Licensing & tiers
Trial, Free, and Paid tiers, what each unlocks, how to upgrade, deactivating a seat, and what happens during a license-server outage.
Cerevisor uses a freemium model. Three tiers exist:
| Tier | How you get it | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Trial | Automatic on first install. Lasts 7 days. | Free. |
| Free | Trial expires without upgrade. | Free, with feature caps. |
| Paid | Buy a license at cerevisor.com. | Subscription via Lemon Squeezy. |
Trial tier
When you install Cerevisor for the first time, you get 7 days of full-feature access. The Trial Countdown Badge in the title bar shows days remaining.
Trial includes everything Paid includes, no caps, no nags. The intent is to give you a real shot at testing the product before you decide.
Free tier
When the trial expires (and you haven't upgraded), Cerevisor drops to Free. Free is genuinely usable; most of the product works, but a few features and capacity limits kick in:
| Capability | Free cap |
|---|---|
| Workflows in a workspace | 2 |
| Workspaces (.cerevisor-world files) | 2 |
| MCP servers | Gated |
| Loop & Enhance | Gated |
| Endless mode | Gated |
| Operator — an assistant that works quietly in the background while the app is open, within a budget you set | Gated (the panel, journal, and review queue stay open; only the background autonomy is paid) |
| Scheduled runs | Gated |
| Cursor cloud runs | Gated |
| Web search (Tavily/Perplexity/Linkup) | Gated |
| Skill Workshop editing | Gated (browsing OK) |
| Vault (named secrets) | Gated (at-rest encryption stays free) |
| Saving a workflow as a Power | Gated (invoking a Power shared with you stays free) |
| Deep Smart Mode launch preset | Gated (Manual, Quick, and Standard stay free) |
| Advanced Loop and smart stop-conditions | Gated (the simple Loop button stays free) |
| Lifecycle hooks | Gated |
| Trust-role design (quarantined readers, privileged planners) | Gated (the built-in injection protection stays free and always on) |
| Creating an Organization | Gated (opening and chatting with an org shared with you stays free) |
Some things deliberately stay free on every tier: the chat builder, Progressive Mode, per-agent provider overrides, and the mobile companion (including its controls).
For each gated surface, you'll see an Upgrade Card in place of the feature, describing what it does, with Activate license and Upgrade plan buttons.
The 2-workflow / 2-workspace caps don't delete what you've already built; existing data stays accessible. The caps prevent creating a 3rd one.
Paid tier
Everything is unlocked. The Subscription tab in Settings shows your current plan (with renewal date), when your license was last validated, and the management actions:
- Manage billing: opens the Lemon Squeezy customer portal in your browser.
- Validate now: forces a fresh check with Lemon Squeezy.
- Sign out this device: frees your seat (useful when migrating to a new machine).
A license covers a fixed number of active devices (the activation limit on your plan). Hit the cap → sign out an old device → activate the new one.
Grace tier (transient)
If Cerevisor can't reach the Lemon Squeezy license server (DNS, timeout, no internet, server down), you stay on your current tier in Grace mode for up to 14 days. The Subscription tab notes "(offline grace)" next to the last-validated time.
This is a hard architectural rule: a license-server outage cannot strand paying users on a broken tier. Only an explicit valid: false response from the server flips you to Free.
After 14 days of failed checks, the tier downgrades. Until then, you stay on Paid (or Trial, whichever you were on).
Upgrading
Two paths:
- Settings → Subscription → See pricing. Opens cerevisor.com/pricing in your browser.
- Upgrade plan on any Upgrade Card. Same destination.
Buy a license. You'll receive an email with the license key. In Cerevisor:
Settings → Subscription → Activate license → paste the key. Cerevisor calls Lemon Squeezy to bind the key to this device.
Deactivating a seat
To free a seat (e.g. you're getting rid of an old laptop):
Settings → Subscription → Sign out this device.
Cerevisor calls Lemon Squeezy to release the seat. The device drops to Free immediately. The license still works for any other devices you've activated.
If you forgot to sign out before wiping a machine, open the Lemon Squeezy customer portal (Settings → Subscription → Manage billing) and deactivate the old device there.
What about updates?
Updates always download, regardless of your license tier. Trial, Free, Paid, and Grace users all get the same update stream. The auto-update path explicitly never checks license state. Paying customers cannot be stranded on a broken build by a license outage.
Privacy
Lemon Squeezy gets the license key and the device-id Cerevisor generates. That's it. Cerevisor's own license-manager doesn't send your workflows, your memory, your usage, or anything else to Lemon Squeezy.
The device-id is a one-way fingerprint computed locally from your machine's identifier — a hash, not your serial number, hostname, or anything readable. It exists solely to bind a license to this machine. Your license key itself is stored encrypted on your machine.
When the trial ends
When your trial expires, Cerevisor tells you your 7-day trial has ended and offers to activate a license. Nothing destructive happens: your workflows and worlds stay where they are. You just see the Free caps and the Upgrade CTAs going forward.
You can continue using Cerevisor on Free indefinitely if Free covers your needs.