- Is the free plan actually free?
- Yes, and it does not expire. Community is self-hosted, costs nothing, and is capped at 1 seat with 5 SSH, 1 Kubernetes, 1 database and 5 RDP targets. Keyless connect with credential injection and the audit log are included; the team-governance features are what a paid plan adds.
- What counts as a seat?
- A person who can sign in to Tessera. Servers, clusters and databases are not seats — you are not charged per target, which is the usual way this gets expensive elsewhere. Paid plans start at 3 seats.
- Monthly or annual?
- Either. Annual billing is about 20% cheaper: Pro is $15 per seat per month billed annually against $19 monthly, and Ultimate is $36 against $40. Start an annual Ultimate plan in the first six months and the rate is $30.
- Do we still self-host on a paid plan?
- Always. The plan changes which features your controller unlocks, not where it runs. There is no hosted version and no vendor cloud in the access path on any tier.
- What do you see about our infrastructure?
- Nothing. The controller runs inside your perimeter and your sessions never touch us. A controller connected to the portal sends exactly two things when it refreshes its licence: a random install identifier it generates itself, and its version — so your account can show how many controllers run on one subscription. No users, no targets, no sessions.
- Can we run air-gapped?
- Yes. Instead of a controller that refreshes its licence over the network, you download a licence file covering the paid period and install it. Verification is local either way — the controller checks the signature itself and never phones home to authorise a session.
- What happens when a licence expires?
- The controller falls back to Community. It does not stop, lock you out, or hold your configuration hostage — the paid features switch off and everything else keeps working.
- How long will our version get security updates?
- At least five years from the date that version is published, on every edition including the free one. It is not a plan feature and it does not stop when a subscription does: it is the support period we declare under the EU Cyber Resilience Act and it is written into the licence. Fixes ship in the current minor release and the one before it, so taking one can mean upgrading to a supported release.
- Can we get a refund?
- Within 14 days of your first payment, for any reason, from a button in your account. The full terms are on the refunds page.
