Licensing FAQ
Licensing
Our two licenses are designed to do two things at once: support small studios and cultural work, and stay fair to large companies that get a lot of value from our fonts.
The End-user License is priced on the size of the organisation that uses the fonts. A company that builds its brand on them across thousands of employees gets far more out of them than a small theatre printing its season posters, so it pays more. That is what keeps our fonts within reach for everyone else.
The Studio License is for the design studios behind so much cultural and independent work. Instead of buying a new license for every small client, often costing more than the job pays, a studio buys one license, priced on its own size. It covers its work for small clients, and for cultural and non-profit clients of any size. Both are under pressure right now, with cultural budgets being cut and small studios feeling it first, and we want our fonts to stay part of that work.
A license for design studios of any size. Your studio holds it and uses the fonts for posters, books, publications, programmes, signage, exhibitions, presentations, merchandise and social media posts, for any number of clients with up to 50 employees, logos and identities included. Cultural and non-profit clients are covered at any size, except their logos and identities. Your studio’s own website is included too.
The price is the desktop price for your studio’s size, times 1.5. It pays off from the first larger client project.
The license for the organisation that publishes the work: usually your client, or yourself for your own projects. It is priced on the size of that organisation and comes in three types that can be combined. Desktop covers print and static digital work, Web covers one website and its subdomains, and App covers one app, game or interactive product.
Organisations with more than 5,000 employees get an Enterprise License, quoted individually.
That depends on the license. With a Studio License, your studio holds the license and uses the fonts for print and static digital work for clients with up to 50 employees, and for cultural and non-profit clients of any size. With an End-user License, the organisation that publishes the work holds it: usually your client, or yourself for your own projects. You can buy and pay for an End-user License on your client’s behalf; the client is still named as the license holder.
Your client buys an End-user License with Web for its domain, priced on its own size. Cultural and non-profit clients get 33% off. You can buy it on your client’s behalf. Your studio’s own website is already covered by the Studio License.
Because it is the simplest fair measure of how much an organisation gets out of a typeface. Page views, print runs or the number of people who install the fonts change all the time and are hard to check. Headcount is one number anyone can look up, and it grows with the reach of the brand that uses the fonts.
It also means you never count users, devices or projects: department structure and how widely the fonts are used inside the organisation do not change the price.
Count everyone employed by the legal entity that holds the license, part-time staff included. Subsidiaries count separately unless they use the fonts too. For cultural institutions, only the institution’s own staff count — the theatre, museum or festival, not the city, state or foundation behind it.
Freelancers count only for a Studio License: anyone who regularly works for your studio is part of it, because they do the work the license covers. For an End-user License, freelancers do not count.
At checkout you pick the range the number falls into. If you are unsure, ask us at license@softdrivefoundry.com.
Forever. All licenses are perpetual: no subscription, no renewal fees and no expiry date.
When a project goes beyond what the standard licenses cover. There are three extensions. Trademarked Logo applies when a logo set in our fonts is registered as a trademark; it is acquired by the trademark owner together with its End-user License, also when the logo was designed under a Studio License. Font Customization applies when you want to modify the outlines of glyphs. Custom Font Naming applies when the font should carry a client or project name.
Extensions are arranged individually. Write to license@softdrivefoundry.com.
Contexts we look at individually. Any use of our typefaces in political contexts — campaigns, messaging, slogans or the identities of parties and organisations — needs our prior approval, and so does use in religious contexts. Cultural and non-profit organisations, on the other hand, get 33% off all End-user Licenses.
If you are not sure whether your project counts, ask us at license@softdrivefoundry.com.
Softgoods
Objects we make alongside the typefaces, like our caps. They are produced in small runs and sold in the Softgoods shop, with shipping within the EU and to Switzerland.
Yes. You can withdraw from your purchase within 14 days of receiving it, without giving a reason. Write to support@softdrivefoundry.com and send the item back within 14 days; we refund the price including the standard shipping costs. The cost of sending it back is yours.
The details are in the Softgoods Terms and Conditions.
