How to Sell Software Online: App Stores, Direct Sales and Licence Keys

How to sell software online comes down to one early choice: who runs the sale. An app store takes payment and delivers the app for a commission. Selling direct from your own site means you pick a payment processor or a merchant of record, issue licence keys, sign your builds and set your own refund terms. Pick the channel first, because it decides most of the work that follows.

Disclosure: ZeroRaised publishes this guide and appears in the final section. Fees and rules are quoted from the linked vendor and platform pages as checked on 18 Oct 2026; they change, so confirm them before you sign up. This guide makes no promise of sales or revenue from any channel or listing, and none of it is legal or tax advice.

TL;DR#

There are two paid routes and one free one. You can sell through a store, such as the Mac App Store or the Microsoft Store, and let the store take payment, deliver the app and keep a cut. You can sell direct from your own website, using a payment processor (you are the seller) or a merchant of record (they are the seller). Or you can give the software away through your own download page or a Homebrew tap, which is a fine choice for open source tools and a poor one for anything you want paid for.

The fee is the easy part to compare: our table of published US fees for nine payment vendors includes Paddle, Polar and Stripe, and you can compare the fees on your own price before you choose. The work behind each route is harder to see. A store asks you to fit its technical rules and its review process. Selling direct asks you to host the download, sign and notarise every build, send a licence key that actually activates, and handle refunds and support yourself. A plain processor adds tax registration, receipts and invoices to that list; a merchant of record takes those off it for a higher fee.

You do not have to pick only one. One of the Mac apps below is listed on the Mac App Store and also sold from its maker’s own site. And if what you sell is a web app on a subscription, most of the signing and licence key sections will not apply to you: the login is the licence.

This week’s example: a Mac mail app sold direct with a licence key#

On 13 Oct 2026, the team behind GotEmail posted a Show HN for their native Mac mail app (Show HN post, checked 18 Oct 2026). The post is written by rahul379, who introduces the project plainly: “I'm one of the two people behind GotEmail.” The pitch covers speed, a calm interface and one-click sign-in codes, then gets to the sale in a single line: “It's a one-time purchase, $19.99, for every Mac you own.”

The product site fills in the commerce side, and it reads like a checklist for selling a desktop app direct (GotEmail, checked 18 Oct 2026). The pricing block says “Pay once, keep it forever. No subscription.” and “Your license key arrives by email right after checkout.” Under the buy button: “Write to us within 7 days of buying and we refund you in full.” The FAQ answers how many machines a licence covers, and it answers the trust question too: “Every build is signed, notarized by Apple and checked by macOS when you open it.”

The most useful line for anyone choosing a channel sits under the FAQ heading “Why is it not on the Mac App Store?” The team’s answer: “Selling it ourselves lets us ship updates the day they are ready.” Selling direct buys control over release timing, with no review queue between a fix and the people waiting for it.

The same control applies to price. The FAQ says “The next 200 customers pay $19.99, and after that GotEmail is $49.99.” A banner on the site also announces a higher price and the end of lifetime licences, with a separate page explaining what changes. On the page, the buy button goes to a Polar checkout; this guide makes no further claim about how their set-up works behind it.

Two other Mac makers posted Show HNs in the same week with very different set-ups. Luksmith, posted on 15 Oct 2026, is free to read with a paid upgrade, and is on the Mac App Store as well as its own site. Putaway, posted on 16 Oct 2026, is free, open source and deliberately unsigned. Three posts in one week are a sample, not a pattern. What they do show is the set of questions every maker selling software has to answer: who takes the money, how the buyer gets a working copy, what the buyer is allowed to install it on, and what happens when they want their money back.

How to sell software online: pick the channel before the price#

The channel decides who is legally selling the product, who collects and pays the tax, who handles refunds and chargebacks, and how a paying customer ends up with a working copy on their machine. Those answers change what you can charge and how, so they come first.

