Pricing & Licensing Explained

CiderStack is licensed as software you own, not infrastructure you rent.

There are no VM-hour charges, no usage-based billing, and no required cloud services.

You run CiderStack on your hardware — locally, privately, and under your control.

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Core principles

CiderStack licensing is built around three ideas:

1. Local-first ownership If it runs on your Mac, you should own it.

2. Predictable pricing No per-minute billing. No surprise overages.

3. Scale by nodes, not usage macOS virtualization scales horizontally, not vertically.

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Important Apple limitation

Apple enforces a strict platform rule:

Only two macOS virtual machines may run concurrently per physical Mac.

This limit comes from Apple’s Virtualization.framework.

CiderStack cannot bypass this limit — and no software can.

Fleet Manager exists to help you scale across multiple Macs instead.

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What licenses are tied to

Licenses are associated with:

• Physical Macs (nodes)

• Enabled feature sets

Licenses are not based on:

• VM count

• CPU cores

• Memory

• Storage size

• Usage hours

You may create and store unlimited VMs on a licensed machine.

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License tiers

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🧑‍💻 Personal Use

Personal — $20

For individual users running CiderStack on a single Mac.

Includes:

• Local macOS virtualization

• Unlimited local VMs

• Snapshots and TTL support

• Desktop and CLI apps

• All v1.x updates

Limitations:

• 1 Mac only

• No Fleet Manager

• Non-commercial use

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Personal + Homelab — $20 + $10 per node

For enthusiasts running multiple Macs at home.

Includes everything in Personal, plus:

• Fleet Manager enabled

• Add up to 2 additional Macs

• Maximum 3 nodes total

• Homelab and personal use only

Ideal for:

• Mac mini racks

• Home CI pipelines

• Learning distributed macOS infrastructure

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🏢 Commercial Use

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Commercial Solo — $100 + $50 per node

For consultants, freelancers, and small teams.

Includes:

• Unlimited local VMs

• Fleet Manager included

• 1 node included

• Add up to 2 additional Macs

• Maximum 3 nodes total

• Commercial usage permitted

• All v1.x updates

Ideal for:

• Independent developers

• Contractors

• Small internal build systems

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Fleet Pro — $500 + $50 per node

For growing teams and production environments.

Includes everything in Commercial Solo, plus:

• 3 nodes included

• Add up to 47 additional nodes

• Maximum 50 Macs total

• Priority support

Ideal for:

• CI build farms

• QA environments

• Internal Mac infrastructure teams

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Fleet Enterprise — Contact Sales

For large-scale Mac fleets.

Includes everything in Fleet Pro, plus:

• Unlimited nodes

• Dedicated support

• Custom integrations

• Volume licensing discounts

Designed for organizations operating macOS at scale.

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What “per node” means

A node is one physical Mac.

Each node may:

• Store unlimited VMs

• Run up to 2 concurrent macOS VMs (Apple limit)

Example:

Macs	Max running VMs
1 Mac	2 VMs
3 Macs	6 VMs
10 Macs	20 VMs

CiderStack automatically enforces Apple’s limits.

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Updates & versioning

All licenses include:

• All v1.x updates

• Bug fixes

• Performance improvements

• Feature enhancements within the major version

Major version upgrades may be licensed separately.

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Trials

Paid tiers include:

• 14-day full-feature trial

• No credit card required

• No account creation required

Trials are local and do not require internet connectivity.

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Offline usage

CiderStack works fully offline.

• Licenses are stored locally in macOS Keychain

• No continuous validation required

• No external control plane

Air-gapped environments are fully supported.

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What CiderStack will never do

CiderStack will never:

• Meter VM usage

• Charge per minute or per hour

• Throttle performance

• Restrict hardware resources

• Disable your environment remotely

If your Mac can handle it, CiderStack allows it.

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Example scenarios

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Developer laptop

• 1 Mac

• Personal license

• 2 concurrent VMs (Apple limit)

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Homelab rack

• 3 Mac minis

• Personal + Homelab

• 6 concurrent VMs total

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Consultant setup

• 2 Macs

• Commercial Solo

• Fleet-enabled workflows

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CI build farm

• 20 Macs

• Fleet Pro

• 40 concurrent macOS runners

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In summary

CiderStack pricing is:

• Node-based

• Ownership-focused

• Subscription-free

• Transparent

You pay for the software — not for access to your own hardware.