Getting started

Introduction

KeyStack is a focused license-key management platform for teams that sell software. It handles the boring infrastructure plumbing — generating keys, validating them at scale, freezing or extending them, recording activations, surfacing audit logs — so you can focus on building your product.

This guide is for the developer or operator who needs to wire KeyStack into a software product. If you'd rather poke around the dashboard first, sign up at /signup — the docs will still be here when you come back.

When to use KeyStack

• You sell software that runs on the customer's machine (desktop, on-prem, embedded) and you need real license keys.
• You sell access to a hosted product but want offline activation as an option.
• You're outgrowing a hand-rolled keys spreadsheet + cron job.

When not to use KeyStack

• Pure SaaS where access is gated entirely by the session cookie of a user account → just use auth.
• Tracking analytics or feature flags → use a feature-flag tool.

How it works (30-second version)

1. You create an Application in the dashboard.
2. You generate one or more API keys for that application.
3. From your backend or website, you call the KeyStack public API with an HMAC-signed request to issue a license to a customer.
4. The customer activates the license inside your product. Your product calls the validate endpoint on each launch.
5. Optionally, you connect Stripe so a paid checkout auto-issues a key.