Licensing, plainly

Everything MapMap sells sits under one of three legal surfaces. This page explains which one applies to you, what it costs, and what you get, in plain language. The binding texts are the terms of service, the SDK commercial licence and, for self-hosting, a written agreement. Prices are machine-readable at /pricing.json.

The three surfaces

Evaluation is free everywhere: the API free tier is permanent, the SDKs are freely installable with a published evaluation download allowance for offline territories, and self-host evaluation is handled through a paid pilot (below) so it comes with real support.

What a self-host licence actually contains

Three components, priced together in the tier:

1. Platform licence: the right to run the stack on your hardware, per deployment, including production SDK rights for your apps.
2. Territory data subscription: the signed territory channel: our world and regional map+routing builds, restriction-audited, delivered over the air with quarterly updates included (monthly cadence +25%). Every package is ed25519-signed; your devices verify against a pinned public key, so the transport is untrusted and your deployment stays yours.
3. Support and SLA: included from Team upwards, scaling from 2-day email (Team) to a dedicated engineer with programme SLAs and an optional verified source-escrow arrangement (Sovereign/OEM). Team Lite is the exception: it is community-supported, with no response target.

What the tiers gate: the routing engine starts at Team (Team Lite serves tiles, styles, static maps and geocoding only, and moving up is an upgrade credited pro rata rather than a re-purchase); customer-facing apps and truck/ADR costing start at Business; high availability, multiple deployments and world data at Enterprise; air-gapped accredited deployment, private/custom territory builds (your own factory runs) and embedded per-unit royalties at Sovereign/OEM.

How buying works

• Paid pilot, not a free POC: 60–90 days at 10% of the year-one licence, fully credited if you convert. Papered as an annual agreement with an opt-out, one measurable success criterion agreed up front.
• Annual subscription by default: support (community-only on Team Lite) and data updates included. If your procurement requires perpetual, it's 1.67× the annual price plus 25%/year maintenance; the two converge around year three.
• Licence mechanics built for real operations: the licence is a signed file your deployment verifies offline (air-gap friendly, with a defined maximum offline duration). An expired licence never bricks your fleet: the stack keeps running and you lose channel updates and support until renewal. Usage true-up is annual and self-certified.
• Multi-year buys a price lock, not a deeper discount.

Map data and attribution

Map data derives from OpenStreetMap under ODbL. Whatever you licence from us, anything you render or republish from that data must credit "© OpenStreetMap contributors". Our package format, build pipeline, signing infrastructure and SDKs are proprietary; the ODbL-licensed data inside remains ODbL. The SDK licence spells out that boundary, and our ODbL recreation recipe ships in the docs.

Avatars

The vehicle avatars MapMap serves for drawing a vehicle on a map (the cars, the discs they stand on, and every sprite, atlas, model and image made from them) are licensed separately from the SDK code and the map data, under the MapMap Avatar Artwork Licence, version 1:

1. The artwork is an original work of Mapmap AI Ltd and its intellectual property. No third-party models or textures were used to make it.
2. What you may do. With a valid MapMap API key or a written agreement with Mapmap AI Ltd, you may, free of charge: display the artwork in any application, website or product that uses a MapMap SDK, MapMap map tiles or a MapMap API under that key or agreement; cache it, and host your own copy, for that use; and resize and crop it for that use.
3. What you may not do. Redistribute the artwork on its own, as an asset pack, or inside another SDK or library; use it with, or on top of, maps from any other map provider; sell or sublicense it, or make derivative packs of it for sale; use it in a trade mark, logo or other brand identity; use it to train or fine-tune a generative model, or as input to one to make similar artwork; or remove the licence file from a copy you host.
4. Attribution. None is required on the map. A credit line in your documentation is welcome.
5. Term. For as long as your MapMap key or agreement is in good standing. When it ends, builds you shipped before it ended may keep displaying the artwork for 90 days, so an application does not break overnight.
6. Warranty and liability. As for the MapMap SDK the artwork is used with: without warranty of any kind, and with the limitations of liability in that SDK's licence and your agreement with us.

The same text ships as LICENSE.txt beside the hosted files.

Common questions

Can I evaluate self-hosting before an agreement? The hosted API and SDKs cover most evaluation free. For the stack itself, the paid pilot is the evaluation; it exists so your trial gets real engineering support.

What happens if we stop paying? Your deployment keeps running. You stop receiving territory updates, platform updates and support. Your users' devices keep navigating on the data they have.

Can we escrow the source? Yes: verified escrow (Escode-style) is a standard option at Sovereign/OEM; the buyer typically holds the agreement.

Do you audit? At most once a year, on 30 days' notice, and we pay for it unless the audit finds material under-licensing. Annual self-certified true-up is the norm.

We're an OEM embedding navigation in devices. How does that price? Sovereign/OEM: a platform licence plus a per-unit royalty schedule (published as "from" anchors; scoped by volume in the agreement). The Telenav-style structure (royalty per unit shipped, annual data compilation, per-unit updates) is the industry norm and maps cleanly onto the territory subscription.

Why publish prices when nobody else does? Because the buyers we want (including AI agents doing vendor comparison) can't evaluate "contact sales". Final quotes still scope coverage, assets and SLA; the anchors are real.

---

Questions, pilots, agreements: hello@mapmap.ai.