License Terms

Plain-English summary · Last updated July 2026

This page is the human-readable summary of how Shack licensing works. The binding license agreement is delivered with your order confirmation and may be updated for future purchases — the terms attached to a purchase you've already made don't change under you.

1. What you're buying

A Shack license is a one-time, per-user license for the version of Shack you purchase. Each licensed user may use that version for life — no renewal, no subscription, no expiry. You are buying a license to use the software; ownership of the software and its source code remains with the developers of Shack.

2. Versions, features & upgrades

Your license covers the version you bought, forever.
New features and future versions are optional and offered as per-license upgrades at an additional charge.
You are never forced to upgrade — your purchased version keeps working regardless.

3. Self-hosted vs. hosted by Shack

Self-hosted (your own server): one-time purchase, no subscription of any kind. All data remains on your server and you control who has access.
Hosted on Shack's servers (optional): the hosting is billed as a subscription covering server space and infrastructure only — never the software. The software license itself remains one-time. Cancel hosting and your licenses stay yours; take your data and self-host any time.

4. Seats & license counts

Your license count is the maximum number of user accounts your Shack deployment may have.
The admin tools track seats against your licenses; add more users any time by buying more licenses.
Creating accounts beyond your licensed count — or modifying the software to bypass, disable or misreport license enforcement — is a breach of these terms.

5. What you may not do

Circumvent, disable or tamper with license or seat-count enforcement.
Resell, sublicense or redistribute Shack or your license keys.
Remove copyright, license or attribution notices.

6. Your data & what we track

For licensing we check one thing only: the number of user accounts in your deployment, measured against the seats you purchased. That aggregate count is the whole of it.

We never receive your users' names, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, or any other personal details — nor your messages, files, encryption keys or metadata. There is no user directory, no content and no analytics on our side. Self-hosted deployments send us nothing but that seat count.

On a self-hosted licence, everything runs on infrastructure you control, and you hold the keys — we never see your server. With optional hosting, your workspace runs as its own isolated stack (its own database, files and keys) on infrastructure we operate; we hold what is needed to deploy, update and stop that stack, and we do not access its contents in the course of business. Attachments are encrypted at rest and calls are end-to-end encrypted; message text is not yet end-to-end encrypted. If a hosted subscription ends, the workspace becomes read-only, the owner can export everything, and the stack is then deleted — we keep no copy. Cancel any time and take everything with you.

7. Questions

Anything unclear, or need custom terms for a larger deployment? Get in touch — partner enquiries welcome.