If you are working out how to start selling software online, answer these in writing before you open an account anywhere:

• Is it a web app or a download? A web app checks access when someone logs in, so you never ship a binary to a stranger. A download leaves your hands the moment it is bought, which is where signing, licence keys and activation limits come in.
• Which platforms? Mac only, Windows only, or both.
• Do you need a store’s storefront?
• Can the app live inside the store’s rules? Some tools need system access that a store does not allow. If yours does, the decision is made for you.
• What do you want to sell besides the first copy? Seats, upgrades and bundles are easier when you own the checkout.

The web app case is the simplest. Your login is the licence, so a subscription through a processor or merchant of record covers most of it, and the signing sections below do not apply. If the question is how to sell desktop applications, everything that follows applies, and the list is longer than people expect.

Selling through an app store#

A store is the least engineering. It takes the payment, delivers the app, handles updates through its own updater and gives the buyer a familiar account to buy with. You pay for that in commission, in review time and in the rules you have to fit.

Mac App Store#

To sell there you need the Apple Developer Program, listed at a “$99 annual membership” (checked 18 Oct 2026). Apple’s pitch for the store is reach: “The App Store makes it easy for users in 175 regions to discover and download your apps, games, and extensions across Apple platforms.”

The cut depends on your size. The App Store Small Business Program offers “a reduced commission rate of 15% on paid apps and Apple In-App Purchases” (checked 18 Oct 2026). Existing developers with up to 1 million USD in proceeds in the prior calendar year qualify, as do developers new to the store. Cross that threshold in the current year and “the standard commission rate will apply to future sales.”

The technical rules are the part that decides whether the store is open to you at all. Guideline 2.4.5 of the App Review Guidelines says Mac App Store apps “must be appropriately sandboxed” and must be packaged with Xcode, with “no third-party installers allowed.” (checked 18 Oct 2026). Some disk utilities, system tools and menu bar apps that reach into other apps do not fit inside a sandbox. As editorial guidance, that is one of the common reasons small Mac tools are sold direct, alongside the update-timing reason the GotEmail team gives.

Being in the store and selling direct are not exclusive. Luksmith’s maker links both the Mac App Store listing and the project website from their Show HN (Luksmith on HN, 15 Oct 2026, checked 18 Oct 2026). Another Show HN that week used the store’s own tools for a launch offer. Scriber Pro’s maker wrote “No subscriptions, just a one time $3.99 on the Mac App Store” and offered that “The first 10 HN readers who click the button on the linked page get it free: the button shows you an App Store promo code along with a link to redeem it.” (Scriber Pro on HN, 16 Oct 2026, checked 18 Oct 2026).

If you go the store route, the listing becomes your sales page. The work there is screenshots and search terms, covered in app store screenshots for launch and app store keyword research for indie apps.

Microsoft Store#

Getting in costs nothing up front. Microsoft’s developer account page says “With the new onboarding experience, there are no registration fees for either account type, so you can create your developer account and start publishing at no cost.” (checked 18 Oct 2026). There are two account types, Individual and Company, and the page warns that “Changing a developer account from Individual to Company is not supported in Partner Center.” If you think you will form a company later, decide now which name you want buyers to see, because switching means a new account. Store packages also have signing requirements; those sit with the Windows notes in the signing section.

Selling direct: payment processor or merchant of record#

Selling from your own site splits into two models, and the difference is who the buyer is legally buying from.

With a payment processor, you are the seller. The processor moves the card payment and you handle everything around it: tax registration where you owe it, receipts and invoices, refunds, disputes and licence delivery. Stripe’s UK pricing page lists standard pricing of 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards and 2.5% + 20p for EU cards (checked 18 Oct 2026).

With a merchant of record, the platform is the seller. It sells your software to the buyer, deals with sales tax on that sale and pays you the remainder. Paddle’s pricing lists “5% + 50¢” “per Checkout transaction”, under the line “Start selling globally with Paddle as your Merchant of Record.”, and adds “No monthly fees, migration fees, or hidden extras” (checked 18 Oct 2026). Polar’s pricing has a free Starter plan at 5% + 50¢ per transaction and paid plans that trade a monthly fee for a lower rate, such as Pro at $20 a month with 3.8% + 40¢ (checked 18 Oct 2026). The same page adds 1.5% for international (non-US) cards on every plan. Polar’s own framing: “every rate is posted publicly, and you choose the plan that fits.”

