A glossary of font licensing, for foundries.

Licences and prices

App licence

A licence to embed font files inside a mobile or desktop application. It is usually counted in apps, and often sold for a term. Typetin’s app preset has tiers of 1, up to 3 and up to 10 apps, for 1, 2 or 3 years.

Broadcast licence

A licence for type used on screen in film, television or streamed video. Foundries price it by audience, channel or production, and many quote it case by case.

Bundle

A set of styles sold at one price, such as a full family or a subfamily like the italics. In Typetin a style that’s already in a bundle in the cart is never charged a second time by itself.

Desktop licence

A licence to install fonts on computers and use them in documents, print, images and logos, counted in users or seats. Typetin’s desktop preset has tiers for 1–5, 6–20, 21–50 and 51–100 users.

Ebook licence

A licence to embed fonts in electronic publications such as EPUB files. It is usually counted in titles, since the font travels inside every copy sold.

Licence tier

One band of a licence: 1–5 users, or up to 100,000 monthly pageviews. Each tier has a label the buyer sees and a price, usually worked out from a multiplier. How Typetin’s licences are built.

Logo licence

Permission to use a font in a logo or trademark. Many EULAs allow it under the desktop licence. Some foundries charge for it separately, or ask to be told when a trademark is registered.

Multiplier

The factor a tier applies to a style’s base price. In Typetin a line’s price is the base price, times the tier’s multiplier, times the multiplier of any second axis such as a term: a two-year app licence for up to three apps is the base × 4 × 1.8. How to price licences.

OEM licence

A licence for fonts built into a device, an operating system or software that is sold on to others. It is almost always negotiated, and priced by units or by product.

Perpetual licence

A licence paid for once that doesn’t end. Most desktop licences are perpetual. The licence still has its limits on users or use.

Quote

A priced offer for a larger or unusual licence. In Typetin a quote freezes the prices, discounts and EULA versions on the day it’s issued, holds for 30 days unless you choose another length up to a year, and is paid once through a signed link. Quotes start on the Foundry plan. How quotes work.

Renewal

Buying a further term of a licence that ends. In Typetin the buyer is emailed 30 days and 7 days before a term ends and once after it lapses, each time with a link to renew at the current price. Nothing renews or charges by itself.

Seat

One person, or sometimes one computer, counted by a desktop licence. Foundries also say user. The EULA should say which it means.

Server licence

A licence for fonts installed on a server that uses them to make documents or images for others, such as a site that generates PDFs or personalised products. It is usually negotiated.

Term licence

A licence that lasts for a set time, such as one, two or three years, and has to be renewed to continue. Typetin offers term licences on every plan. Terms and renewals.

Web licence

A licence to use fonts on websites with @font-face, counted in monthly pageviews on named domains. Typetin’s web preset has tiers up to 10,000, 100,000, 500,000 and 1 million pageviews, and delivers WOFF2 and WOFF files.

Agreements and records

Acceptance evidence

What a foundry keeps to show that a buyer agreed to its EULA. Typetin records the IP address and browser of the checkout request in which the buyer accepted, and the time the order was placed, and keeps them for six years.

EULA

The end user licence agreement: the foundry’s own text setting out what a licence allows. It is the contract the buyer accepts. How Typetin records it, and what a font EULA should cover.

EULA version

One fixed wording of a EULA. A new version doesn’t change licences sold under an old one. In Typetin a published version can’t be edited, carries a number and a SHA-256 hash, and is written to every order made under it.

Licence certificate

A document the buyer keeps as proof of what they licensed. Typetin puts one in each download, with a link to check the licence.

Licence verification

Checking that a licence someone shows you is genuine. In Typetin the certificate links to a page in the foundry’s shop that shows the typefaces, licence, date and agreement versions, with the licensee’s name masked. How verification works.

Licensee

The person or company a licence is granted to. When an agency buys for a client, the licensee should be the client, and the EULA should say whether a licence can be transferred.

Font files

Axis

One dimension a variable font can vary along, such as weight (wght), width (wdth) or optical size (opsz), which adjusts the design for the size it’s set at.

Fingerprint

A record written into a delivered font that names the order it was issued for. Foundries also call it a watermark. In Typetin it’s signed, sits in the name table and the WOFF private data, and traces a leak without preventing one. How fingerprinting works, and what a fingerprint proves.

Instance

A named point in a variable font’s design space, such as Semibold or Condensed Bold. Instances often appear as styles in menus and price lists. Typetin maps them when it reads an uploaded variable font.

Name table

The part of a font file that holds its names: family, style, version, copyright, licence text and the licence URL. It’s where a font’s own claims about itself are read.

