One commercial license for codegen and HPO

How the guide decides

First identify the intended Licensee. An organization cannot take Solo or Personal Trading. A natural person may take Solo for a qualifying Personal Vehicle. For employer work, name the employer as Licensee. Count only that Licensee's beneficially owned capital; qualifying personal accounts are not company capital. Shareholder/member/partner ownership alone does not make the Licensee's capital external, unless it is a fund or pooled investment vehicle.

1. First identify the intended Licensee, then answer uses 2, 4, 8 and 9. For a natural-person Licensee with use 2, question 3 asks about funded-trader accounts or relatives outside the household, friends or first clients, up to $1M in total and traded alone; an organization cannot be Solo. Investment Management needs a commercial license except qualifying Personal Trading.
2. For an organization, question 5 asks whether it is a listed noncommercial organization, and 6 whether it uses the software for Investment Management. Non-investment use stays free. For a natural person describing use 4 through an organization, question 7 checks the qualifying Personal Vehicle; otherwise choose that organization as Licensee.
3. If no answer so far needs a commercial license whatever else you answer, a yes to any of the four uses leads to question 14: is all of that use for a noncommercial purpose? Yes: no commercial license is needed. Otherwise you need one. Solo covers use (2) for such a company of your own, and use (1) for one person after a yes to question 3; Team covers use (2) for one organization; Fund adds others' capital (1) and other Investment Management, such as an endowment or a pension fund; OEM / Embedded covers products (3) and hosted services (4). Separate uses need an Order for each applicable Tier; contact licensing for combined ordering or tailored Product scope. No combined checkout route is implemented.
4. If all four uses are no, questions 11 to 13 test Personal Trading: an individual trading for their own account (including household, joint and retirement accounts) with their own capital (including household capital and margin). Three yes answers: no commercial license is needed. Otherwise question 14 decides: a noncommercial purpose needs no commercial license; any other use needs one, by quote.

The questions

1. 1.Is the intended Licensee an organization rather than you as a natural person?Choose the person or organization that will hold each Order. An employer's own capital stays its own when an employee answers. Solo can name only a natural person, including their qualifying Personal Vehicles; a company cannot be the Solo Licensee.
2. 2.For the intended licensee, will you manage, advise on, or trade capital belonging to another person or entity (outside the household for a natural-person licensee), whether or not for a fee?LICENSE use (1). It is also Investment Management, which needs a commercial license whatever its purpose. Your household is you, your spouse or domestic partner, and your dependants. Capital that an employer, a prop-trading firm or a funded-trader program gives you to trade, and still owns or bears the losses of, is not your own capital. An account that such a firm or program gives you, a challenge, evaluation or simulated account included, is not your own account or capital. Its capital is investment capital whether real or simulated. The capital of a fund, pooled vehicle, managed account or other entity with an outside investor, client or beneficiary is not your own capital, even if you control that entity. After a yes, the next question asks about funded-trader accounts. Answer for the intended licensee. If it is your employer, that company's Own Capital is its own, not others' capital merely because you are its employee; your personal funded-trader account is a separate use. A Solo licensee must be a natural person.
3. 3.Is the capital that is not yours only funded-trader or challenge accounts, or the money of relatives outside the household, friends or first clients, up to $1M in total, traded by you alone as one person?Count each funded-trader account at its nominal size, whether it is a challenge, evaluation, simulated or funded account and whether the capital in it is real or simulated, and add any money of relatives outside the household, friends or first clients held in their own accounts: up to $1M in total, Solo covers it. Above $1M, pooled in a fund, or for a firm rather than one person, it is Fund. Either way it is Investment Management, which needs a commercial license.
4. 4.Will you use it by, for, or on behalf of a company, fund, partnership, or other organization, including your own company or your work for one?LICENSE use (2). The account of a company you wholly own is not your own account, so trading through one counts.
5. 5.Is the organization a charitable organization, educational institution, public research organization, public safety or health organization, environmental protection organization, or government institution?The noncommercial organizations the LICENSE lists among its permitted purposes, whatever their source of funding. Their teaching, research and other operations are free; Investment Management is not.
6. 6.Will the organization use the software for Investment Management: to manage, advise on or trade investment capital, such as an endowment, a pension or retirement fund, a sovereign or other public fund, or its treasury or reserves; to research, develop or backtest strategies for such capital; or to run the software for others who do?Investment Management is never a permitted purpose, except as Personal Trading: it needs a commercial license for every organization, noncommercial ones included, whoever the capital belongs to and whether or not for a fee. The organization's teaching, research and other operations stay free.
7. 7.Is the organization one you wholly own, alone or with your household, holding only your household's capital, where no one but you uses the software and no one outside your household works on its trading or research?For example, a company you trade your own savings through. Your household is you, your spouse or domestic partner, and your dependants. Trading through such a company is Investment Management, not Personal Trading, so it needs a commercial license even for a noncommercial purpose.
8. 8.Will you embed the software or its Output into a product or service made available to others, distribute either bundled with such a product or service, or use the software to generate Output for one?LICENSE use (3), changed or not: embedding counts, and so does shipping a copy of the software or its Output bundled with a product or service. Output is code the software generates, such as the C++ it generates from PineScript, and any program or library built from that code. Backtest results, charts, reports and trade signals are not Output.
9. 9.Will you operate a hosted, software-as-a-service, or otherwise public-facing service through which others can run the software or receive its Output?LICENSE use (4). Output is the code the software generates, not backtest results, charts, reports or trade signals.
10. 10.Does the Product itself manage, advise on or trade other persons' capital?Yes needs tailored scope. No means the investment business and the Product are distinct uses and require separate Orders, with separate scope and payment.
11. 11.Are you an individual (a natural person) using it to research, develop or backtest trading strategies, or to execute trades in financial instruments?The Personal Trading permission covers natural persons only. Trading in your own name counts even when it is your business or livelihood, and so does publishing or teaching about your own trading, even for pay, as long as you give no Output to others.
12. 12.Are the trades placed, or will they be, for your own account?Personal Trading, condition (a). Your own account includes an account you hold alone or jointly with your household, a household member's account, and a retirement, pension, education-savings or other tax-advantaged account, or a revocable trust's account, for your household. The account of a company, partnership, fund, other trust or other organization is not, even if you wholly own it. Neither is an account that a prop-trading firm or a funded-trader program gives you to trade, a challenge, evaluation or simulated account included.
13. 13.Are the trades funded, or will they be, solely by your own capital?Personal Trading, condition (b). Your own capital includes your household's capital, money you received outright such as pay, a gift or an inheritance, and ordinary borrowing such as margin that you or your household are liable for. Capital that an employer, a prop-trading firm or a funded-trader program gives you to trade, and still owns or bears the losses of, is not, even if you share in the profits. Trades in an account that such a firm or program gives you, a challenge, evaluation or simulated account included, are not funded by your own capital either, whether the capital in it is real or simulated.
14. 14.Is all of your use of the software for a noncommercial purpose, without any anticipated commercial application, such as a free hobby project, teaching, or research for the benefit of public knowledge?The LICENSE makes any noncommercial purpose a permitted purpose, but never Investment Management: managing, advising on or trading investment capital, or researching strategies for it, other than as Personal Trading. If any part of the use has an anticipated commercial application or is Investment Management, answer no.

The possible results

Each result gives the reason for one example of answers that lead to it.