---
title: "Billing and licensing"
description: "What you pay for, how endpoint hours are metered, and how the licence your Depot verifies is issued and renewed."
url: "https://support.outpostplatform.com/guides/billing-and-licensing/"
product: "platform"
type: "concept"
status: "stub"
ai_summary: "Explains Outpost billing and licensing from the customer's side. A signed licence file is issued for your subscription and verified by your Depot at start up, and it names the operating mode. Billing is a platform fee plus metered endpoint hours, with a capped trial and no free tier."
source: "https://gitlab.com/outpostplatform/docs/-/edit/main/src/content/docs/guides/billing-and-licensing.md"
license: "CC BY 4.0"
---

# Billing and licensing

Two things follow from your subscription: the licence file your Depot verifies
at start up, which names the operating mode and which nothing in configuration
can override, and the usage your Depot reports, which is what you are billed
for. This page is for whoever approves the spend and whoever has to explain a
line on the invoice.

<!-- TODO: write this page against the concept template.

Sections:

- What a licence is: signed when your subscription is issued, verified by your
  Depot, and bound to one instance.
- What happens when a licence is missing, expired or wrong. It never stops the
  service: the deployment drops to unlicensed and the human interfaces refuse.
- The operating mode comes from the licence, never from configuration.
- The platform fee, and which fee applies to which kind of organisation.
- Metered endpoint hours: what counts as an hour, and the published rate.
- Offline endpoints still meter, and report when they reconnect.
- Storage metering, and why storage you own is never billed.
- The trial: how long it runs, what caps it, and what happens at the end.
- Remote Outpost, which is licensed annually rather than metered.
- Reading your usage before the invoice arrives.
- Renewing, changing mode, and what happens to a licence when you do.
-->

Follow the [concept template](https://gitlab.com/outpostplatform/docs/-/blob/main/templates/concept.md).