Help Center / Licenses and activation

Please contact the FastSpring team (who handle payments for us) for questions about payment methods or checkout. FastSpring can help you with:

• available payment methods
• declined credit cards, PayPal errors, etc.
• other error messages during checkout (be sure to include the exact error message shown)
• setting up tax-exempt orders and tax refunds
• unknown charges (please include details on your credit card statement)
• changes to your invoice

After buying a license we send you an email with your order details. It contains a link to your invoice:

If you’re buying on behalf of an organization that is exempt from U.S. sales taxes we can either refund the tax after the purchase, or we can create a custom order that doesn’t include sales tax.

Please contact the FastSpring team (who handle payments for us) through the link below and include a copy of your tax exemption certificate and, if you already placed an order, your order number.

Contact FastSpring
FastSpring W-9 Form

All Lightkey editions—even the free edition—include the full set of features. The only difference is the number of DMX output channels and smart lights you can control. To find the right edition simply determine the total number of channels used by your DMX fixtures and the number of smart lights.

If you expand your lighting setup later, you can upgrade to a higher edition at any time.

Lightkey 4 or newer

Your Lightkey license determines the total number of DMX output channels. You can distribute them to any number of universes.

Licenses for smart lights enable output to up to 100 smart lights connected to any number of Philips Hue bridges. Otherwise output is limited to five smart lights.

The total number of DMX universes and Hue bridges must not exceed 31.

Earlier Lightkey Versions

Versions before Lightkey 4 can control up to 2048 DMX channels. These versions do not support smart lights.

Lightkey licenses are always valid for one year. Lightkey warns you at startup if your license is about to expire within the next two weeks.

To renew the license, simply buy a new license in our online store. If your old license is still valid, enter its expiration date in the License Begin field so they don’t overlap. On that date do the following, depending on your Lightkey version:

Lightkey 4 and later

1. Choose Lightkey > Manage License… from the menu bar.
2. Click Deactivate License to deactivate the old license (if applicable).
3. Click Activate License… and paste the new license key.

Earlier Lightkey versions

1. Choose Lightkey > Deactivate Lightkey… from the menu bar to deactivate the old license (if applicable).
2. Choose Lightkey > Activate Lightkey… and paste the new license key.

You can upgrade your license to a higher edition at any time. When you do this you get a discount for the remaining value of your license. You can apply this discount to a new license which runs for another year. Please contact us and we’ll tell you the next steps and the exact amount of the discount.

Contact us

Make sure to use the same email address you used for the original purchase, or include either your license key or original order number.

A license can only be active on one computer at any time. However, you can move it to another computer easily and as often as you like. Note that if you want to use a computer only for preparing a show without actually outputting DMX, the computer doesn’t need a license at all.

If you want to use Lightkey on multiple computers at the same time, you need a separate license for each computer.

A license can only be active on a single computer at any given time, but can move it between computers easily and as often as you like. Follow these steps:

Lightkey 4 and later

1. Open Lightkey on the computer where the license is currently active and choose Lightkey > Manage License… from the menu bar.
2. Click Deactivate License.
3. On the new computer, again choose Lightkey > Manage License….
4. Click Activate License… and paste your license key.

Earlier Lightkey versions

1. Open Lightkey on the computer where the license is currently active and choose Lightkey > Deactivate Lightkey… from the menu bar.
2. On the new computer, choose Lightkey > Activate Lightkey… and paste your license key.

Lightkey remembers the license key if it has been activated before, so you can switch between computers more quickly.

Sure! Lightkey can create a file which you can send to us from another computer with Internet connection. Simply follow these steps:

1. Choose Lightkey > Manage License… from the menu bar. (In older Lightkey versions, choose Lightkey > Activate Lightkey…)
2. Click “No Internet connection?”.
3. Follow the instructions.

Please understand that we can only handle activation requests during our office hours.

Unlike other manufacturers, we don’t sell DMX hardware through which we subsidize our software. Instead Lightkey gives you the freedom to choose from a wide range of DMX hardware from various manufacturers, allowing us to put all our effort in creating the best lighting control software possible. That’s why we must charge a price for our software.

No. Lightkey licenses are always valid for one year and all updates and support are free during that time. If you want to continue using Lightkey after that you need to buy a new license.

Why are licenses limited to one year? If we sold unlimited licenses, we’d unfortunately have to charge a much higher price. We believe that a time-based model is an ideal solution for everyone: You can try Lightkey at a low price for one year, and if you are not satisfied—which we don’t believe!—, you save a lot of money compared to a perpetual license.

On the other hand, this licensing model allows us to release updates much more often—which we do, as you can see in the Release Notes. Manufacturers with perpetual licenses often save new features for big, paid updates that appear in longer cycles.