Software Subscription & Support

Software Subscription & Support (S&S) is the renewable agreement that entitles you to new software versions and to technical support. It is distinct from your perpetual license: the license lets you run the software indefinitely, while S&S governs your right to upgrade it and to receive support. Understanding the boundary between the two prevents unpleasant surprises at renewal time.

The S&S timeline: year one is included, then annual renewal, with a lapse and reinstatement window if you let it expire.

What S&S covers

An active S&S subscription entitles you to:

Version upgrades — every new release (major, minor, and patch) published while your S&S is active, including feature releases, security fixes, and statutory/compliance updates such as tax-table changes.
Technical support — access to QoinPay support engineers for defect diagnosis and operational guidance, within the response targets of your support tier.
Portal access — the licensing portal's download library for the releases you are entitled to.

S&S does not affect the running product. If S&S lapses, the software you have already installed keeps running under your perpetual license without interruption. What you lose is the right to move forward, not the right to keep running.

Year one is bundled

Every new QoinPay license purchase includes the first 12 months of S&S in the order price. The coverage window begins on the order fulfilment date and is recorded on your entitlement as the sns_start_date and sns_end_date. During this bundled year you may install any release QoinPay publishes and open support cases at no additional charge.

Renewal pricing

S&S renews annually. Renewal is priced as a percentage of the current list price of the licensed products — the standard rate is 20% of list per year, invoiced ahead of the sns_end_date. Because it is a percentage of list, renewal cost tracks the catalogue price of what you own rather than a fixed figure, and reflects any editions or seats you have added since the original order.

Renew before the current window ends to keep coverage continuous. The portal issues a renewal quote in advance; accepting it extends sns_end_date by the renewal term and, where applicable, delivers an updated .qplic file reflecting the new end date.

Version rights: the release-date rule

The rule that determines which versions you may run is simple and date-based:

You are entitled to install any release whose general-availability date (ga_date) falls on or before your S&S end date (sns_end_date).

In other words, a release is yours to run permanently if it went GA while your S&S was active. This has two important consequences:

A release published after your S&S lapses is not covered. You may not install it until you reinstate S&S.
A release published before or during your active window remains yours forever, even after S&S lapses. Lapsing does not force a downgrade — you keep what you were entitled to at the moment coverage ended.

Concretely, if your sns_end_date is 2026-06-30:

Release 8.4  ga_date 2026-05-12   →  covered (ga_date <= sns_end_date)
Release 8.5  ga_date 2026-06-30   →  covered (equal date qualifies)
Release 8.6  ga_date 2026-08-01   →  NOT covered until S&S is reinstated

The application enforces this at upgrade time: the installer checks the target release's ga_date against the sns_end_date in your .qplic file and refuses to apply a release you are not entitled to, with a clear message rather than a silent failure. Running installations are never affected by this check.

Lapse behaviour

If S&S is not renewed by the sns_end_date, it lapses. On lapse:

The installed software continues to run indefinitely — no functionality is switched off.
You retain the right to run any release with a ga_date on or before your lapsed sns_end_date, and may reinstall those releases if you rebuild a host.
You lose access to newer releases and to support cases from the lapse date forward.

Lapse is therefore low-risk operationally but does freeze you on your then-current versions, including compliance updates — a material consideration for payroll, where tax tables change.

Reinstatement

S&S that has lapsed can be reinstated, but reinstatement is not the same as a fresh renewal. To close the coverage gap, reinstatement is priced to cover the elapsed uncovered period plus the forward term, typically with a reinstatement uplift on top of the standard renewal percentage. This makes continuous renewal the economical choice and discourages lapsing as a cost-avoidance tactic.

Once reinstated, your sns_end_date advances to the new term and the release-date rule immediately re-opens access to all releases with a ga_date on or before the new end date — including those published during the lapsed gap. The portal issues an updated .qplic file; install it with php bin/console license:install --file=current.qplic to unlock the newer releases at upgrade time.

Summary

Your perpetual license keeps the software running forever. S&S keeps it moving forward. Year one is included; renewal runs at a percentage of list; the release-date rule (ga_date <= sns_end_date) decides exactly which versions you may install; and lapsing freezes rather than disables you, with reinstatement available at a premium. See Licensing & Activation for how the .qplic file carries these dates, and Getting Started for applying entitled upgrades.