **Manage Subscription** button is not shown. Instead, the license card displays **Duration: Lifetime** to confirm your license never expires. All other features (deactivation, multi-node enforcement, validation) work the same as subscription licenses.

## Multi-node license enforcement

If you manage multiple servers through Sencho's [multi-node feature](/features/multi-node), you only need a license on your **primary instance**. All remote nodes automatically inherit the primary's license tier for proxied requests. No per-node activation is required.

For details on how this works, see [License enforcement across nodes](/features/multi-node#license-enforcement-across-nodes).

## Deactivating a license

To transfer your license to a different instance:

1. Go to **Settings > License**.
2. Click **Deactivate License**.
3. On your new instance, activate the same license key.

Deactivation reverts the current instance to the Community tier immediately.

Having trouble with your license? See the [Troubleshooting](/operations/troubleshooting#license-tier-shows-the-wrong-name) page for solutions to common licensing issues.