OpenType features

Instructions in a font that switch on alternate glyphs and behaviours, such as ligatures, small capitals, old-style figures and stylistic sets. Specimens and price lists often name them, since buyers choose fonts by them.

Specimen

A showing of a typeface for buyers: a printed booklet, a PDF or a web page with type testers and glyph sets.

Specimen webfont

A webfont used only to show a typeface on the foundry’s own pages, often subsetted so that it is of little use elsewhere. Typetin makes them from the files you upload and sets your typeface pages in them as editable text.

Subsetting

Cutting a font down to some of its characters, such as basic Latin, to make files smaller or to limit what a free file can set. Trial fonts and specimen webfonts are usually subsetted.

Trial font

A free, limited version of a font for testing before buying. Typetin cuts it from your file to the 95 printable characters of basic Latin, adds “Trial” to its name and fingerprints it. How trial fonts are made, and marking trial fonts.

Variable font

A single font file that holds a range of styles along one or more axes. Foundries sell it on its own, or inside a bundle with the static styles. In Typetin variable fonts are sold inside bundles.

WOFF2

The compressed font format browsers load for webfonts. It is the usual file under a web licence, with WOFF as an older fallback.

Webfonts

Hosted webfont kit

Webfonts that a foundry or a service serves for the buyer from its own address. In Typetin each web licence can have one kit: a stylesheet the buyer links from their site, which answers only for the licensed domains and counts pageviews. Hosted webfont kits start on the Foundry plan. How hosted webfonts work.

Pageview

One load of a web page, the unit most web licences are sold in, usually counted per calendar month. A foundry can count it only when it serves the fonts itself. How pageviews are counted.

Self-hosted webfont

A webfont the buyer puts on their own server. It is a common arrangement, and the foundry relies on the buyer to report their pageviews honestly.

Money and tax

Commission

A share of each sale kept by a marketplace or shop service. We take 0% commission: buyers pay the foundry’s own Stripe account, and the foundry pays a monthly or yearly subscription. Pricing.

Designer share

The part of a sale owed to a typeface’s designer under their contract. In Typetin shares are set per typeface to two decimal places and written to each order line, taken after any discount and before tax. Shares across several designers start on the Foundry plan. How to split royalties.

Merchant of record

The business that legally sells to the buyer, and so collects and files sales tax and VAT. A foundry can be its own merchant of record or sell through a provider that takes on the role for a fee. Typetin works with either. How to sell fonts.

Royalty

The money a foundry pays a designer for sales of their typeface, usually a percentage of each sale. A refund or a lost dispute usually takes the royalty back. Royalty splits between designers.

Royalty statement

A list of what a designer earned over a period. In Typetin a statement covers one designer in one currency over up to 36 months, on screen or as CSV. Typetin reports what is owed and moves no money. Royalty statements start on the Foundry plan. How royalty statements work.

Sales tax and VAT

Tax on the sale, owed where the buyer is, in many places even for digital goods from abroad. On Stripe, Typetin uses Stripe Tax for the places you’re registered, and it stays off until you turn it on.

Foundries and their shops

API

An interface that lets another program read or change a service’s records. Typetin’s API lets a foundry’s own site read its catalogue, orders, licences and customers, and is read-only apart from webhook addresses. The API starts on the Foundry plan. The Typetin API.

Catalogue

Everything a foundry sells: its typefaces, their styles and their prices. Typetin builds it from the font files you upload and reads the languages each family supports from them.

Collective

A group of independent designers who sell under one name and share a shop, each keeping their own typefaces and their share of sales.

Custom domain

A foundry’s own web address in place of a service’s. In Typetin you point it at your shop with one DNS record, sometimes with a second that proves the domain is yours, and the certificate is issued for you.

DNS record

An entry in a domain’s settings that says where its names point, such as a CNAME, an A record or a TXT record. Adding one at your registrar is how a domain is connected to a shop or an email sender.

Export

A copy of a foundry’s records it can take elsewhere. Typetin exports the catalogue, font files, customers, orders, licences and royalty records in open formats on every plan, and after you cancel. What’s yours.

Foundry

A business that designs and sells typefaces. The word comes from the workshops that cast metal type, and today it covers a single designer as well as a studio of dozens.

Label

A foundry that publishes typefaces by several designers under its own name, paying each of them a royalty. Its licences, EULA and shop are the label’s.

Webhook

A message one service sends to another’s address when something happens. Typetin sends a signed webhook when an order is paid and when one is refunded. Webhooks start on the Foundry plan. Webhooks.