Licensing and subscriptions | BrailleKit

BrailleKit is commercial software. Every install starts a 14-day trial with Annual-tier features unlocked, and continues only on an active Annual or Pro subscription. This page covers what each tier unlocks, how to activate a license, and how the app behaves when the network is unavailable or a subscription lapses.

At a glance

Tier	Price (EUR/year)	What it unlocks
Trial	free	14 days. Same features as Annual. No activation required.
Annual	49.99	Text translation, document import, BRF reformatting, e-mail support.
Pro	199.99	Everything in Annual, plus the CLI, translation presets, embosser profiles, batch reformat, and the right to use BrailleKit output for commercial print runs.

The trial period gives you Annual-tier features only. Pro-tier features (presets, embosser profiles, batch reformat, CLI) stay gated until you activate a Pro key.

After 14 days the app stops opening until you activate a key or quit. The trial expiry is a hard gate, not a nag screen.

The trial

The clock starts on first launch, recorded once in HKCU\Software\BrailleKit\BrailleKit\License\FirstLaunch (Windows) or ~/Library/Preferences/com.slohmaier.BrailleKit/License/FirstLaunch (macOS). The status bar shows the remaining days:

Trial — 14 days left

When the count reaches zero the License dialog appears at startup and the main window stays closed until you either activate a key or quit.

Activating a license

After purchase you receive a license key by e-mail — a 36-character UUID, for example 00591516-9023-4AF5-97B5-5E2253580ED5. To activate:

Open BrailleKit. If the trial has not expired, choose Help ▸ License… (Windows: Alt+H, L; macOS: menu bar). After the trial expires the License dialog appears automatically on launch.
Paste the key into the License key field and click Activate.
BrailleKit contacts the Lemon Squeezy license API and registers this machine as one of the 5 activations the key includes. On success the dialog closes and the status bar updates to Annual or Pro.

If the API rejects the key (typo, refund, revocation, all 5 activations used), the dialog stays open with an error message in the Status field. Re-paste, fix the key, or use the Deactivate action on another machine that no longer needs the license.

The dialog and all license operations are screen-reader-accessible — see Accessibility features.

Buying a license

Both checkouts run on Lemon Squeezy. Prices include EU VAT where required; invoices arrive by e-mail.

The same URLs are wired into the in-app Buy Annual and Buy Pro buttons in the License dialog.

Offline behaviour

BrailleKit revalidates the license once per launch in the background. Three things can happen:

Online, still valid — the license stays Annual / Pro and the LastValidated timestamp updates. You will not notice anything.
Offline, recently validated — if LastValidated is within the last 14 days, the license keeps working. This is the offline grace period; it lets you travel without network for two weeks without losing access.
Online, invalidated — if Lemon Squeezy reports the license as refunded or revoked, BrailleKit sets the Invalidated flag and gates the next launch behind the License dialog.

After a subscription's expires_at date passes, there is an additional 7-day post-expiry grace period before the app flips to License expired and gates Pro / Annual features. The intent is to cover a brief renewal delay (charge failure, weekend lapse) without locking a paying customer out the moment the credit card timed out.

Moving to another machine

Each key includes 5 activations. To free one:

Deactivate this machine — in the License dialog, click Deactivate. BrailleKit clears the local Key / InstanceId and frees the activation slot on Lemon Squeezy. The app reverts to whatever state it would otherwise be in (Trial if days remain, TrialExpired if not).

If you run out of activations (e.g. five new computers, three old ones never deactivated), e-mail support@slohmaier.com with the license key and we will reset the activation count manually.

Command-line tool

The braillekit_cli binary is a Pro-tier feature. Free and Annual tiers get the desktop app, not the CLI:

$ braillekit_cli "Hallo" de-g2
BrailleKit CLI — Pro subscription required.

The command-line tool is included with the Pro
subscription (199 EUR/year). The Free and Annual
tiers run document translation through the GUI app.

Activate a Pro license in BrailleKit (Preferences ▸
License) or buy one at:
  https://slohmaier.lemonsqueezy.com/checkout/buy/...

Internal benchmark and integration scripts that bundle the CLI can set BRAILLEKIT_CLI_ALLOW_NONPRO=1 to bypass the gate. This is documented for completeness; do not export the variable in normal use — it does nothing for the upgrade path and only exists so the scons benchmark target can drive the CLI without a Pro key.

What is sent to Lemon Squeezy

The license module is the only network code in BrailleKit. It contacts api.lemonsqueezy.com for three endpoints:

Endpoint	When	Data sent
`POST /v1/licenses/activate`	You click Activate	License key, machine hostname (`instance_name`)
`POST /v1/licenses/validate`	Once per launch, in the background	License key, instance id
`POST /v1/licenses/deactivate`	You click Deactivate	License key, instance id
{.licensing-data-table}

No translation data, no document contents, no telemetry is sent. Lemon Squeezy stores your e-mail (for the receipt) and order history under their privacy policy at https://www.lemonsqueezy.com/privacy.

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