> Self-hosted Joomla storefront for software and digital files. License keys, subscriptions, Stripe + PayPal + Mollie, no platform fees.

One install, the whole storefront

LicenseDock is a Joomla component for selling software and digital files from your own site, through your own Stripe, PayPal or Mollie account. Checkout, license keys, subscriptions, tax, invoices, emails, downloads and a customer account all come in one package. No platform takes a share of your sales, and your customer list stays on your server.

What you can sell

• Software: Joomla extensions, WordPress plugins, desktop and mobile apps, anything that needs a license key
• Files: ebooks, PDFs, fonts, audio, video, design templates, 3D models
• One-time or subscription, with free or paid trials
• Bundles of several products under one license
• License keys only on the products that need them

What makes it different

• Own everything. Runs inside your Joomla site. Your gateway accounts, your customer data, your files. No percentage taken from any sale.
• Software licensing built in. License keys with activation limits per domain, device, seat or instance, and an update server your customers' sites talk to.
• Updates through Joomla. Customers update your extension from their own Joomla backend, like any other extension.
• Tax handled at checkout. Your own rates for any country, and EU VAT with VIES checks and reverse charge.
• Stripe, PayPal and Mollie built in. All three handle subscriptions, plan changes, refunds and chargebacks.

How a purchase works

1. Buyer clicks Buy Now on your product page
2. Goes straight to a one-page checkout
3. Pays with Stripe, PayPal or Mollie
4. Gets the files and license key by email, in their account, or both (your choice)
5. Comes back anytime for downloads, license keys, subscriptions and invoices

Integration paths – pick what fits your product

• WordPress plugins – drop-in LicenseDockWordPress SDK. Updates appear in the WordPress dashboard, and each site is activated against the key on its first update
• Joomla extensions – Joomla's own update system, with your store as the download server. The customer's Download Key is their license key
• PHP apps (Laravel, Symfony, custom) – LicenseDockClient with activate, deactivate, validate and update checks
• Anything else – desktop, mobile, Node, Python, Go, .NET: call the REST API. Plain HTTP form posts in, JSON out

Everything included

Checkout & payments:

• Single-page Buy Now checkout, no cart
• Stripe, PayPal and Mollie, each with test and live modes
• Guest checkout – the account is created in the background, with a set-password link in the receipt
• Coupons: percent or fixed, validity dates, usage caps, new-customers-only, single-use
• Per-plan trials, one per customer per product
• Checkout fields you can reorder, and consent boxes for terms, cooling-off waiver and marketing opt-in

Tax & VAT:

• A home rate or a country-by-country table
• Tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive pricing
• EU VAT mode: VAT numbers checked against VIES at checkout, reverse charge applied, the VIES consultation number kept as proof
• Starter rates for the EU-27 and Canadian GST/HST
• Tax report by period and country

Invoices & credit notes:

• Sequential, gap-free invoice numbers, issued once payment succeeds
• A document for every charge: purchase, renewal, plan change
• A credit note for every refund
• PDF invoices in the customer's account

Licensing & delivery:

• Auto-generated license keys
• Activation limits per domain, device, seat or instance
• Add or remove activations, and change a license's limit, from admin
• Built-in update server with versioned downloads, per plan if you need it
• Files by email, in the customer's account, or both
• Per-product download access: license key, activated site only, account only, or public

Subscriptions:

• Billing cycles: monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, annual, or one-time
• Upgrades and downgrades with proration
• Dunning: a grace period you set (default 14 days) before an unpaid license expires
• Renewal reminders 30, 14 and 3 days ahead by default, plus a trial-ending notice
• Renewal and lapsed-customer discounts per product
• Abandoned-checkout recovery emails with a one-click resume link
• Customers cancel and resume auto-renewal themselves

Customer account:

• Downloads for every published version
• License keys and their activations
• Subscriptions, invoices and billing details
• One-click GDPR data export

Dashboard & monitoring:

• Revenue, top products and churn, from today to all time
• Test and complimentary orders kept out of your figures
• Attention alerts for failed orders, webhooks and emails
• Store Health Checker: finds misconfiguration, fixes what it can, flags the rest
• Logs for every email, webhook, download (including refusals) and subscription change
• Audit log for sensitive admin actions

Refunds & disputes:

• Full or partial refunds on all three gateways
• Chargebacks pause access, and restore it if you win

Emails & languages:

• 36 editable email templates, with a retry queue
• Custom SMTP or Joomla mail
• English and German included: storefront, checkout, admin, emails and invoice PDF
• Buyers are emailed in the language they bought in
• Products, plans and tags translate with Joomla's multilingual mode

Built into Joomla:

• Import customers, orders, subscriptions and licenses from CSV or XLSX, with preview and rollback
• Pricing tables and buy buttons in any article, through a content plugin
• Standard Joomla MVC, ACL and task scheduler
• Gateway keys encrypted at rest (AES-256-GCM)

Why LicenseDock

vs Gumroad / Paddle / Lemon Squeezy:
They take 5-10% of every sale, forever. On $10,000 a year of revenue, that's $500-$1,000 paid to a SaaS. LicenseDock is a flat annual fee – your customer list stays yours.

vs Anystack:
A hosted licensing platform that takes 4-15% of every sale and caps your storage and bandwidth. LicenseDock is self-hosted – 0% per-sale fee, no caps, your gateways and customer data stay yours.

vs Easy Digital Downloads (WordPress):
WordPress only. Licensing and recurring billing are separate paid add-ons there – LicenseDock bundles both.

vs Keygen / Cryptlex:
Licensing-only SaaS. No checkout, no customer account area. LicenseDock does both.

Try it before you commit

• Live demo site – walk through the full buyer flow before spending a dollar
• 14-day trial – install it on your own site and test it properly before paying in full

Support

Quick email support, and documentation at docs.contona.com.

Tags

ecommerce · digital-downloads · license-management · software-licensing · subscription-billing · stripe · paypal · mollie · recurring-payments · invoicing · coupons · bundles · update-server · php-sdk · rest-api · desktop-licensing · electron-licensing · wordpress-licensing · gumroad-alternative · paddle-alternative · anystack-alternative

• 14-day trial
• 0% platform fees (gateway fees apply at their standard rates)
• Self-hosted – own your data
• Stripe • PayPal • Mollie
• WordPress SDK · PHP client · REST API for everything else
• CSV or XLSX import