Know What the Licence Buys
An unactivated instance runs with limited capability regardless of which tier you hold. A deployment planned around threat intelligence or categorization that the licence does not include passes the pilot. It fails the first real policy decision. Settle the tier before sizing and before policy design — both depend on which feeds are available.Compare the tiers
SafeSquid offers two licensing tiers.
The free licence has no time limit. Upgrade to commercial at any point through the Self-Service Portal; the deployment steps are the same for both tiers.
Plan around what the tier excludes
The two exclusions that most often surprise a deployment:- URL categorization. Category-based access policy is central to most acceptable-use designs. On the free tier those rules have no categorization database behind them, so the policy exists but does not classify.
- Disaster-recovery backup. Configure Cloud Restore depends on the commercial tier. A DR plan built on it needs the licence to match.
Treat licence state as audit evidence
Activation also matters for audit. Licensed state is visible in the Configuration Portal and serves as evidence that the gateway is correctly licensed. The activation key itself is not the audit artifact. Store the key securely and capture licence-state evidence from the interface instead.Capture licensing evidence
Store these artifacts with the deployment record:- The tier the deployment assumes, and who approved it.
- The activation key storage location and its access control.
- A record of licensed state from the Configuration Portal.
- The subscription renewal owner, for commercial deployments.
Troubleshoot licensing assumptions
Next steps
- Register and Get Your Key - obtain the activation key.
- Activate Your License - apply it to the instance.
- Manage Subscription State - handle renewal and expiry.