Get a CAT license
Three plans — every one of them can be tried for free — and two ways to pay: a subscription on your account, or a license key for Enterprise. Here is which plan you need, how to try it, how to buy it, and what happens when it ends.
Which plan
| Plan | In one line | Unlocked by |
|---|---|---|
| Starter | free; CAT Studio and CAT CLI | an account on CAT Portal |
| Team | CAT Studio and CAT CLI, all outputs; interactive runs | a subscription on your account |
| Enterprise | everything, including the PowerShell and Python modules, autonomous runs (pipelines, schedulers, orchestrators, containers), works offline and behind a firewall | a license key |
The full comparison is on Compare plans. The two decisions that pick a plan for most teams: do you need the PowerShell or Python module (Enterprise), and do you need autonomous runs — a pipeline, a scheduler, an orchestrator, a container (Enterprise, and only Enterprise).
Try it first
Every plan can be tried for free. Starter is free — sign up at CAT Portal and use it. Team and Enterprise each have a Free trial (no card) button on the portal’s Buy page; one short form (Try CAT free), a person on our side looks at it within a business day, and the trial is set up for the period shown on the form — longer if you agree to a follow-up conversation:
- Team trial — set up on the account of the email you give; everything works exactly as the paid plan does. No account yet? The trial email says how to activate it. On the command line, CAT CLI signs you in with a personal access token.
- Enterprise trial — your own license key arrives by email; set it as on Apply a license key and every tool runs, autonomous runs and offline use included, for the trial period.
Need more time? The same form has Ask for more time for a running trial.
Buy
- Team — on the Buy page, monthly or yearly; the checkout and the invoices are handled by Paddle, our merchant of record, and the plan is active on your account the moment the payment goes through. No key to install: the tools see the plan when you sign in. Manage billing on your account page opens Paddle’s portal for invoices, card changes and cancellation.
- Enterprise — priced per your setup, with a license agreement: Contact us on the Buy page, or hello@justcat.it. You receive a license key (and new keys on renewal); the key is what the tools check, the portal account is not needed for running.
When a plan ends
- A subscription that ends or is cancelled puts the account back on Starter: the PowerShell and Python modules and the outputs stop; CAT Studio and CAT CLI keep working, and a project with outputs is refused when opened.
- A license key that expires stops unlocking: CAT Studio and CAT CLI ask for sign-in again, the modules refuse until a key is set, and autonomous runs are refused — from CAT 3.0 an autonomous run without a valid key stops before any test runs. Set the renewed key the same way as the first one; a key that is not yet valid can be set ahead of time and starts working on its first day.
Related
- Apply a license key — every tool, and what the key is not.
- Compare plans — the full table.
- Integrations — what a pipeline needs from the plan and the key.