GotEmail’s buy button points to a Polar checkout, and Polar’s own documentation describes issuing licence keys as part of a sale.

A quick way to compare the fixed parts: on Paddle or Polar Starter, every sale pays 50¢ before the percentage, whatever the price. On a cheap utility that fixed amount is a large share of the sale; on a pricier tool it fades. Polar Pro’s lower rate only pays off once your sales cover its $20 monthly fee, so run your own numbers with your own price before you upgrade a plan.

Licence keys and activation limits#

A licence key is proof of purchase that a downloaded app can check.

You do not have to build the key system yourself. If the question is how to sell software licenses online without running a licence server, a merchant of record that issues keys is the shortest path. Polar’s licence key docs say “You can easily sell software license keys with Polar without having to deal with sales tax or hosting an API to validate them in real-time.” (checked 18 Oct 2026). The features listed on that page include “Limited number of user activations, e.g devices”, automatic expiry after a set period and “Usage quotas per license key”.

Whatever system you use, decide the activation rule before launch and print it on the pricing page. GotEmail’s FAQ is a clear example of the buyer-facing version: “One license activates on every Mac you own, and you can free a Mac's seat yourself in Settings, without writing to support.”

The opposite end is a key that never phones home. Luksmith’s site puts it bluntly: “No account, no telemetry, no licence server.” (Luksmith, checked 18 Oct 2026). The trade-off, as editorial guidance, is that a key with no server behind it is easier to share, so the decision is about which buyers you would rather inconvenience.

A few practical rules, all editorial:

• Give the app an offline grace period, so a buyer on a train is not locked out because the check could not reach your server.
• Offer a self-service reset for activations. Every reset that needs an email is a support ticket you wrote for yourself.
• Put the key in the receipt email and on an account or order page, so a lost email is not a lost purchase.
• Test the full path on a clean machine: buy, receive the email, paste the key, activate, deactivate, activate again.

Signing and notarisation for direct downloads#

A buyer who pays for an app and then sees a warning that it cannot be verified has a reason to ask for a refund before they have even opened it. Signing is the step that stops that warning, and it is the hidden cost of selling direct.

Mac apps outside the App Store#

Apple’s Developer ID page explains the gate: Gatekeeper protects users “by checking for a Developer ID certificate from apps distributed outside the Mac App Store.” (checked 18 Oct 2026). On top of signing, Apple offers notarisation: the service “automatically scans your Developer ID-signed software and performs security checks.” The same page says the certificate is generated by the Account Holder of a team in the Apple Developer Program. So the $99 membership applies even if you never list anything in the store.

The free counter-example is Putaway, a menu bar app that sorts the Downloads folder (Putaway on HN, 16 Oct 2026, checked 18 Oct 2026). Its maker is upfront: “I do not pay for an Apple developer account, so the app is not notarized.” They add that “The curl and brew installs do not show the Gatekeeper prompt.” Putaway is MIT-licensed and installs through a script or the maker’s own Homebrew tap. For a free, open source tool used by technical people, that can be a reasonable trade. For a paid app sold to strangers, asking buyers to work around a security warning is a much harder sell, and GotEmail’s FAQ states plainly that every build is signed and notarized by Apple.

Homebrew has its own line. Its Acceptable Casks rules say apps in the main cask repository “must pass Homebrew's Gatekeeper checks and must not require System Integrity Protection or Gatekeeper to be disabled or bypassed.” (checked 18 Oct 2026). An unsigned app can still live in your own tap, as Putaway’s does, but the main repository is closed to it.

Windows direct downloads#

On Windows, Microsoft’s guide to code signing for Smart App Control says “Smart App Control allows applications signed with trusted digital certificates to run on protected devices.” and “Code can be signed with any certificate, but Smart App Control only considers certificates issued by trusted providers.” (checked 18 Oct 2026). A self-signed certificate will not do. Budget for a certificate from a trusted provider and for the time to wire signing into your build.

