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Up until the last few years, I’ve assumed that if you found a font online, you’d be able to use it for anything you wanted. And I feel like we’ve all been there.
This is definitely not the case though.
I started this journey knowing of only two font licenses: personal and commercial. As I continued to learn more, I found so many more license types. Before reading this post though, I’d highly recommend checking out my post on Font Terminology. I use a few terms from that post in this one.
Personal Use License
Personal use licenses give you the ability to use a font for projects and items that you’ll never make money off of.
If when downloading a font the website doesn’t specifically say what type of license is associated with the said font, it’s most likely a personal license.
In my experience, if you’re on a free font site like dafont.com or 1001freefonts.com, you’re most likely going to be downloading fonts with personal use licenses only. On rare occasions, I have, without knowing it till later, downloaded a few public domain fonts from free font sites like the ones listed above.
Can be used for | can't be used for |
|---|---|
Personal Projects | Sellable Projects |
ONE Personal Social Media Account with No Brand Deals | Business Social Media Accounts |
Digital Advertisements | |
Physical Advertisements | |
Apps of Any Kind | |
Games |
Commercial Use License
Commercial use licenses give you the ability to use a font for basically any project that you could possibly make money off of.
There are some limitations when it comes to this license type, and the main one being that each font can only appear in 5,000 products.
Because commercial use licenses have such a wide range of uses, it’s smart to read the user license agreement associated with each font you’ve purchased. Not all commercial use licenses are the same and it’s best to know what you can and can’t use each font for.
Can be used for | can't be used for |
|---|---|
One Business Social Media Account | Apps of Any Kind |
Unlimited Physical Advertisements | Games |
Digital Advertisements | |
Broadcast Steams up to 500,000 Lifetime Views |
Extended Commercial Use License
Extended commercial use licenses give you the ability to everything that you could with a basic commercial license but just on a larger scale. This font license allows you to have up to 250,000 products with the same font.
If you’re looking to promote a business that will have an app associated with it or a business with multiple social media accounts using the same font, an extended commercial license is the way to go. When looking to purchase a font, usually you will given the opportunity to choose between the commercial or extended commercial license, with the extended commercial license being the more expensive one.
Can be used for | can't be used for |
|---|---|
Unlimited Business Social Accounts | Apps of Any Kind |
Unlimited Physical Advertisements | Games |
Unlimited Impressions Digital Advertisements | Anything that Will Be Trademarked |
Broadcasts with Unlimited Views | |
One App that's Sold Up To 250,000 Times |
Desktop Use License
Desktop use licenses give you the ability to use a font in any product in the form of a jpeg or png. Jpeg and png files stop other people from being able to extract the font from the product if it is sent or posted digitally.
This license is mainly used by graphic designers. What’s unique about this license type is that rather than being limited by the number of uses, it’s limited by the user. If multiple people need to use the font, you’ll have to have a license for each person. Also, once you pay for this type of license, it never expires so you can use it forever.
Can be used for | can't be used for |
|---|---|
Unlimited Physical Projects | E-Books |
Social Media | E-Newspapers |
Websites (Logos & Images) | E-Magazines |
Broadcasts | Apps |
Packaging | Fonts Within Websites (CSS) |
Paid Advertisements | |
Games |
Webfont Use License
Webfont use licenses give you the ability to upload your font to the coding within the site to use it.
Each webfont license is different, so be sure to take notes on what each of your webfonts can and can’t be used for. When purchasing a webfont, the font file doesn’t actually get stored on your computer. It gets stored on the host websites servers, aka the servers of the website you bought it from. Because these font files aren’t actually on your computer, you can’t use them in Microsoft word or any applications within your computer.
There are two types of webfonts and the main difference between the two is where those font files are stored. The font files can either be self-hosted, when you save the files on your website servers, or hosted externally, when the files are saved on someone else’s website servers.
The price of a webfont license is determined based on the number of domains connected to the font and how many page views the site(s) have.
Can be used for | can't be used for |
|---|---|
Web Applications | Games |
Websites | Physical Projects |
Fonts Within Websites (CSS) | Logos & Images |
App Use License
App use licenses give you the ability to use a font in one app on as many platforms as you choose.
With this license, there is no limit to the number of installations of your app. This type of license gives you the ability to embed the font into the coding of the app. Doing this helps to make the app run faster and to give more options with what you can use the font for within the app.
App use license do expire, and that process is either based on the amount of monthly active users you have or on a yearly renewal system. The site you purchase the font license from will determine what your renewal process will be based on.
Can be used for | can't be used for |
|---|---|
Games | Web Applications |
Desktop Applications | Physical Projects |
Mobile Applications |
E-Pub Use License
E-pub use license gives you the opportunity to embed a font in a digital publication.
The price of the license usually depends on the number of publications you intend to embed the font into. With this type of license. there is no max on the number of copies downloaded for each publication that uses the font.
If the publication started out free to customers and then changed later to be a paid item, you don’t need an additional license for it. If you change the publication in any way, that updated version counts as a new publication. If however, you create a variation of the original publication, for example in a different language, it don’t count as a separate publication.
Can be used for | can't be used for |
|---|---|
E-Books | Web Applications |
E-Newspapers | Physical Projects |
E-Magazines | Websites |
Games | |
Logos & Images |
Which font license do you use the most? Let me know in the comments below!
If you want to check out the other posts in the series:
FONT TERMINOLOGY POST
WHERE I GET MY FONTS FROM
HOW TO ORGANIZE THEM ON YOUR COMPUTER
