Pre-Paid Licenses

Each license carries its own plan, and it's the same three you'll find on the pricing page:

• Drafting — the full 3D modelling, sketching and drawing side of JetCad3.
• Drafting + Plasma, Oxyfuel & Laser — Drafting plus the jet-cutting CAM workspaces.
• Drafting + Full CAM — everything: jet cutting, router, mill, and the rest as it ships.

Terms are 1, 2, or 3 years, and the longer terms cost less per year. The plan is baked into the license file when it's minted, so a Full CAM license unlocks Full CAM the moment it's activated — there's nothing to upgrade afterwards and nothing to configure.

Every JetCad3 install has a machine code — click your profile picture and it's right there in the menu (clicking the row copies it), and it's also shown on the Offline Key tab of the sign-in screen, which is where a brand-new machine displays it on first start. It's derived from the computer's own hardware, and it's what a Pre-Paid license is locked to: when the license is bought, that code goes into the order, and the license file that comes back only works on that machine. Copying the file to another computer does nothing.

The license is bound to the machine, not to you. If the machine is sold, the remaining term goes with it — the new owner activates nothing, signs up for nothing, and it just keeps working. One hardware repair (a replaced network card, a new drive) won't unbind it either; a bigger rebuild can be rebound from the Licenses tab of the buyer's dashboard, which re-mints the file against the new machine code and keeps the remaining term.

Activate from the sign-in screen's Offline Key tab — click Import License File… and pick the .jc3lic file, or paste its contents into the key box. If you're already signed in, the same import is in the profile menu, so you don't have to sign out to add one. The term starts the moment the license is first activated, not when it was bought, so a machine that spent months in a warehouse or a crate loses none of its time.

You can hold more than one Pre-Paid license on a machine, and no paid day is ever thrown away. What happens when you activate a second one depends on how its plan compares to what's running:

• Same plan — it queues. The new term begins exactly where the current one ends. This is the renewal case, and it needs no decision from you.
• A higher plan (say Full CAM while a Drafting year is running) — JetCad3 asks which you'd rather have, and spells out both outcomes with real numbers:
  • Start now — the upgrade takes effect today. The days still left on the lower plan run out underneath it, so some of them go unused.
  • Start when the current one ends — the current plan finishes first, then the upgrade begins. Nothing is lost; you just wait for the better workspaces.
• A lower plan — it queues automatically behind the higher one, because starting it now would change nothing you can see. The confirmation tells you the date it takes over.

If you're signed in to a jetcad.io account with a paid plan of its own, the machine always runs on whichever is better — the account's plan or the Pre-Paid one. Activating a Drafting license on a Full CAM subscription never costs you Full CAM; the Pre-Paid term simply sits there, paid for, and takes over if the subscription lapses.

Click your profile picture and the menu shows the plan you're on and how many days remain, with the licensed-until date. JetCad3 also gives a plain heads-up at 30 days, 7 days, and 1 day before expiry — once each, out of the way, never blocking your work.

The machine keeps working. That's the point.

GcodePilot — the machine control workspace — is free, unlimited, and never gated, so an expired Pre-Paid license leaves you with a fully working CNC controller that runs G-code from anywhere, JetCad3-posted or not. When you want full CAD/CAM back, take whichever path suits: another Pre-Paid license from the store, an Unlimited License, or a subscription at jetcad.io/pricing. Or take none of them, keep cutting, and decide later. There's no lock-in here, and there never will be.