Stevens Keys vs Keygen, plus a short look at Lemon Squeezy and Gumroad license keys. Every competitor figure below comes from the vendor's own pricing or documentation page, linked inline and checked Oct 20, 2026. Where an official page didn't state a number, we left it out.
sk_mcp_test_…, checkout is Stripe test mode, no real money moves, and creator payouts (planned via Stripe Connect at 85/15) are not live. It is built for MCP servers and HTTP APIs: one edge call (POST /v1/validate) validates and meters a key, and revocation is effective on the next call.| Stevens Keys (built, test mode) | Keygen | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Hosted license keys for MCP servers and APIs, with usage metering in the same call | Software licensing and distribution API also self-hostable (keygen.sh/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
| Free tier | Free to sign up in test mode | Dev tier: up to 100 active licensed users and 10 product releases; hard limit returns 402 (keygen.sh/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
| Paid pricing model | Planned 85/15 split on sales (not live; nothing is charged today) | Flat monthly or yearly fee by tier; "We will never take a percentage of revenue" (keygen.sh/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026). Tier dollar amounts weren't shown in the page text we could read, so we don't quote them. |
| Device / machine activation | max_activations per product; distinct instance_ids counted per key; creator can free or reset slots | Device activations, node-locked, user-locked and floating licenses on all tiers (keygen.sh/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
| Offline licenses | No (every check is online) | Yes, all tiers (keygen.sh/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
| Metering | Built in: each validate can meter units against a monthly quota | Metered licenses listed on all tiers (keygen.sh/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
| Revocation | Key state lives in one Durable Object per key; revoke applies to the next validate worldwide | Not compared: no revocation-latency figure on the pages we checked |
| Self-hosting | No | Keygen CE (free) and Keygen EE (license required) via Docker (keygen.sh/docs/self-hosting, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
| Payments | Stripe Checkout in test mode, buy links, test refunds that revoke keys | Not a payment processor in what we checked; you bring your own checkout |
| Distribution | No | Distribution API and package engines (npm, PyPI, OCI and others) on Std/Ent tiers (keygen.sh/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
| Lemon Squeezy | Gumroad | |
|---|---|---|
| Fees | 5% + 50¢ per transaction, no monthly charge for ecommerce features; some payments may have additional fees (lemonsqueezy.com/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) | 10% + $0.50 per transaction for direct sales; 30% when buyers come through its Discover marketplace (gumroad.com/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
| Merchant of record | Yes (lemonsqueezy.com/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) | Yes, since Jan 1, 2025 (gumroad.com/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
| License keys | Generated per purchase; license length and activation limit per product/variant; subscription keys follow the subscription (Lemon Squeezy docs: license keys, checked Oct 20, 2026) | License key block on the product; multi-seat licenses; verify API with a uses count you control (Gumroad help: license keys, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
| Validation API | Activate, validate, deactivate; 60 requests/minute rate limit (Lemon Squeezy License API, checked Oct 20, 2026) | POST /v2/licenses/verify; "License key enforcement is completely up to the creator" (Gumroad help: license keys, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
| Storefront | Sells through Lemon Squeezy as merchant of record; payouts by bank or PayPal twice a month (lemonsqueezy.com/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) | Profile and product pages, Discover marketplace (gumroad.com/pricing, checked Oct 20, 2026) |
Stevens Keys, for contrast: no storefront and not a merchant of record. Its /v1/validate is built to be called on every tool call (validate + meter in one request), and you sell from your own site with a buy link (test mode).
Keygen's per-tier dollar prices (not present in the pricing page text we could read), any vendor's revocation latency, and uptime or SLA claims beyond what's quoted above. If a vendor's page changes, their page wins over this one.
No. Keygen is a general software-licensing platform with machine activation, offline licenses, entitlements and release distribution. Stevens Keys is narrower: hosted license keys for MCP servers and HTTP APIs, with one edge call that validates and meters, and near-instant revocation. It is in preview, in test mode, and payouts are not live.
No. Every check is an online call to /v1/validate. If you need licenses that work without a network connection, Keygen lists offline licenses on every tier of its pricing page.
Only in Stripe test mode today: you can create a buy link and a test checkout issues a key. No real money moves and creator payouts (planned via Stripe Connect, 85/15) are not live. Lemon Squeezy and Gumroad both say they act as merchant of record and run a storefront for you.
Yes. Set max_activations on a product and send an instance_id with each validate; a new instance beyond the cap is denied with activation_limit. Keygen, Lemon Squeezy and Gumroad each document their own activation or usage-count approach (sources on this page).
Revoking a key updates the key's Durable Object before the API responds, so the next validate anywhere is denied. A full Stripe test refund revokes the purchased key the same way.
Only from each vendor's official pricing and documentation pages, checked Oct 20, 2026, linked inline. Where an official page did not state a figure, we left it out.
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