Pranor Pulse Licensing & Commercial Pricing Strategy

This document outlines the official licensing strategy, dual-licensing policy, client SDK permissions, and commercial tiering model for Pranor Pulse.

1. Executive Summary & Licensing Recommendation

Pranor Pulse uses a Dual-Licensing Open-Core Model designed to maximize open-source developer adoption while building a defensible, high-margin enterprise business.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                           SERVQUEUE ECOSYSTEM                               │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
          │                                 │                               │
          ▼                                 ▼                               ▼
┌───────────────────┐             ┌───────────────────┐           ┌───────────────────┐
│ Client SDKs & OPFS│             │ Pranor Pulse Server  │           │ Pranor Pulse EE      │
│  (@pranor/...) │             │   (`pranor-pulsed`)  │           │    (`pranor-ee`)    │
├───────────────────┤             ├───────────────────┤           ├───────────────────┤
│     Apache 2.0    │             │      AGPLv3       │           │    Commercial     │
│   (Frictionless)  │             │ (Copyleft Core)   │           │ (Proprietary SLA) │
└───────────────────┘             └───────────────────┘           └───────────────────┘

Recommendation on AGPLv3 (GNU Affero General Public License)

Recommendation: RETAIN AGPLv3 for Server Engine, Use Apache 2.0 for Client SDKs.

• Why keep AGPLv3 for pranor-pulsed server engine?

  1. Hyperscaler Protection: AGPLv3 prevents AWS, GCP, Azure, or third-party cloud vendors from hosting Pranor Pulse as a managed cloud service without contributing modifications back to the open-source community.
  2. Strong Enterprise Commercial Conversion: Companies that wish to embed or modify Pranor Pulse within closed-source SaaS applications or multi-tenant platforms are required under AGPL to release their source code—or purchase a Pranor Pulse Enterprise Commercial License.
  3. Industry Standard Precedent: Successfully proven by infrastructure leaders such as MinIO, Grafana, RabbitMQ, and MongoDB (originally).

• Why use Apache 2.0 / MIT for Client SDKs (sdks/go, @pranor/queue-wasm)?

  1. Frontend web apps, backend microservices, and mobile clients importing Pranor Pulse libraries must never be subject to copyleft restrictions.
  2. Enables 100% frictionless integration into any proprietary enterprise application stack.

2. Licensing Matrix by Component

3. Commercial Tiers & Feature Matrix

Pranor Pulse is structured into three clear commercial tiers:

4. Commercial Pricing Models

Model A: Per-Core CPU Subscription (Self-Hosted / On-Prem / Kubernetes)

Calculated based on the total number of vCPUs / CPU cores assigned to the pranor-pulsed-ee instances.

• Community Tier: $0 (Free, AGPLv3 Open Source, Unlimited Cores).
• Enterprise Tier: $30 / vCPU Core / Month (billed annually at $360 / core / year).
  • Example: A 3-node cluster with 4 vCPUs per node (12 cores total) = $4,320 / year.
• Sovereign & Defense Tier: $60 / vCPU Core / Month (billed annually at $720 / core / year).
  • Example: A high-security 5-node cluster with 8 vCPUs per node (40 cores total) = $28,800 / year.

Model B: Pranor Pulse Cloud (Managed Serverless SaaS)

For organizations seeking a fully managed cloud service without infrastructure overhead:

• Data Ingestion & Egress: $0.04 per GB transferred.
• Hot Storage Buffer (SSD Log): $0.025 per GB / month.
• Cold Storage Tier (S3 Archiving): $0.005 per GB / month.
• WASM AI Guardrail Executions: $0.001 per 1,000 payload checks.

5. Technical License Key Enforcement & Verification

In pranor-ee, commercial feature modules are compiled behind the //go:build enterprise build tag.

License Key Validation Flow

1. Pranor Pulse Enterprise daemon startup:

   pranor-pulsed-ee --config=/etc/pranor-pulse/config.yaml --license-key=/etc/pranor-pulse/license.lic
   

2. The daemon validates the cryptographically signed JWT / RSA license file:
   • Payload Check: Organization Name, Target Tier (enterprise vs sovereign), Max Core Limit, Expiration Date.
   • Signature Verification: Validated via offline public RSA key (no phone-home requirement for air-gapped sovereign environments).
3. If valid, pranor-ee features (GeoReplication, KafkaAdapter, HSMUnsealer, eBPFXDP) activate seamlessly.

6. Summary Comparison: Licensing Choices

Document updated: July 2026 | Version 2.0