Licensing Autodesk Plugins with Devolens

When you’re ready to sell and distribute an Autodesk add-in (Revit, AutoCAD, Inventor, Navisworks, Maya, Fusion 360), 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 layer that works across Autodesk products without tying you to a specific store or payment 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 Autodesk Plugin Licensing

Teams usually start with one of these options.

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Autodesk App Store

The Autodesk App Store provides:

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• Built-in distribution
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• Basic purchase verification
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• Exposure to Autodesk users
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But it typically lacks:

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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 are limited to platform-defined processors.

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Devolens (Dedicated Licensing Platform)

With Devolens, plugin vendors can:

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• Use any payment processor or internal billing
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• Support multiple licensing models
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• Enforce access independently of the store
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• Run licensing across environments and customers
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• Keep one licensing integration across products
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Many teams still use the Autodesk App Store for discovery, but rely on Devolens for licensing and entitlements.

How Licensing Works for Autodesk Add-ins

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 add-in
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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.

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Supported Autodesk Tech Stacks

Autodesk plugins are commonly built using:

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• C# / .NET (Revit, AutoCAD, Inventor, Navisworks)
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• Python (Maya, Fusion 360)
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• C++ (advanced or native integrations)
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All of these stacks are supported through Devolens SDKs and APIs.

Teams typically integrate licensing using the key verification flow, which lets the plugin validate a license and read its entitlements.

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Example: License Verification

Below is a simplified Python example showing how an Autodesk add-in might validate a license. The same pattern applies across languages and Autodesk products.

You can find more code examples here.

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RSAPubKey = "your RSA public key"
auth = "access token with Activate permission"

result = Key.activate(
    token=auth,
    rsa_pub_key=RSAPubKey,
    product_id=3349,
    key="ICVLD-VVSZR-ZTICT-YKGXL",
    machine_code=Helpers.GetMachineCode(v=2)
)

if result[0] is None:
    print(f"License invalid or cannot be activated: {result[1]}")
else:
    print("License is valid.")

Business Benefits for Plugin Vendors

Using a dedicated licensing platform provides:

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• Flexible pricing models without custom code
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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 support
  ‍

Instead of embedding licensing logic per plugin or per Autodesk product, licensing becomes a shared service.

‍

Business Benefits for Plugin Vendors

Using a dedicated licensing platform provides:

‍

• Flexible pricing models without custom code
  ‍
• Faster iteration on plans and editions
  ‍
• Centralized license management
  ‍
• Reduced internal maintenance
  ‍
• Easier enterprise support
  ‍

Instead of embedding licensing logic per plugin or per Autodesk product, licensing becomes a shared service.

‍

Common Autodesk Plugin Scenarios

Teams use Devolens for:

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• Node-locked licenses for individual designers
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• Floating seats in engineering teams
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• Feature-gated editions (Basic / Pro / Enterprise)
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• Trials that convert to paid without reinstall
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• Enterprise deployments with offline environments
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The licensing model can evolve without changing the plugin integration.

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Getting Started with Devolens

If your Autodesk plugin needs more than simple 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 Autodesk add-ins that scales with customers, pricing models, and environments.