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Evaluation, pricing, and licensing (buyer guide)

Use this page to run a credible evaluation and procure the right license without meetings.

Canonical page

This page is canonical for the evaluation and procurement flow (what to do next, what artifacts to produce). For plan definitions and prices, see Pricing. For file-level license rules, see Licensing.

Who this is for

  • Buyers and stakeholders deciding whether to run a pilot and how to procure the right license.

What you will get

  • A step-by-step evaluation path (what to do first)
  • The shortest path from pilot → decision → procurement
  • A procurement checklist you can hand to Security/Legal/IT/Finance

Step 0 — Decide the evaluation owner and success bar

Before you run anything, agree on:

  • One surface to pilot (start small)
  • One primary KPI and 2–5 guardrails
  • Who owns the decision (ship / hold / rollback)

Start here:

Step 1 — Run a pilot that produces auditable evidence

A credible pilot proves the measurement loop is real:

  • You can serve non-empty recommendations
  • You log what was shown (exposures) and what happened (outcomes)
  • You can join them reliably by a stable request_id
  • You can produce a report that supports a decision

Start here:

Step 2 — Confirm operational fit for your environment

Confirm the suite fits your constraints before procurement:

Step 3 — Choose plan scope and license path

Plan mapping (quick)

  • Commercial Evaluation (30 days): a time-boxed pilot under commercial terms (recommended if you want to avoid AGPL uncertainty during the pilot).
  • Starter: one production deployment for one tenant, plus a small number of surfaces.
  • Growth: a few tenants and/or deployments, with faster async response expectations.
  • Enterprise: multi-region HA, OEM/resale, regulated environments, or custom terms.

Canonical plan definitions and prices: Pricing.

Do you need commercial terms? (quick decision tree)

This is not legal advice. If licensing affects your business, involve counsel.

  1. Are you only using recsys-eval/**?
  2. Yes → it is Apache-2.0 (commercial license not needed; comply with Apache-2.0 conditions).
  3. No → continue.
  4. Are you deploying or offering network access to the serving stack (api/**, recsys-algo/**, recsys-pipelines/**)?
  5. Yes → AGPLv3 applies unless you have commercial terms.
  6. No → your obligations depend on how you use/distribute the code.
  7. Can you comply with AGPLv3 terms for your deployment (including source-offer obligations for modifications)?
  8. Yes → use under AGPLv3.
  9. No / we need modifications private → request a commercial license.

See the canonical decision tree and file-level rules: Licensing.

How to procure (fast path)

  1. Run a pilot on one surface and produce at least one report: Run eval and ship
  2. Confirm fit for your environment: Known limitations and Security pack
  3. Choose the plan and scope (tenants/deployments/support expectations): Pricing
  4. Use the self-serve procurement path for standard plans: Self-serve procurement
  5. Use the order form + contact path only for Enterprise/custom terms: Order form template and contact@recsys.app

Outputs and exit criteria

By the end of a successful evaluation, you should have:

  • At least one evaluation report comparing baseline vs candidate: Run eval and ship
  • A default evaluation pack agreed (primary KPI + guardrails): Default evaluation pack
  • An evidence trail you can audit later (exposures + outcomes joined by request_id): Evidence
  • A written decision (ship/hold/rollback) with the supporting report links
  • One rollback drill completed (so you trust the lever before you need it): Operational reliability & rollback

Procurement checklist

Hand this to Security/Legal/IT/Finance as a Definition of Done: