The whole editor is free forever, with no card limit and no watermark. What Pro buys is the pre-press half of the export — the settings that exist to satisfy a print shop rather than a player.
No account. No trial clock. Not a demo.
Perpetual licence, 12 months of updates, 3 machines.
Plus VAT or sales tax where your country charges it.
Pro goes on sale with 1.0. Beta testers are offered the founder's price — $39, 200 seats, the same perpetual licence.
| Free | Pro | |
|---|---|---|
| Every field type, markup, icons, layers, groups | ✓ | ✓ |
| Variables, mirrors, per-card overrides | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cards per deck | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Projects and decks | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Watermark on anything | Never | Never |
| PNG per card, any scale, with bleed | ✓ | ✓ |
| Tabletop Simulator sheets and saved object | ✓ | ✓ |
| Print-and-play PDF at true size | ✓ | ✓ |
| PDF bleed, cut lines, duplex backs | — | ✓ |
| CMYK and a custom ICC profile | — | ✓ |
| PDF/X-1a | — | ✓ |
| Print-shop presets and their checks | — | ✓ |
| Output DPI, JPG and TIFF | — | ✓ |
| Updates | Always | Always |
In the United States and most of the world, yes. If your country charges VAT or a digital sales tax, it is added on top — €12 or so in most of the EU, and the exact total is shown before you enter a card, not after. Buying for a company with a VAT number? Enter it at checkout and the reverse charge applies, so you pay $59 flat.
No. One payment, and the app is yours. The twelve months are the window in which you get new versions; when it lapses the licence and the version you have keep working, indefinitely. Renewing is optional and discounted.
No. There is no sign-in and no cloud. Buying mails you a key; the app activates it once over the network and is Pro offline from then on. Projects are folders on your disk that you can move, back up and put in git.
Three, and you can release one from inside the app when you replace a laptop. Nothing is read off your hardware, so a new drive or a reinstalled OS costs you nothing.
It is the same application with the pre-press settings switched off. No watermark, no card cap, no time limit, no nag. People prototype for years in it, and that is the intent.
You can see it: the export preview draws the pre-press PDF whether or not you have a licence — only writing the file stops. And there is a 14-day refund, because whether your print shop accepts the file is the one thing you cannot check before paying.
The version you have keeps working — there is no server it needs. If Boardsmith is ever discontinued, a build with the licence check removed gets published.