Do I need Pro?

Yes - the full 8-bit editor is free for personal and non-commercial use, with no time limit and nothing in it locked. You get every node (all 97 of them), batch processing, presets, recipes, and viewer slots at no cost.

You need Pro ($49 one-time) in two situations:

1. You use ArcBrush commercially. "Commercial use" means using the app - or using the output you create with it - in the course of a business, trade, or profession, or to generate revenue. Examples: selling art or game assets, using it in paid client work, integrating its output into a shipped product, or using it at a company. If money changes hands as a result of your work with ArcBrush, that is commercial use.
2. You use a Pro Feature. A small set of advanced pipeline features require Pro even for non-commercial creators: the 32-bit (float) processing mode and 16-bit / OpenEXR / OCIO-managed export.

Everything else - the complete 8-bit editor - is free for non-commercial use.

No. The Free / Personal License covers you fully. You can use every node, edit the full node graph, and export 8-bit images with no restrictions.

Yes. All of these are commercial use: selling your art (prints, digital downloads, commissions), any paid client work, and using ArcBrush as part of a business or profession - even if you personally are not the one being paid. The one-time $49 license covers one named individual; there is no subscription. If your employer or studio needs multiple seats, see the Studio section below.

The commercial-use gate is a yes-or-no question based on whether revenue or a business is involved, not on the size. Even one dollar of revenue from work that used ArcBrush makes it commercial use. The revenue and funding numbers in the threshold section below apply only to the Studio tier - they determine whether you need Pro or Studio, not whether you need a license at all.

Studio is required when you exceed EITHER of these two caps - they are separate tests, not summed:

• Gross revenue: more than $250,000 in the trailing 12 months (your total gross, before costs, across you and any affiliated entities), OR
• Outside funding: more than $1,000,000 in the trailing 24 months (total investment, grants, or financing received by you and your affiliates).

If either cap is exceeded, Pro is not available and you need a Studio license. You keep Pro only while BOTH caps stay at or below their limits.

Gross Revenue is the total gross revenue, before any costs, of you and your affiliated entities over the trailing 12 months. Outside Funding is the total investment, grants, or financing received by you and your affiliates over the trailing 24 months. An arm's-length client engagement does not make your client an affiliate. See the Terms of Service (Section 1.0) for the full definitions.

The studio or company needs a Studio license with enough seats for every person who uses ArcBrush commercially. Individual Pro licenses are for named individuals and cannot be shared or assigned to an entity.

Studio is $99 per seat per year. Unlike Pro (a one-time perpetual license), Studio is a 12-month license tied to your account: it is not a subscription, nothing auto-renews, and no card is stored - we email you before it expires and you renew with a new purchase if you want to continue. If it lapses, your work always remains yours and openable (only the Pro features re-lock), and there is a 30-day window after expiry to renew without being in breach of the Terms. Seats are named (one seat = one person, signed in with their own account) but can be reassigned when staff or contractors change; independent arm's-length freelancers working on their own equipment are covered by their own Pro license instead of a seat. To purchase, contact us with your seat count.

Yes. New accounts get a 14-day free trial that unlocks all Pro Features, including the 32-bit (float) mode and all Pro export formats. You need a free account to start it; the easiest way is to sign up and activate it right inside the app. The trial clock starts when you activate it, not at install.

No. The trial is timed by the server, so starting it needs an account and an internet connection. A purchased Pro license has no such requirement: it is a file that works fully offline.

Yes, for evaluation - working on your own commercial or client project files during the trial is intentional; the trial is meant to be realistic. What it does not allow is commercial delivery: trial output may not be published, sold, delivered to a client, or used in commercial production until you buy Pro or Studio.

Once you buy Pro or Studio, the output you created during the trial is retroactively licensed under your new license. See the Terms of Service (Section 1.5).

The trial reverts to the Free / Personal License automatically. You keep full access to everything that is free for non-commercial use. Projects you created in 32-bit mode open in 8-bit mode (your 32-bit document data is preserved in the file - a Pro reopen restores full precision).

Your existing editor stays free - including the commercial use you already had. The build of ArcBrush you received before we introduced commercial licensing remains licensed to you for both non-commercial and commercial use at no cost (this is written into the Terms). You only need Pro if you want the new Pro Features (the 32-bit (float) mode and 16-bit / OpenEXR / OCIO-managed export), or commercial use of newer versions going forward.

Yes. The free-editor and existing-build commercial-use grant applies whether or not you have an account.

As a file. The moment your payment clears, we email your license file to you (attachment plus a download link) - no account needed to buy or to use it. Install it in the app under Settings > Account > Install License; ArcBrush verifies it on your machine. If you happen to buy while signed in to an account, the app also installs it for you automatically.

Install the same license file there: copy it over (Settings > Account > Install License), or have it re-sent to your purchase email. There are no activation counts and no device slots to free - install it on the machines you work on, per the seat terms in the Terms (a Pro license covers one named individual).

Yes, any time - we keep a copy of every license we issue. Use the resend form and every active license for your purchase email is re-sent, file attached. Free, self-serve, no support ticket.

Yes, fully and forever. Your license is a signed file verified on your machine; ArcBrush never needs to contact a license server to let you work - not at install, not monthly, not ever. A permanently offline machine is fine.

It keeps working, no matter what. The file on your disk is the license and the app verifies it locally, so it does not depend on our servers, or on us. We are building ArcBrush for the long haul - the license file model just means you never have to take that on faith.

Pro is a one-time purchase of $49. Checkout asks only for an email address - no account needed - and your license file is emailed to you right away. See the pricing page for the tiers and the trial, or go straight to the checkout.

Checkout is handled by Stripe, which calculates and collects any applicable sales tax or VAT for your location, so the final amount is shown before you pay. A receipt is emailed to you automatically after purchase. If you need a formal invoice for accounting, write to us.

Yes. See the Refund Policy for the money-back window and applicable terms.

Only if you use the two optional Cloud nodes (Remove Background and Upscale). The image is sent over an encrypted connection, used only to perform that one operation, and is never stored: once the result is returned to you, the image no longer exists on the server. All other processing happens locally on your machine. See the Privacy Policy and the transparency page.

No. An account is only needed to start the Pro trial or to use the two Cloud nodes. Buying and using a Pro license needs no account at all - checkout asks for an email address, and the license arrives as a file.

No. ArcBrush does not include text-to-image or image-editing generation. The two Cloud nodes (Remove Background and Upscale) are utility nodes that do not generate images.