Licensing Plugins and Add-ins with Devolens

When you’re ready to sell a plugin or add-in (for example for Autodesk, Rhino/Grasshopper, SketchUp, or similar platforms), licensing quickly becomes part of your product.

Most plugin vendors need to handle:

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• Payments and renewals
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• Seat or device limits
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• Feature-based editions
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• Trials and subscriptions
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• Offline or restricted environments
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Devolens provides a licensing and entitlements layer that works consistently across plugin ecosystems, without locking you into a specific store or distribution channel.

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coolOrange (creator of the Autodesk add-ins powerLoad, powerJobs, powerGate, and more) is one of many long-term customers that use Devolens for software licensing.

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Common Approaches to Plugin Licensing

Teams usually start with one of these options.

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Platform Stores

Examples include:

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• Autodesk App Store
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• Food4Rhino
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• SketchUp Extension Warehouse
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These are useful for:

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• Discovery and distribution
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• Basic purchase verification
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• Exposure to existing user bases
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But they typically lack:

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• Per-seat or per-device enforcement
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• Feature-based licensing
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• Floating or concurrent seats
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• Offline licensing flows
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• Control over pricing models
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• Flexible enterprise terms
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And payments and policies are defined by the platform.

Devolens (Dedicated Licensing Platform)

With Devolens, plugin vendors can:

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• Use any payment flow or invoice B2B customers
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• Keep store listings for discovery
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• Enforce licensing independently of the platform
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• Support multiple pricing models from one system
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• Run licensing across environments and customers
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Many teams publish a free or trial listing for reach, and unlock paid features in-app using Devolens.

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How Plugin Licensing Works in Practice

A typical setup looks like this:

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• Define licensing rules (features, seats, limits, trials)
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• Add a license check inside the plugin
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• Distribute the same plugin to all users
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• Unlock functionality through entitlements
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• Convert trials to paid without reinstalling
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This allows you to ship:

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• One plugin build
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• One licensing integration
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• Multiple pricing plans
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Without maintaining separate versions for each edition.

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Supported Tech Stacks

Devolens supports all major plugin development stacks, including:

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• C# / .NET (Revit, AutoCAD, Rhino, many CAD tools)
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• Python (Maya, Fusion, Grasshopper scripting)
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• C++ (native or performance-critical plugins)
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The same licensing flow works regardless of host application.

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Example: License Verification

Below is a simplified C# example showing how a plugin might validate a license and enable features. Please check out our documentation page for more code examples in other languages.

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var licenseKey = "GEBNC-WZZJD-VJIHG-GCMVD"; // <--  remember to change this to your license key
var RSAPubKey = "enter the RSA Public key here";

var auth = "access token with permission to access the activate method";
var result = Key.Activate(token: auth, parameters: new ActivateModel()
{
    Key = licenseKey,
    ProductId = 3349,  // <--  remember to change this to your Product Id
    Sign = true,
    MachineCode = Helpers.GetMachineCodePI(v: 2)
});

if (result == null || result.Result == ResultType.Error ||
    !result.LicenseKey.HasValidSignature(RSAPubKey).IsValid())
{
    // an error occurred or the key is invalid or it cannot be activated
    // (eg. the limit of activated devices was achieved)
    Console.WriteLine("The license does not work.");
}
else
{
    // everything went fine if we are here!
    Console.WriteLine("The license is valid!");
}

Console.ReadLine();

Business Benefits for Plugin Vendors

Using a dedicated licensing platform gives:

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• Flexible pricing without custom infrastructure
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• Faster iteration on plans and editions
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• Centralized license management
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• Reduced internal maintenance
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• Easier enterprise and team support
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Instead of rebuilding licensing logic per platform, licensing becomes a shared service across your entire plugin portfolio.

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Technical Capabilities

Devolens supports common plugin licensing needs:

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• Per-seat and per-device licenses
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• Floating or concurrent seats for labs and teams
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• Feature-based entitlements
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• Usage tracking and limits
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• Offline activation with signed, time-limited tokens or a license server
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• Central dashboards and analytics
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This makes it suitable for:

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• Commercial plugin vendors
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• Internal tools used across teams
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• Enterprise-focused add-ins
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• Secure or air-gapped environments
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Getting Started with Devolens

If your plugin needs more than basic purchase verification, licensing becomes part of your product infrastructure.

You can create a free account and experiment at your own pace — no production commitment required.

Our documentation page has detailed guides and code snippets for a quick and easy implementation so you can add licensing to your plugins and add-ins that scales with platforms, customers, and pricing models.