A perpetual software license is relatively simple to understand, compared to many others on the market. A perpetual license works by offering unlimited, all-time access for a single new upfront cost. By charging a one-time fee for your software, customers are essentially buying the software rights in perpetuity (perpetual software access) as opposed to renting it. Commonly, perpetual license customers can choose between a few add-on options for additional cost, such as an annual services subscription fee to enable maintenance, updates to the software and ongoing software technical support. Once the customer purchases software, the software is typically licensed to be hosted locally on the user's device or servers.