# Commercial Licensing

Ferryman is source-available under the [Ferryman Source-Available License](LICENSE).
This page explains when it's free, when it isn't, and how to pay.

## Free

- **Any non-production use** — evaluation, development, testing, personal projects,
  home labs. No limits, no seat count, no time limit.
- **Production use up to 2 Seats, on 2 Computers and 2 phones/tablets.**

A **Seat** is a distinct human who operates, administers, deploys, or accesses
Ferryman or its outputs.

An **Agent** is any automated process acting through Ferryman without a human deciding
each step. **Agents are never Seats, never Devices, and never limited.** Run as many as
you like on each computer. Twenty agents on two computers, run by one person, is one
Seat and costs nothing.

A **Computer** is a machine that runs Ferryman or an agent — including each virtual
machine and each long-lived container, even where several sit on one physical host. A
machine that only holds a synced channel directory, without running Ferryman, doesn't
count.

A **phone or tablet** counts only if it's used to review or approve work (over
Telegram, for example) and runs neither Ferryman nor an agent. One that runs either is
a Computer.

**The three limits are separate, not a pool of six.** Three computers and no phone is
over the free tier, because the computer limit is two.

Free production use asks you to register a contact email, so we can tell you when a
deployment goes over. [PRIVACY.md](PRIVACY.md) states exactly what that sends — three
integers and the address, never anything about your work.

## Paid

Production use beyond any of those three limits needs a per-Seat commercial license.
Commercial licenses have **no limit on computers, phones or agents** — run Ferryman on
as many machines as you like.

| Total production Seats | Per billable Seat / year | ≈ per month |
|---|---|---|
| 1 – 2 | **Free** | — |
| 3 – 25 | **$60** | $5 |
| 26 – 100 | **$42** | $3.50 |
| 101+ | **$30** | $2.50 |

*Billable Seats* = your total production Seats minus the 2 free ones. Your rate is
set by the band your **total** Seat count falls in.

**Example.** A team of 10 pays for 8 billable Seats at the 3–25 rate:
8 × $60 = **$480/year**. That is roughly what one engineer costs per hour.

- **Multi-year, or 250+ Seats:** discounted — ask.
- **Nonprofit, education, and open-source projects:** free or discounted — ask.

## Why priced this way

Deliberately cheap enough that nobody has to build a business case to adopt it, and
priced per human rather than per machine or per agent — so scaling your fleet costs
you nothing. The money exists to keep the project maintained, not to meter your
usage.

## Getting a license

Open an issue titled `Commercial license` on
[github.com/estejosh/ferryman](https://github.com/estejosh/ferryman/issues), or
email `lafamiliahale@gmail.com`. Tell us your total production Seat count and
we'll send terms.

## Attribution

Projects that use Ferryman must include a root-level `FERRYMAN.md` stating that
the project uses it (License section 6). `ferry enable` writes that file into your
work repository, and prints what it wrote.

## Questions people actually ask

**Do my AI agents count as Seats?** No. Only humans count. One person running fifty
agents is one Seat.

**Does a machine that only syncs the folder count as a Device?** No. Only machines
that actually run Ferryman.

**Is this open source?** No, and we don't claim it is. It's source-available: you can
read, modify and redistribute it, but production use above the free tier is paid.
The license does not convert to open source on a timer.

**Can I evaluate it in production before deciding?** Evaluation is non-production use
and free. If you're genuinely trialing it, you're free. When it becomes something you
depend on with more than 2 people, it's production.