Premium edition
Buying and licensing NextPDF
At a glance
Section titled “At a glance”NextPDF Core and NextPDF Connect (the server) are free and open source under the Apache License 2.0. NextPDF Pro and NextPDF Enterprise are the commercial editions. Commercial licences are sold through our Merchant of Record — an authorised reseller that is the seller of record for your order. Your licence to use the software is granted by PATEON under the EULA. To begin, start at the licence portal.
This page explains how a purchase works and what to expect. It links to the binding legal terms rather than restating them, and it does not name a specific payment provider — the Merchant of Record handles checkout on our behalf.
How buying works: two agreements
Section titled “How buying works: two agreements”A purchase involves two separate agreements, and it helps to keep them distinct:
- Your purchase is a contract between you and our Merchant of Record. The Merchant of Record takes payment, issues your invoice and receipt, calculates and collects any VAT or sales tax due for your location, and handles billing questions, refunds, and payment disputes.
- Your licence to use NextPDF is granted by PATEON under the EULA and your order. PATEON does not itself process card payments or issue invoices to buyers.
This is a deliberate distribution choice: the Merchant of Record is our authorised reseller for the sale, while PATEON remains the licensor of the software.
Why it works this way
Section titled “Why it works this way”The two-contract split is deliberate. Selling worldwide means collecting VAT
and sales tax, issuing compliant invoices, and honouring local withdrawal
rights across many jurisdictions. A Merchant of Record already carries that
burden as the seller of record. That lets PATEON stay a pure software licensor
rather than run a global payments and tax operation. Activation resolves
through the same Core contract at runtime. Whether you deploy nextpdf/pro or
nextpdf/enterprise, the code path is identical, so upgrading changes no
application code.
Design background: The company behind NextPDF.
The path to a licence
Section titled “The path to a licence”Buying is contact-led today — you request a licence and we set you up through our Merchant of Record. The path is:
- Choose an edition. Compare the open core, NextPDF Pro, and NextPDF Enterprise on the feature matrix, or use Choose your path to decide whether you need a commercial edition at all.
- Start at the licence portal. Begin at the licence portal and request the edition you want.
- Complete the purchase through our Merchant of Record. The Merchant of Record runs checkout, takes payment, applies any tax, and issues your invoice and receipt.
- Receive your licence credentials. After purchase you receive the credentials you need — the private repository token and/or your signed licence — issued by PATEON for your deployment.
- Install and authenticate. Follow Install and authenticate to configure Composer with your credentials and pull the private package.
- Activate. Run your application’s one-time activation step, as described in Licensing and activation.
You can also evaluate the full Premium feature set first; an evaluation grant runs every capability behind a removable watermark. See Trial and evaluation branding.
Price, tax, and your invoice
Section titled “Price, tax, and your invoice”Prices are shown excluding tax. Any VAT or sales tax is calculated and collected by our Merchant of Record at checkout, based on your location, and shown on your invoice. Each paid plan is an annual licence subscription; perpetual buyouts are available on request. For current editions and pricing, see the pricing page.
What you’ll need and what’s covered
Section titled “What you’ll need and what’s covered”Before you buy, confirm the technical fit; at checkout, the Merchant of Record presents the price, tax, and your consumer-rights information.
- What the editions do — the capabilities of NextPDF Pro and Enterprise: the feature matrix.
- System requirements and delivery — the supported PHP versions and the free ionCube Loader requirement (including in continuous integration): see Install and authenticate. Paid editions are delivered as an ionCube-encoded package or as signed source, with licence-key activation.
- Subscription term, renewal, and end of term — annual term, the grace period, and the perpetual-fallback behaviour after a term ends: Licensing and activation.
- Total price including tax, and payment — presented by the Merchant of Record at checkout.
- Refunds and cancellation — your refund and withdrawal rights are set out in the Refund & Cancellation Policy.
Who to contact
Section titled “Who to contact”- For product and technical help, contact PATEON support.
- For billing, tax, invoices, refunds, or a payment dispute, contact our Merchant of Record’s buyer support — the contact details are on your receipt.
Legal terms
Section titled “Legal terms”The binding terms live on the NextPDF website. Read them before you buy:
- Terms of Use — including the payment and Merchant-of-Record section.
- Refund & Cancellation Policy — refunds, cancellation, and your withdrawal rights.
- End-User License Agreement (EULA) — the licence PATEON grants you.
- Privacy Policy — how purchase data is handled.
- Legal index — all policies in one place.
Publication boundary
Section titled “Publication boundary”This page documents externally observable behavior and the supported public API surface only. Internal namespace paths, helper classes, mechanism tables, runbook filenames, and ticket prefixes are out of scope.