Understanding your license and seats

SummitPSA is licensed per seat. Each install holds a single license key that ties it to your subscription. Your instance periodically verifies that key with the SummitPSA license server and shows a status banner to admins when something needs attention.

What counts as a seat

A seat is one active, non-system agent (technician). The phone-home counts agents that are active and not internal system accounts, so the built-in scheduler account is never a seat. Contacts, clients, and portal users do not consume seats.

How verification works

Every install ships a license client that periodically phones home to the license server (by default https://license.summitpsa.com). It sends your license key plus light telemetry (hostname, active agent count, and app version) and caches the response locally.

• The check runs on a schedule (the default interval is every 12 hours), plus a one-off check shortly after the app starts.
• If your key is blank, the client is dormant and no verification happens.
• The check is fully fail-safe: it never raises and never locks you out. If the server is unreachable, your last good result is kept.

The license banner

Admins see a banner only when the cached status warrants it: an expiring or expired license, a suspended license, an unrecognized key, an over-seat condition, or an inability to verify past the grace window. A Check now button on the banner re-polls the server on demand.

Licensing is about accountability, not enforcement. SummitPSA does not disable features or lock your data when a license is over-seat or briefly unreachable.