Bot Licenses, Renewals and Rentals Explained

A bot license is what you pay for the right to use a checkout bot, and for most bots today it means an upfront fee followed by a recurring renewal. This guide explains how licenses, renewals and lapses work, and what to know before you rent a key or buy one secondhand.

How bot licenses are sold#

Most paid bots are sold in one of three ways:

• An upfront fee, then a renewal. You pay more at the start, often covering the first month or quarter, then a smaller amount each month or quarter. This is the most common setup today.
• A plain subscription. The same price every period, with no separate initial fee.
• Lifetime. One payment for permanent access. These are now rare. Stellar, for example, no longer sells lifetime licenses to new buyers, though existing holders keep access.

Key or login#

Some bots give you a license key. Stellar sells keys through Whop and ties each one to your Discord account, and moving to a new computer needs a key reset. Others have no key at all: with Prism and Refract, your dashboard login is the license. Refract counts each copy running on a device as an instance, so running a second computer can mean paying for a second instance.

What licenses cost#

Here's how five bots price their licenses: Stellar AIO, PrismAIO, Valor AIO, Refract and Cybersole. Prices are as listed on their own sites on October 7, 2026, before tax. The first-year figure is our own arithmetic from those prices, assuming you renew every period.

Two things stand out. High upfront fees don't mean high renewals: Valor and Refract charge about $2,000 to start but around $50 a month after. And the upfront fee is mostly a sunk cost, so compare what you'll pay over the time you expect to use the bot, not just the first payment.

Prices change and some bots open only in waves (Cybersole sells through a waitlist), so check each listing for the latest verified figures. To add proxies, servers and a cook group on top, use the bot cost calculator.

Renewals and what happens if a payment lapses#

A renewal keeps the license active for another period. What happens when a renewal fails, or when you stop paying, varies a lot:

• Grace periods. Prism gives one day after expiry, then bot and Discord access stop until you renew. It keeps lapsed accounts, so you can reactivate later.
• Retries, then cancellation. Cybersole's terms say it retries a failed payment for up to 7 days, then cancels the subscription and ends the key.
• Reactivation fees. Refract charges a $200 reactivation fee plus $50 for the first month to bring back a lapsed license. For a bot with a large upfront fee, letting it lapse can be expensive.

Cancelling#

Cancelling usually stops the next renewal, not your current access. Refract says a cancelled license stays active until the paid period ends, and Valor's terms say the same, with no refund for the rest of the period. Deactivating a device isn't the same as cancelling: Valor's docs say deactivating a license on a machine doesn't cancel the subscription.

Refunds are rare too. Prism's and Refract's shared terms say all amounts paid are non-refundable, and Valor's say the same. Read the refund terms before you pay.

Renting a bot#

Some owners rent out their key or account for a drop, a day or a week, so the renter can run the bot without paying the full license. Stellar's docs mention renters, who get their downloads from the key's owner.

Before you rent, know two things:

• Not every developer allows it. Valor's terms forbid renting, leasing or transferring access. A rental that breaks the developer's rules can end with the license deactivated, and that risk falls on you and the owner.
• You depend on the owner. The owner keeps control of the key. They can reset it or stop renewing it, and you have no relationship with the developer if something goes wrong. Rentals are usually arranged privately, often in Discord servers, and rest on the owner's reputation alone. There's no marketplace or buyer protection behind them.

Buying a key secondhand#

Before you look secondhand, check whether the bot restocks. Sold-out bots don't always reopen to the public: developers often release small batches of licenses through cook groups' group buy channels, and new bots often recruit beta testers there. For a bot that's otherwise closed, a cook group membership can be the more reliable route in.

Some licenses can also be sold on, which is how other people get into bots that are sold out or only open in waves. Whether that's allowed depends on the developer:

• Stellar's terms separate transferable and non-transferable licenses.
• Cybersole needs its written consent for a transfer.
• Valor's terms forbid transfers.
• Prism's dashboard has an account transfer option.

If you buy a used license, check that it's transferable, ask what it renews at after the transfer, and make the transfer through the developer's own dashboard or process. That last step matters because private key sales can attract scams, and a payment made outside the developer's process is hard to get back. Our guide to spotting bot and cook group scams covers the warning signs.

What to check before you pay#

1. The full cost. Upfront fee, renewal amount and interval, and what you'd pay over a year.
2. How the license works. Key or login, how many devices or instances it covers, and how to move it to a new machine.
3. What happens on a lapse. Grace period, retries, reactivation fees.
4. The refund and cancellation terms. Most say no refunds.
5. Transfer and rental rules. If you might sell the license later, or are thinking of renting, check what the developer allows.

To compare license terms across bots, start from the bots hub.