What Are Software and Upgrade Licenses?

There are two types of licenses associated with your Topaz Labs products - your software user license and (if applicable) your upgrade license. 

Software Licenses

All of our current programs require you to have a software license to allow you to login to the program and use it without being in a trial.

The simplest explanation is if you login to our program but do not have a software license for that user email, you'll be in a trial or prompted to start a trial. If you do have a software license for that account email, then you will be logged into the program as a user.

When you own the current version of the program you have installed and then login, you should see a similar message to this.

Your software license never expires, but it does automatically determine the newest version of the program you own and have access to. If you've purchased the current version installed on your computer, you will be logged in like normal. But, if you have installed a version of the program that you do not own yet, you will be prompted to buy an upgrade license or to revert to the last version you do own.

For example, if you install DeNoise version 3.1.2, but you only own up to version 2.4.2, you'll see this message:

Upgrade Licenses

Your upgrade license determines when you are eligible to receive new updates to your various programs. By default, your programs come with 1 year of free upgrades from the date of purchase. During this time, your upgrade license status will show "Active" in your www.topazlabs.com account. Like this:

After 1 year, your upgrade license will show this:

Once your upgrade license shows "Expired" you will no longer be able to login to new updates for that particular program without renewing your upgrade license for another 12 months. However there is no requirement to renew upgrades in order to use versions of the program you already own and you can continue to use version you already own indefinitely.

Note: If you're not sure which version you already own, you can see it in the same location in your www.topazlabs.com account:

PRO TIP: If you own two or more programs that have upgrade licenses, when it's time to renew, buy the Photo Upgrade Plan also showing in your www.topazlabs.com account. This will synchronize all of your apps to expire on the same day and is more cost effective than buying an upgrade for each app individually. See our pricing page for more information.