Plans and licensing
The 30-minute trial, the Free plan, Pro and Team; the Subscription menu, sign-in, licence keys and how long a plan works offline.
- Click UI Designer: Trial · … min in the status bar
- Read the plan in the menu’s placeholder
- Choose Sign in or Enter a licence key
- The status bar shows the new plan
What each plan allows#
| Trial | Free | Pro / Pro yearly / Team | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open, view, Inspect (Dev Mode), render | yes | yes | yes |
| Comments, export settings, exports of images and tokens, saving a version | yes | yes | yes |
Read tools of ud and ud mcp (get_metadata, get_screenshot, get_design_context, ud tree, ud render …) |
yes | yes | yes |
Editing, in the editor and through ud, ud mcp and the language model tools |
yes | — | yes |
| Generate code into the workspace | yes | — | yes |
| The AI panel and Claude quick actions | yes | — | yes |
| Publishing libraries | yes | — | yes |
- Trial: 30 minutes with everything, from the first time UI Designer starts. Five minutes before the end a notice offers the plans; then the editor continues on the Free plan.
- Free: everything that reads, plus comments, export settings and versions.
Paid plans#
| Plan | Price | Billed | Seats (machines) | Offline session | Grace after a failed check |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pro | 4.00 | monthly | 2 | 7 days | 3 days |
| Pro yearly | 40.00 | yearly | 2 | 14 days | 3 days |
| Team | 15.00 | monthly | 5 | 7 days | 3 days |
Prices come from the product’s plans.json, where they are kept in credits of the payments platform; the table divides them by 100. The currency and any taxes are the ones the payments platform shows at checkout: UI Designer: See Plans opens that page. A seat is one installation: signing in or activating a key on a third machine of a Pro plan needs a seat freed first.
The Subscription menu#
UI Designer: Subscription… (ud.license.menu) is the one place for your plan. Open it from the licence item of the VS Code status bar, the key button in the editor’s title bar, the plan in the editor’s status strip, or the read-only card. Its placeholder says where you stand, for example “Pro — signed in as you@example.com · renews 2026-11-06”, “Trial · 23 min left” or “Free — read only; sign in or paste a licence key”, and it lists only what applies:
| When | Items |
|---|---|
| Signed in | Manage plan, bills and devices, Refresh from the platform, Sign out |
| With a licence key | Manage plan, bills and devices, then under Licence key: Change licence key, Re-check the key with the platform, Remove licence key |
| Signed in or keyed, but read-only (expired, no plan) | the above, then under Plans: See plans and, without a key, Enter a licence key |
| Trial or Free, not signed in | Sign in, See plans, Enter a licence key, Check again |
Every action ends with one message saying what happened. The single commands are in the Command Palette too:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
Subscription… (ud.license.menu) |
The menu above |
Sign In (ud.license.signIn) |
Copies a code to the clipboard and opens the browser; confirm it there |
Sign Out (ud.license.signOut) |
Ends the session on this machine and frees its seat |
See Plans (ud.license.plans) |
Opens the plans page |
Manage Subscription (ud.license.manage) |
Opens your account on the payments platform: plan, bills and devices |
Activate Licence Key… (ud.license.activate) |
Pastes a licence key instead of signing in |
Check Licence Now (ud.license.refresh) |
Asks the server now instead of waiting for the daily check |
Deactivate Licence Key (ud.license.deactivate) |
Removes the key from this machine |
Sign-in and licence keys#
Sign in copies a code to the clipboard and opens the browser; check that the page shows the same code and allow UI Designer. One notification waits for the confirmation (cancel it to stop). The session is bound to this machine and takes one seat.
A licence key (UD…, from your purchase email) works without a sign-in, for example for a machine that rarely goes online or for CI. Removing a key forgets it on this machine; its seat stays taken until you free it under Manage plan, bills and devices.
Offline and grace#
Licences are checked offline with a signature and refreshed with the server about once a day. When the server cannot be reached, the plan keeps working for its offline session and grace period (see the table above); the status bar then says UI Designer: Pro (offline).
The read-only card#
When the trial has ended, or the plan or the key does not allow editing (expired, invalid), the editor and every UI Designer panel are blurred and do not take clicks. A card over the canvas says UI Designer is read-only and why (“your trial has ended”, “your plan does not allow editing (…)”), with Subscription… and See plans; the panels show the same card, small. The status strip stays usable, and the blur lifts as soon as you sign in or activate a key.
In a terminal#
The extension writes a licence ticket next to the ud shim, so ud in an integrated terminal uses the same plan. Without VS Code (CI, a build machine), ud license activate <key> verifies a key offline and writes the ticket, and ud license deactivate removes the ticket. An edit the plan does not allow exits with code 4 (or an MCP error with that code) and a message saying how to unlock it; reads always work.
ud license status
ud license status --json
ud where app.designOn a machine without VS Code:
ud license activate "$UD_LICENSE_KEY"
ud license deactivateThe requirements are SRS-001 §19.