Unity Technologies licenses its real-time 3D engine, the Unity Editor and Unity Runtime, as software that is accessed by subscription or free plan rather than sold outright. The Editor is the authoring environment and the Runtime is the part of the Software intended for distribution inside a customer’s finished Project.[1] Almost every licensing question about Unity comes down to three things: which plan the customer is eligible for, how many seats are assigned, and which additional terms apply to the services around the Editor.
Contract structure
The Unity Terms of Service are the master agreement for all Unity Offerings, and they are supplemented by Additional Terms that control in a conflict.[14] A customer may also hold Commercial Terms, for example an enterprise business agreement, that supplement, amend or replace the standard documents.[2] The documents that matter most for a software asset manager are:
| Document | Covers | Last updated per the document |
|---|---|---|
| Terms of Service | Account and Unity Organization, payments, subscription term, floating and node-locked subscriptions, evaluation versions, use restrictions, termination | 2026-06-30 |
| Editor Software Terms | Tier eligibility, Financial Thresholds, Editor and Runtime rights, Build Server, HMI deployment | 2026-06-30 |
| Industry Terms | Unity Industry use rights, runtime distribution, internal deployment | 2026-08-03 |
| Editor Source Code Terms | Read Only and Full Access source code | 2026-06-30 |
| Cloud Additional Terms | Asset Manager, DevOps, Build Automation, Version Control, Gaming Services | 2026-06-30 |
| Asset Store Terms and EULA | Assets bought from the Unity Asset Store | 2024-12-04 |
Unity states that it may modify its terms without prior notice and that continuing to use the Offerings after notice means acceptance, but the Editor Software Terms give a separate protection for Editor versions: a customer may keep using the previously accepted terms for as long as it keeps using that named Editor version.[2] That mechanism and the history behind it are covered in Unity Runtime Fee and Editor Software Terms history.
Editions
Unity sells the Editor as a Unity Plan. A Unity Plan includes one subscription to the Software designated for the plan together with Plan Benefits, such as cloud storage or support, that may carry their own terms and fees.[2] The plans are:
- Unity Personal, free, for customers with up to USD 200,000 of revenue and funding.[3]
- Unity Pro, priced in 2026 at USD 2,310 per seat per year prepaid or USD 210 per seat per month, required above USD 200,000.[3]
- Unity Enterprise, custom priced, required from USD 25 million, with a minimum subscription requirement that may apply.[3]
- Unity Industry, for applications outside games and entertainment, with a per-seat price shown on the product page of USD 4,950 per year and custom pricing for seat-based and floating licences on the pricing page.[6][4]
- Unity Student plan, free for verified students aged 16 or over, and the Education Grant License for qualifying institutions.[12][11]
The eligibility rules, including how Total Finances are measured and what happens when a threshold is crossed, are explained in Unity Editor plans and tier eligibility.
Metrics
Unity does not meter the Editor by processor, device or revenue share. The Editor is licensed per seat, and the number of seats is the number of Authorized Users in the Offering Identification.[1] Three delivery models exist for a seat:[13]
- Named user licensing: a seat is assigned to an individual in a Unity Organization and activates when the person signs in.
- Serial-based licensing: a node-locked serial key activated on a computer.
- Floating licensing: a pool of concurrent licences served by an on-premises licensing server.
The catalog records these as Seat (Authorized User), Named user licence, Serial-based licence and Floating licence. The separate metric that decides which plan is lawful, Total Finances, is a revenue and funding measure rather than a unit of use. Seat assignment, activation and return are described in Unity seat assignment, activation and floating licensing.
Counting and floors
Unity counts use per person. One Authorized User may install the Editor on a primary and a secondary computer, but only for use by that single person and only one instance at a time per seat, unless floating licences have been purchased.[1] Under a floating subscription the number of concurrent Authorized Users may not exceed the number of floating subscriptions purchased.[2] The terms prohibit circumventing capacity or Authorized User limits, or interfering with Unity’s ability to audit or track them.[2]
Floors are tied to the plan rather than to a seat count. Unity states that minimum subscription or spending commitments may apply at the Enterprise tier, and the Software Terms make satisfying such commitments part of being Tier Eligible.[1][7]
Runtime distribution
Unity grants the right to distribute the Unity Runtime without royalty, revenue share or a runtime fee for Projects created with Unity 6 or any earlier version, provided the seat fees are paid and the customer remains Tier Eligible.[1] Unity announced the cancellation of the Runtime Fee for games customers on 12 September 2024 and reverted to a seat-based subscription model.[15] The position is different for Industry Customers: distribution of the Runtime by an Industry Customer requires Unity’s express authorization and applicable fees, and Unity’s Industry FAQ states that the fee is generally equivalent to 4.0% of the revenue generated by the software product that incorporates the runtime.[1][6]
Virtualization and partitioning
Unity has no processor or core metric, so virtualization does not change a seat count. The relevant rules concern where the Editor may run. The Editor may not be made available to End Users, or used to process data for them, through any cloud, hosting or software-as-a-service arrangement without a separate grant of rights, and third-party service providers may not run the Editor on a cloud or remote server except as the customer’s Authorized User.[1] A Unity Build Server counts concurrent Machines, where a Machine can be a computer, a virtual computer, a cloud instance or an API connection that checks Build Server licences out of a shared pool.[1]
Cloud / BYOL
Unity Cloud Offerings, which include Unity Asset Manager, DevOps, Unity Build Automation, Unity Version Control and Unity Gaming Services, are governed by the Cloud Additional Terms. They are billed on rates, capacities and storage limits, and Unity may charge on a consumption basis or disable access where fair usage limits are exceeded.[8] From 1 March 2026, Unity DevOps pricing removes per-seat charges for Unity Version Control in the public cloud and meters storage and egress in GB and build minutes instead.[3] There is no bring-your-own-licence concept for the Editor in a public cloud: a seat is activated by sign-in, serial key or a licence server, and the Editor itself may not be offered to others as a hosted service.
Programs
The programmes that change what a customer owes or may do include the Education Grant License for qualifying institutions, which is for educational use and not for commercial or research use,[11] the Student plan, the free tier of Unity DevOps, and the 30-day Unity Industry trial.[3][6] The Terms of Service limit any Evaluation Version to thirty days and non-commercial internal evaluation, but Unity 7, published for evaluation on 6 October 2026, is covered by terms that remove the thirty-day and single-employee limits and permit commercial use while Unity may suspend access or change pricing at general availability.[2][16]
Further constructs are described in Unity Industry, Cloud and add-on licensing: Unity Source Code Access, whose terms assign customer Modifications to Unity,[9] and Asset Store Assets, which are licensed perpetually for embedding in a Licensed Product and may not be shared through forum pooling.[10]
Compliance points for licence managers
- Tier Eligibility is measured every date the Software is used over the trailing twelve months, the customer must keep records, and the customer bears the burden of proving eligibility if Unity asks.[1]
- Different tiers may not be used at the same time inside one organization, and Projects developed with different tiers may not be combined.[1]
- Unity Pro and Unity Enterprise seats may not be mixed within an entity.[7]
- Subscriptions may renew automatically at the then-current price, all sales are final except as required by law, and Unity states that there is no cancellation reimbursement for a committed subscription.[2][7]
- A customer is responsible for AI agents and automated callers that use its account or credentials.[2]
Out of scope
This article does not cover Unity Ads and other monetization or advertising services, which have their own Additional Terms, Unity’s privacy and data processing terms, or third-party platform requirements such as console developer agreements. It also does not interpret the terms for any particular organization: classification as an Industry Customer is determined in Unity’s sole discretion,[1] so edge cases should be confirmed with Unity in writing.