Refunds and the UK digital content rule#

Selling a download to consumers in the UK comes with a legal step that is easy to miss if you build checkout yourself. Under regulation 37 of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, a trader must not begin supplying digital content during the cancellation period unless “(a) the consumer has given express consent, and” “(b) the consumer has acknowledged that the right to cancel the contract under regulation 29(1) will be lost.” (checked 18 Oct 2026). Paragraph (2) then says the right to cancel ends if supply has begun after that consent and acknowledgement.

In practice, if you deliver a download or a licence key the moment someone pays, the checkout needs to collect that consent and acknowledgement before delivery, usually with a tick box and a plain sentence next to the buy button. If a merchant of record runs checkout and is the seller, read its terms to see what it already covers rather than assuming. This is a summary of one regulation for orientation, not legal advice; if you sell at any scale, get advice for the countries you sell into.

A voluntary refund window is a separate decision. The law sets the floor; your refund policy can sit above it. GotEmail offers a 7-day full refund, quoted earlier, and puts that promise directly under the buy button, where a hesitant buyer reads it. Write down what happens to the licence key when you refund, and make sure your system actually does it.

Free tiers and trials that convert#

A free tier that keeps working can be a sales channel in itself, because people who rely on the free part are the easiest to sell the paid part to.

Luksmith is an example of the split. Its maker writes that “It's completely free to read and copy files from the drive if you try it out”, with write access sold as a one-time $9.99 purchase (Luksmith on HN). The same post says “No account needed, no telemetry shared back to me, no network connections made.” The free half is genuinely useful, and the paid half is the obvious next step for anyone who wants to change files rather than just read them.

If you plan to list on Homebrew, the cask rules shape how a trial has to work. Acceptable Casks states “A free version that works indefinitely with optional paid features is eligible.” and “A time-limited trial is eligible only when the same download can be activated as the full version without being downloaded again.” That second rule is good design advice in general: one download, converted with a key, beats a trial build that has to be replaced by a paid build.

A pre-sale checklist before the first buyer arrives#

Before you point anyone at the buy button, run the whole path yourself, on a machine that has never seen your app. This list is editorial, built from the steps above:

• Make a real test purchase, then refund it. Confirm the money moves both ways and the refund email says what you expect.
• Check the licence email arrives within a minute, lands in the inbox rather than spam, and contains the key and a download link.
• Activate, deactivate and reactivate the key, and try one machine past the limit to see the message a buyer would see.
• Open a signed, notarised build on a clean Mac, or a signed build on a clean Windows machine with Smart App Control on, and confirm there is no warning.
• Read your pricing page as a stranger. It should state the price, what one licence covers, how updates work and the refund window.
• Add the UK consent step to checkout if you sell to UK consumers and deliver at once.
• Put a support address on the receipt, and make sure someone reads it.
• Write the three help pages you already know people will need: lost key, moving to a new machine and requesting a refund.

For the wider pre-launch list, the product launch checklist for bootstrapped makers covers the parts that are not about checkout, and how to launch a bootstrapped app covers the order to do them in.

Where a launch listing fits once checkout works#

For many bootstrapped products, money from customers is the funding, and you can check your ramen profitability to see how many paying customers, once payment fees come out, it takes to meet your monthly costs. That makes a working checkout part of the business plan, not an afterthought; the trade-offs against other routes are laid out in ways to fund a product without venture capital.

Once a stranger can find the app, pay for it, receive a key and get it running without writing to you, it is ready to be shown to more people. A listing, or an AppSumo launch campaign, can bring attention; it does not guarantee sales, and nothing in this guide promises any.

ZeroRaised is a free launch site for bootstrapped makers whose products have no institutional VC or accelerator equity. If your product fits and checkout has survived a test purchase, you can submit it for review. The maker perks page is a separate resource for eligible makers; neither replaces the signing, licence and refund work above.

So the short version of how to sell software online: choose who runs the sale, build the delivery path that route needs, test it end to end, and only then argue with yourself about the price.