---
title: "Get a CAT license"
description: "The four plans, the free trial of each, how to buy — Professional and Team as a subscription, Enterprise with a license key — and what happens when a plan ends"
url: "https://docs.justcat.it/how-to-guides/licensing-and-admin/get-license/"
---
# Get a CAT license


## Which plan

| Plan | In one line | Unlocked by |
|---|---|---|
| **Starter** | free; CAT Studio only; small projects (200 tests, 2 data sources, 2 technologies); Excel output | an account on [CAT Portal](https://portal.justcat.it) |
| **Professional** | Studio only, no project limits, Excel output | a subscription on your account |
| **Team** | all four tools — Studio, CLI, PowerShell, Python — all outputs; interactive use | a subscription on your account |
| **Enterprise** | everything, **unattended runs** (pipelines, schedulers), works offline and behind a firewall | a **license key** |

The full comparison is on [Compare plans](https://docs.justcat.it/compare-plans/ "Compare plans"). The two decisions that pick a plan for most teams: do you need the command-line tools (Team or above), and do you need CAT to run unattended — a pipeline, a scheduler (Enterprise, and only Enterprise).

## Try it first

Every plan can be tried for free. Starter *is* free — sign up at [CAT Portal](https://portal.justcat.it) and use it. The three paid plans 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:

* **Professional and 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, Team signs you in with a personal access token — see the install pages.
* **Enterprise trial** — **your own license key arrives by email**; set it as on [Apply a license key](https://docs.justcat.it/how-to-guides/licensing-and-admin/apply-license-key/ "Apply a license key") and every tool runs, also unattended and offline, for the trial period.

Need more time? The same form has *Ask for more time* for a running trial.

## Buy

* **Professional and 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 <a href="mailto:hello@justcat.it">hello@justcat.it</a>. 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 command-line tools and the non-Excel outputs stop, and a project over the Starter limits is refused when opened.
* A **license key** that expires stops unlocking: the tools ask for sign-in again and unattended runs are refused — from CAT 3.0 a pipeline or scheduler 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](https://docs.justcat.it/how-to-guides/licensing-and-admin/apply-license-key/ "Apply a license key") — every tool, and what the key is not.
* [Compare plans](https://docs.justcat.it/compare-plans/ "Compare plans") — the full table.
* [Integrations](https://docs.justcat.it/reference/integrations/ "Integrations") — what a pipeline needs from the plan and the key.