Some items do. We make Softgoods in small runs and reprint the ones people keep asking for; others are one-offs. Write to support@softdrivefoundry.com and tell us which item you are waiting for, and sign up for the newsletter to hear about new runs.
Purchase & Account
Prices are shown without VAT; the VAT is added at checkout. Softdrive® Foundry is based in Germany, so customers in Germany always pay 19% VAT, businesses included, and don’t need to enter a VAT ID.
Businesses in other EU countries enter their VAT ID and pay no VAT: the reverse charge applies, and you account for the VAT in your own country. Private customers in the EU pay their country’s VAT rate, and customers outside the EU pay no VAT. The invoice shows the net price, the VAT and the total.
Your fonts and invoice come by e-mail either way. With an account you can also download your fonts again at any time, see all your licenses in one place, download every invoice from your order history, and get updated font files in your dashboard.
Automatically. After payment, the invoice comes as a PDF attached to your order confirmation. It can be made out to you or to your client: add a company name and, within the EU, a VAT ID at checkout. The license holder is printed on the invoice separately.
With an account, you can download all invoices again from your order history.
Fonts are digital goods, so a purchase can’t be returned once the files are downloaded. If something went wrong — you picked the wrong license or the wrong company size — write to license@softdrivefoundry.com and we’ll swap or upgrade your license. You only pay the difference.
Discounts & Free Stuff
Everything up to publication. You can explore, test, and present ideas — internally or to a client. Once the work goes live, whether a brand launches, a publication is printed, or a website ships, it needs a license: your Studio License, or your client’s End-user License.
Trials come as desktop fonts (OTF and TTF). Webfonts come with every web license.
All of them. Each trial is the complete font with the full character set, so you can test every language, figure and symbol before you buy.
Yes, free of charge, for non-commercial work during your studies. Request it with the name of your school or university on the Students page. Once we have checked it, you get full versions of our typefaces by e-mail.
Any professional use — freelance, internships, client projects — needs a commercial license, even while you are enrolled. After graduation, you can keep using the fonts for non-commercial personal projects.
Yes. Cultural institutions and non-profit organisations get 33% off all End-user Licenses, at every size. Select the option at checkout. The Studio License has no cultural discount: it is already the reduced way to work for many cultural clients at once.
The more styles of a family you buy, the cheaper each one gets, up to 65% off. All discounts are calculated automatically: the checkout always finds the best deal for you and shows the exact price.
Technical
Desktop licenses come as OTF and TTF. Web, App and Studio Licenses add WOFF and WOFF2 to the same download, so one package covers every environment the license allows.
The character set of each family is listed on its typeface page and in the PDF specimen. If a language or script you need is not covered, ask — extending a family is often possible.
Yes, on request. Variable fonts are not part of the standard download yet. If you have a license for a family that has a variable version, write to license@softdrivefoundry.com and we’ll send it to you at no extra cost. The trials already include the variable versions, so you can try them first.
Custom Projects
Yes. We design custom typefaces for brands, institutions and agencies, from a single wordmark to complete type systems. Most recently we drew ServiceNow Sans with Instrument: text, display and mono cuts covering more than 200 languages.
Tell us about your project at inquiry@softdrivefoundry.com.
Yes. Much of our custom work runs alongside a branding agency or an in-house design team, either under their art direction or with us leading the type.
We work on a fixed project fee, agreed up front after a first conversation about scope. It depends on the number of styles, the character set, and the license. A single display cut or wordmark sits at the low end; a multi-style family with extended language support at the high end.
A typical family takes three to nine months. A wordmark, a display cut or an extension is usually a matter of weeks.
Yes. We extend our typefaces with new weights, italics or scripts, adjust single glyphs, or rename a font for your brand. Small changes are covered by the Font Customization extension; larger adaptations are quoted as a project.
Yes. Bespoke logos, wordmarks and lettering are part of our custom work, drawn from scratch or built on one of our typefaces. A wordmark usually takes a few weeks. Write to inquiry@softdrivefoundry.com.
Feel free to reach out in case something is still unclear or you have a special request that our model does not cover. There is also an even more detailed description of the model in our General Terms.