A license in Fontdue is what a customer attaches to a font in their cart. Each license carries a base multiplier, a list of font formats to include in the download, and zero or more variables the customer fills in at checkout. Variables either capture a pricing dimension (number of computers, monthly pageviews, app size) or free text (a domain name, an app name).
The fastest way to start is from a built-in preset – Desktop, Web, App, or Test. With no licenses configured yet, Catalog → Licenses surfaces the presets directly; pick one to create it. The presets ship with sensible defaults that you can edit afterwards.11If you plan to drive tiered pricing through a Company size order variable, strip the pricing variables off the Desktop, Web, and App presets – the order-level multiplier handles the tier scaling instead.
License types
Every license has a type that controls where and how it appears.
- Retail
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selectable during checkout. The vast majority of your licenses will be retail.
- Test
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automatically attached to test font downloads. Not selectable at checkout.
- Special
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display-only. Surfaced on the demo template’s Licenses page so customers know to reach out for terms.
Retail licenses
Retail licenses are the ones customers actually pick during checkout. Each carries a base multiplier, a list of font formats to deliver, and any number of variables that drive the final price. The sections below cover each of those pieces in turn.
Default license
When a customer clicks Buy on a product page they have to pick at least one license before anything goes into the cart. Mark one license as Default selected22The Desktop preset ships with this turned on. so the picker arrives pre-filled – most foundries set Desktop as the default.
Font types
Each license declares which font formats are included in the download. Four formats are supported:
- OTF
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the standard desktop format.
- TTF
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also a desktop format. Required for variable fonts33See Variable fonts for details. (which can only be TTF) and used when foundries supply manually-hinted TTFs for Windows. Unlike webfonts, TTFs aren’t auto-generated from OTFs (or vice versa) – upload them explicitly if you want them included.
A Desktop or App license should include both OTF and TTF – customers receive whichever format you’ve uploaded for each style. A Web license should include WOFF and WOFF2.
Variables
Variables are how a license captures customer-specific information at checkout. Three types are available:
- Select
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a dropdown of named options, each with its own multiplier. Examples: “Up to 50 computers” (×7), “Up to 5M monthly active users” (×240). The customer picks one option per variable.
- Text
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a free-form text field stored on the order. Useful for capturing something you don’t want to price against – a domain name on a Web license, an app name on an App license.
- Table
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like Select, but each option carries multiple amounts laid out in a grid. Configure the column headers in the variable’s Units field; each option then has a name (e.g. “Small”, “Medium”) and one amount per column. Use this for mixed-use licenses where one option needs to encode several values at once.
A license can carry as many variables as it needs, in any combination – the Web preset uses two Select variables (pageviews and domains); the App preset uses one. Drag the handle on a variable or option row to reorder it; the order you set is the order customers see in the picker.
Pricing calculation
Every retail license has a base multiplier, and each Select or Table option has its own multiplier. The line item’s price is:
Item price × License base multiplier × Variable option multipliers (multiplied together)
For example, say a customer adds Example Sans Regular ($200) to their cart with a Web license:
- Web license base multiplier: ×1
- Pageviews → “5M pageviews per month”: ×12.5
- Domain → “2 domains”: ×2
The line item totals $5,000 ($200 × 1 × 12.5 × 2).
If the customer selects multiple licenses for one item – say Desktop and Web together – Fontdue computes each license’s price independently and adds them. There’s no built-in multi-license discount.
Test license
A Test license is non-selectable at checkout but automatically included with every test font download. Customers receive it alongside the font files – as a LICENSE.html rendered from the markdown, or as the attached PDF if you’ve uploaded one. You’ll typically have exactly one Test license.
Special licenses
Special licenses cover use cases your retail licenses don’t – broadcast, OEM, retail packaging, anything that needs custom terms. They don’t have multipliers or variables and they don’t appear in the storefront license picker, but they do show up on the demo template’s Licenses page so customers know what’s possible. Pricing and terms are negotiated between you and the customer outside Fontdue.
License text and PDFs
Each license has two text fields:
- Description
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a short blurb shown next to the license in the picker.
- Text
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the full EULA, in markdown. Rendered on the customer-facing license page and bundled with each download.
If you’d rather distribute your EULA as a PDF, attach one to the license – when a PDF is present, the admin form swaps out the License text field, and order ZIPs and the test fonts archive bundle the PDF in place of the rendered markdown.
Restricting licenses to specific collections
By default, every retail license is offered for every font collection. To restrict a license to a subset of collections – say you only want Web licenses available on a few specific releases – turn off Licenseable by default on the Web license, then on each collection where Web should apply tick Limit retail licenses and add Web (alongside the other licenses you want selectable there).55The Limit retail licenses control only appears on root collections – superfamilies and standalone families, not children inside a superfamily.
Reordering
The Licenses index supports drag-to-reorder. The order you set there is the order customers see in the storefront license picker.