---
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.
*Our tier names are inspired by the meaning of Sencho (船長), because you're the captain of your container fleet.*
## Plans
| Tier | Annual (per mo, billed yearly) | Monthly | Founder Lifetime | Seats |
|------|--------------------------------|---------|------------------|-------|
| **Community** | Free | Free | Free | 1 admin |
| **Skipper** | $5.75 | $9.99 | $149 | 1 admin + 3 viewers |
| **Admiral** | $20.75 | $39.99 | $499 | Unlimited |
For larger deployments, an **Enterprise** tier is available with custom pricing, including SLA, priority support, security questionnaires, and custom contracts. Contact [licensing@sencho.io](mailto:licensing@sencho.io) or see [the pricing page](https://sencho.io/pricing) for details.
**Founder Lifetime** is an Early Access offer available for a limited time. Once the window closes, only the Monthly and Annual cycles remain.
### Feature breakdown
**Community** includes:
- Unlimited nodes, the Monaco compose editor, the full stack file explorer (browse, view, edit, upload, download, rename, chmod, delete; admin role for writes), and the App Store with 199+ one-click templates
- Real-time container stats, global logs, the interactive network topology graph, and stack labels
- Git sources for compose stacks
- Multi-node management in both Proxy and Pilot Agent modes
- Manual fleet snapshots (create, browse, restore, delete) and Remote OTA node updates (per-node and **Update all**)
- Fleet Actions tab (stop stacks fleet-wide by label, bulk-assign labels to many stacks on a node, prune Docker resources fleet-wide; admin role required)
- Custom S3-compatible backup target (bring your own AWS S3, Cloudflare R2, MinIO, Backblaze B2, or Wasabi bucket)
- Vulnerability scanning: install, update, and uninstall Trivy, on-demand scans for vulnerabilities, secrets, and misconfigurations, plus scan comparison
- CVE suppressions
- Alert rules with Discord, Slack, and webhook targets
- Two-factor authentication (TOTP plus backup codes)
- Custom OIDC single sign-on (works with Authelia, Keycloak, Authentik, Zitadel, Pocket ID, or any spec-compliant OIDC provider)
**Skipper** includes everything in Community, plus:
- Fleet View with search, sort, filter, and node-card drill-down
- Webhooks (incoming, to trigger deploys from CI/CD)
- Notification routing (per-stack and per-category rules to Discord, Slack, or any webhook)
- Atomic deployments with rollback
- Auto-update policies for stack images
- Auto-heal policies
- Scheduled operations across the full action catalog (lifecycle, updates, scans, snapshots, prune)
- Scan policies with `block_on_deploy` deploy enforcement, SBOM (SPDX, CycloneDX), and SARIF export
- Auto-update of the managed Trivy binary
- Bulk actions on a label (deploy, stop, or restart every stack tagged with it)
- Fleet-wide bulk Sencho restart
- Blueprints and Fleet Secrets
- Preset SSO for Google, GitHub, and Okta
- Viewer accounts (1 admin plus 3 viewers)
**Admiral** includes everything in Skipper, plus:
- Unlimited admin and viewer accounts with the full role set (deployer, node-admin, auditor)
- LDAP / Active Directory authentication
- Audit log with CSV export
- Host Console (a browser-based terminal on the Sencho host)
- API tokens for CI/CD scripts
- Private and custom registry credentials
- Sencho Mesh (cross-node container networking)
- Sencho Cloud Backup
## Free trial
Sencho offers a **14-day Admiral trial** so you can evaluate the flagship features (Host Console, Sencho Mesh, LDAP / Active Directory, audit log, unlimited accounts) with your real infrastructure before committing. The trial is offered on the monthly and annual Admiral plans; the Founder Lifetime plan does not include a trial.
To start a trial:
1. Visit the [pricing page](https://sencho.io/pricing).
2. Switch to the **Annual** or **Monthly** billing tab.
3. Click **Start 14-day trial** on the **Admiral** card.
4. Complete the checkout. A valid card is required for verification; you are not charged until the trial ends.
5. Your license key is emailed to you within a few minutes.
6. Activate the key in the Sencho dashboard as described in [Activating your license](#activating-your-license).
When your trial ends, the card you provided is automatically charged and your plan continues as a paid Admiral subscription. To avoid being charged, cancel from the **Manage subscription** button in **Settings → License** (or from your receipt email) any time before day 14.
