Licensing¶
Advanced & Labs under BUSL-1.1 — free to evaluate; a commercial licence unlocks production.
Looking for tiers and prices? See the Pricing page.
:material-rocket-launch: Free Pilot — Try Before You Buy¶
30 days. Full Pro features. No credit card.
Test Director-AI on your actual documents before committing.
- :material-database-search: Bring your own knowledge base — we run grounded scoring against your data
- :material-phone: Weekly 30-min call with the maintainer to review results
- :material-check-decagram: Honest assessment: if it doesn't fit your use case, we tell you
- :material-lock-open: No lock-in. No credit card. No strings.
Request Free Pilot :material-flask:
:material-tag-heart: Founding Member Program¶
Limited: 10 spots remaining
Founding Members get permanent pricing lock at 40–50% off standard rates, plus direct access to the maintainer. Once 10 spots fill, prices move to standard tier. No deadline — lock your rate today.
:material-currency-usd: Tiers & prices¶
Commercial tiers, the usage-based API, and the side-by-side comparison live on the dedicated Pricing page — one source of truth for prices.
In short: director-ai-lite is the free PyPI adoption package; the
Apache-2.0 core in director-ai is free for everyone, in production, with
no strings; the commercial tiers add a production licence for the BUSL-1.1
Advanced & Labs capabilities plus support and SLAs; Director-Class AI is the
premium implementation and evidence programme, not a separate Python wheel.
| Route | Licence status | Support | Production use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Director-Lite | Free package; Apache-2.0 adoption surface | Community / self-support | Allowed, including closed-source products |
| Director-AI Pro self-host | Commercial licence for BUSL-1.1 advanced tier | Priority support, 99.5 % support target | Allowed for self-hosted production and internal platforms |
| Director-Class AI | Commercial licence with negotiated terms | Dedicated support engineer, custom SLA, tuning and architecture reviews | Allowed for regulated, air-gapped, multi-tenant, or procurement-heavy deployments |
See pricing :material-arrow-right:
Self-hosted deployments use the licence tiers above.
:material-shield-key: Polar Deployment Wiring¶
Director-AI validates commercial self-hosted licenses through Polar when
DIRECTOR_LICENSE_KEY and DIRECTOR_AI_POLAR_ORG_ID are configured. The
runtime never requires storing a raw organization access token for public
customer-portal validation. Add DIRECTOR_AI_POLAR_ACCESS_TOKEN only on
trusted server deployments that need server-side activation, deactivation,
customer portal sessions, or webhook reconciliation.
Required production checks:
Use the JSON form in deployment smoke checks or CI jobs; it emits only
ready, errors, and warnings so raw licence keys and Polar access tokens
are not printed.
Core variables:
| Variable | Purpose |
|---|---|
DIRECTOR_LICENSE_KEY |
Customer license key presented by the deployment. |
DIRECTOR_AI_POLAR_ORG_ID |
Polar organization UUID used for license validation. |
DIRECTOR_AI_POLAR_ACTIVATION_ID |
Optional activation binding for deployments with activation limits. |
DIRECTOR_AI_POLAR_INCREMENT_USAGE |
Optional integer usage increment sent during validation. |
DIRECTOR_AI_POLAR_CONDITIONS |
Optional JSON object for Polar validation conditions, such as major version or edition. |
DIRECTOR_AI_POLAR_ACCESS_TOKEN |
Server-only organization access token for server API calls. Never expose it in client code or public logs. |
DIRECTOR_AI_POLAR_WEBHOOK_SECRET |
Base64 Standard Webhooks secret for validating Polar webhook deliveries. |
Supported operational surfaces:
- License validation through Polar customer-portal or server endpoints.
- Activation and deactivation helpers for deployments using activation limits.
- Usage tracking via Polar validation
increment_usage. - Customer portal session creation from a server-side customer id or external customer id.
- Standard Webhooks HMAC verification over the raw body plus
webhook-idandwebhook-timestampheaders.
Webhook handlers must verify the raw request body before parsing JSON, reject
stale timestamps, and use webhook-id as the idempotency key in the deployment's
queue or database. Return a 2xx response only after the event has been accepted
for durable processing.
:material-open-source-initiative: Open Core — Apache-2.0¶
The Director-AI core — the guardrail engine, 5-tier scoring (rules → embeddings → NLI), SDK guard, FastAPI middleware, REST/gRPC server, injection detection, streaming halt, and the agent/MCP preflight guard — is licensed under Apache-2.0.
You can: use it freely for anything, including production and closed-source products. Self-host without restrictions. Modify and redistribute. No source-disclosure obligation.
:material-flask: Advanced & Labs — BUSL-1.1¶
The advanced capabilities (under core/<advanced>/, enterprise/, voice/,
ui/, experimental/, compliance/, agentic/) are source-available under
BUSL-1.1.
You can: read the source, evaluate, and use it for free in any non-production setting. Each file automatically converts to Apache-2.0 on its change date.
The obligation: production and hosted/SaaS use of the advanced tier requires a commercial licence (the tiers above).
:material-frequently-asked-questions: FAQ¶
Can I use Director-AI in academic research?
Yes. The Apache-2.0 core is free for any use. The BUSL-1.1 advanced tier is free for non-production research and evaluation; a published deployment that serves external users on the advanced tier would need a commercial licence.
Can I use it in my SaaS product?
The Apache-2.0 core: yes, freely, including closed-source SaaS. The BUSL-1.1 advanced tier in a hosted/production service requires a commercial licence.
Can I use the free version for internal tools?
The Apache-2.0 core: yes, without restriction. The BUSL-1.1 advanced tier is free for non-production internal use; production use needs a commercial licence.
Do I need a license for evaluation or prototyping?
No. The core is Apache-2.0, and the advanced tier is free to evaluate under BUSL-1.1. Buy a commercial licence when an advanced capability ships to production.
What about contributions?
Contributors retain copyright. Contributions to the Apache-2.0 core are accepted under Apache-2.0 per CONTRIBUTING.md.