Most digital signage software is sold one way: a monthly fee, per screen, forever. Yodeck, ScreenCloud, OptiSigns, Rise Vision — none of the major SMB digital signage platforms offer anything else. You either pay every month for as long as you use the screens, or you switch to something else.
LiveSign offers a second option: a perpetual licence. Buy it once, and you own that licence — no recurring fee tied to it.
What “perpetual licence” actually means here
A perpetual licence is a one-time purchase for a specific player licence (currently available for Android, LG webOS, and Samsung Tizen players) instead of a monthly subscription. It’s sold under what LiveSign calls Independent Pricing, separate from the Professional, Business, and Enterprise subscription plans.
This isn’t unique to LiveSign in the wider software world — it’s how Xibo, the open-source project LiveSign’s CMS engine is built on, licenses its own commercial players. What LiveSign adds on top is hosting, support, and a reseller channel, so you’re not left running the open-source project entirely on your own.
When a perpetual licence saves real money
The maths favours a perpetual licence when:
- You’re running the same screens for years, not months. A subscription’s cost keeps compounding for as long as the screen is in service. A perpetual licence’s cost is fixed the day you buy it.
- You have a large, stable screen count. The more screens, the more a recurring per-screen fee adds up compared to a one-time cost.
- You want to self-host. Perpetual licensing pairs naturally with self-hosted deployments — you’re not tied to paying for someone else’s cloud infrastructure indefinitely just to keep your existing screens running.
- You need offline operation. An On-Premise Licensing Module — available specifically on Independent (perpetual) pricing — lets Tizen and webOS players run in fully offline digital signage networks, which isn’t something a pure cloud-subscription model is built for.
When SaaS still makes more sense
A subscription isn’t automatically the worse choice:
- You’re testing the waters or scaling fast. No large upfront cost, and you’re not committed if your screen count or deployment plans change.
- You want upgrades included by default. On Professional, Business, and Enterprise plans, player licence upgrades are included in the price. On Independent pricing with a perpetual licence, upgrades are purchased separately (unless you’re on an Independent subscription licence, which includes upgrades as long as it stays active).
- You’d rather not manage hosting at all. Live in the Cloud is included on every subscription plan — no server to maintain.
The honest comparison
| Subscription (Professional/Business/Enterprise) | Perpetual (Independent pricing) | |
|---|---|---|
| Upfront cost | Low | Higher |
| Ongoing cost | Recurring, per screen | None for the licence itself |
| Hosting | Live in the Cloud included | Self-hosted, or cloud add-on |
| Licence upgrades | Included | Purchased separately |
| Offline operation | Not applicable | Available via On-Premise Licensing Module |
| Best for | Growing, flexible deployments | Large, stable, long-term deployments |
Neither option is objectively better — they answer different questions. If you’re not sure which fits your deployment, talk to sales and we’ll work through the numbers for your actual screen count and timeline.