Fresh installs land on the **Community** tier until you activate a license key. All Community features (unlimited nodes, compose editor, global logs, alerts, Custom OIDC, and more) are available immediately.
## Activating your license
Open **Settings → License** in the Sencho dashboard. When the license is not active, the **Activate** section sits below the Plan card:
1. Paste your key into the **License key** field.
2. Click **Activate**.
Sencho validates the key and unlocks your tier. If activation fails, the toast surfaces the verbatim error; common causes are an invalid key, a typo, or an activation limit reached on a previous instance.
## The Plan section
When a license is active, **Settings → License** opens on the **Plan** section. The page masthead at the top exposes three stat pills, and the section below lists the metadata for the active license.
The masthead pills are:
| Pill | Meaning |
|------|---------|
| **SCOPE** | Reads `operator` when you are signed in as an admin. |
| **PLAN** | The current tier: `community`, `skipper`, or `admiral`. Trial licenses show the trial tier (typically `admiral`). |
| **DURATION** / **RENEWS** / **TRIAL** / **STATUS** | `DURATION: lifetime` for lifetime licenses, `RENEWS: ` for active subscriptions, `TRIAL: Xd left` for trials, and `STATUS: expired` for expired licenses. |
The **Plan** card lists:
- **Tier name** (e.g. `Sencho Admiral`) with a short status line, such as "Active license on this control plane", "Trial: X days remaining", or "Your license has expired."
- **Customer**: the customer name on the purchase.
- **Product**: the purchased product variant (e.g. `Sencho Admiral`).
- **License key**: the last four characters of your key, displayed as `****-****-****-XXXX`. The full key is never re-displayed after activation.
## Managing your subscription
When the license is an active subscription (not lifetime), the Plan section action row exposes **Manage subscription** alongside **Deactivate**. **Manage subscription** opens the billing portal in a new tab, where you can update your payment method, view invoices, cancel, or switch plans.
The same portal is reachable from the profile menu in the top-right corner of the app:
Click your initials in the top-right corner to open the popover. For active subscription licenses, a **Billing** row appears between **Settings** and **Documentation** that opens the same portal as **Manage subscription**. Lifetime licenses have no recurring subscription to manage, so the **Billing** row is hidden.
### Lifetime licenses
Lifetime licenses have no recurring subscription, so the **Manage subscription** button and the profile menu **Billing** row are both hidden, and the masthead shows `DURATION: lifetime` instead of a renewal date. Deactivation, multi-node enforcement, and periodic validation work the same as for subscription licenses.
## License validation
Active licenses are re-validated every **72 hours**. If your instance goes offline, there is a **30-day grace period** before it degrades to the Community tier.
## License states
The License page renders differently depending on the license status:
| Status | Plan section | Activate section | Pricing section |
|--------|--------------|------------------|-----------------|
| **Community** | `Sencho Community` with "Free tier with the core experience." | Visible | Visible |
| **Trial** | `Sencho Admiral (Trial)` with a countdown chip | Visible (so a paid key can replace the trial) | Hidden |
| **Active subscription** | Tier name with Customer, Product, License key, plus `Manage subscription` and `Deactivate` | Hidden | Hidden |
| **Active lifetime** | Tier name with Customer, Product, License key, plus `Deactivate` only | Hidden | Hidden |
| **Expired** | `Sencho Community` with "Your license has expired. Renew to restore paid features." and a destructive **Status: Expired** field | Visible | Visible |
| **Disabled** | `Sencho Community` with "Your license has been disabled. Contact support for assistance." | Visible | Visible |
The **Pricing** section, when visible, holds a single **See pricing** button that opens [the pricing page](https://sencho.io/pricing) in a new tab so you can pick a tier and billing cadence.
## 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 **control instance**. All remote nodes automatically inherit the control instance'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** in the Plan section.
3. On your new instance, paste the same license key into **License key** and click **Activate**.
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.