Dropkick the deployment drama.

Terminology

• Personal purchase - A purchase made using a Microsoft Account (MSA)

• Corporate purchase - A purchase made using a Microsoft Entra ID (Azure AD, etc.)

• Tenant ID (TID) - A GUID that represents a specific organization or instance of Microsoft Entra ID.

• Object ID (OID) - A GUID that represents a specific principal (user) within a directory.

• License / Entitlement / Seat - Used interchangeably to mean, "this human can use Mug."

• Air-gapped license - A license requiring zero connectivity (ie. expect it to be expensive AF).

How this all works

Determining ownership

When someone purchases Mug, we determine whether the purchaser is part of Entra ID or is using a personal Microsoft Account. For Entra ID-based purchases, the license is bound to the organization (TID). For Microsoft Account-based purchases, the license is bound to the person (OID).

Volume licensing

Buying more than one license will yield two different results depending on the account type. With Entra ID, all licenses / seats will be gracefully attached to the TID ready to be used by individuals of the organization. For personal Microsoft Accounts, buying more than one license will yield redemption codes. This is due to the fact that we _do not want_ to store email addresses and we have no clean path to get OIDs for your other licenses.

In all cases, a license is bound to an individual. This means you are free to use Mug on any device you log into without any limitations. It also means that if a computer is shared, each user will need an entitlement to use Mug on that shared device. We believe that in a world of machine refreshes, BYOD, etc. this will be far less painful on everyone. Especially IT provisioning.

License checks

Mug periodically soft checks for a valid license (exists, not expired, etc.). This includes when Mug is opened for the first time. The happy path is that we're able to get your OID without any human intervention. We also fallback to prompting for a login... which is no different than most apps you use. We count the distinct people actually using Mug against your seat pool — nobody gets hard-blocked, and people who never open the app simply don't show up in the count.

License visibility

Mug has a read-only portal — sign in and you can see the state of your licenses. For Entra (org) purchases, you'll see how many of your seats are in use and the list of OIDs actively using Mug. Those GUIDs look like gibberish to us — but not to you: any of your admins can resolve an OID to a real person in your own directory. We hold the opaque ID; you hold the meaning.

For bulk Microsoft Account purchases, you'll see which redemption codes have been used and which OID redeemed each. We'll be honest — this one's mostly useless to you, since nobody can look a stranger's personal OID up anywhere. It's really just a "which codes are spent" view, built so you're not flying totally blind.

If you're an Entra customer and you drift over your seat count, we'll let you know — in-app, and only to the person who bought it, not your whole company. We don't hard-block anyone; we just get gently, escalatingly annoying about it. (Remember: only Stripe has your email, so being mildly petty inside the app is weirdly the easiest channel we've got.) Top up anytime on the pricing page to "true up" — still can't believe we said "true up."

Cabins in the woods

Last but not least, if you have a legitimate need for an air-gap license that's top to bottom offline, we've got you. We can generate a license with a five year expiration. This is all honor system, so it falls the, "if you don't see a price you can't afford it." category of pricing. Email us and we'll get a call scheduled to see how we can help. It's five years mostly so we both have a reason to touch base. A full pandemic and the Knicks winning an NBA championship can happen in that amount of time.