Keylight vs Gumroad — real licensing on top of the sale

A lot of indie apps start on Gumroad, and for good reason — you can sell a download by lunchtime. Then the app grows up and the license key starts showing its limits. Gumroad sells the file and emails a key. Whether that key means anything inside the app is a different job, and that job is Keylight.

What Gumroad gets right

Gumroad is the fastest way to start selling. Upload a file, set a price, share a link — you’re in business. Huge indie adoption, instant checkout, and yes, a license key API: it can generate a key on purchase and verify it over the network. For selling a digital download with a key attached, it’s hard to beat for time-to-first-sale.

If all you need is “give me money, give them a key,” Gumroad covers it.

Where Keylight is different

The Gumroad key is a receipt. It proves a purchase happened. It doesn’t run your licensing.

Verification is an online API call — no network, no check, so the app can’t confirm a license on a plane or behind a firewall. The “uses” field is a manual counter you increment yourself; it isn’t an enforced device limit, and nothing stops a key from being pasted onto ten machines. There’s no trial, no feature-flag tier, no Swift SDK. All of that is the work you’d write by hand on top of Gumroad.

Keylight is that work, already done. Offline checks run on Ed25519-signed leases verified locally:

await licensing.checkOnLaunch()

switch licensing.state {
case .licensed: enablePaidFeatures()
case .trial(let daysLeft): showTrialBanner(daysLeft: daysLeft)
case .expired: showRenewalPrompt()
case .invalid: showActivationSheet()
}

Device activations are tracked server-side and enforced. Trials and feature flags are built in and signed into the lease. The Swift SDK is a state machine you switch on, not an endpoint you babysit.

How they fit together

You don’t have to leave Gumroad to fix this. Keep it for the sale, and have it notify Keylight by webhook to mint the real license. Stripe is the first-class path — a charge mints the license with no webhook code — but Gumroad connects too. Sell where you already sell; license properly underneath.

Where Keylight fits

Outgrowing the emailed-key stage? That’s Keylight. Offline leases, enforced device limits, trials, feature flags, and a native Swift SDK — the licensing a real Mac or Swift app needs once a key has to do more than confirm a sale.

Already on Gumroad? Move the licensing to Keylight without breaking the keys your customers already have.

Plans start at $19/month, with a free tier. Sell anywhere. License for real.