Which Runway License is right for me?

We offer two license types for Perch Runway. The standard license and a developer license, which do you need for your project?

Standard License

Most projects will require the standard license. This is required for sites you build for a client, sites for businesses and organizations, sites for charities and non-profits.

Developer License

The developer license is essentially a personal license. We offer this in order that developers can choose to use and learn Perch Runway on their own projects. Allowable usage for live websites includes:

  • a personal blog or website that isn’t part of your business (if you are advertising yourself as a freelancer you need a standard license)
  • a site for your hobby – e.g. your photography or family history research
  • a site for your school or college project

If you aren’t sure about whether you use would be covered by this license drop us a line.

Using the license for a work-in-progress

A good use of the developer license is for a work-in-progress. It is allowable to use a developer license during development of a non-personal site. The price to upgrade a developer license to a full Runway license is the difference between the two licenses. As long as you upgrade before going live, this is an acceptable use case.

Some developers have a personal license they use for development purposes, and then buy a full license on going live, keeping their personal license for use during development of their next project. This is a great way to work, especially if you directly pass the license cost onto the client, or ask them to buy their own license.

Limitations of the Developer License

The software you download is the same whichever license you use. However developer licenses may not be transferred to another party, and may only be used for the “personal use” cases outlined above or clarified in your contact with us. Remember that license sales are how we are able to continue to develop and support Perch. Trying to game the system essentially damages our ability to make Perch Runway better for you.

Converting a standard Perch License to a Perch Runway Developer License

As you may have noticed, a Perch Runway Developer license is priced the same as a Standard License for regular Perch. What we would love to see is Perchers who would use Perch for a personal project, perhaps picking a Runway Developer license and trying out Perch Runway instead.

To that end, if you already have a site with a valid Perch 2 license that meets the Developer License requirements (or an unused Perch 2 license) and are happy that your upgraded license will then have the limitations described above, you can switch free of charge.

How to convert a license:

To convert a Perch 2 license to a Runway Developer license find the license in your Perch Account, you will have an option to Upgrade. This will actually replace your license with a Runway license so be sure that you are ready to upgrade your site and have read the information about how to do so.

You will need to confirm that your use of the license meets the developer license conditions.

Converting a Perch Runway Developer License to a Perch Runway Standard License

If your needs change – for example you start offering freelance services from your personal site, or you bought a Developer License just to play around with Runway and now want to put it onto a live site, that’s fine. You can upgrade your developer license to a standard Runway license by paying the difference between the two.