Keygen is the most direct competitor in the licensing space — they've built excellent licensing primitives over 10 years. The difference? Monaiq bundles commerce, billing, a marketplace, and AI integration alongside licensing. Keygen stops at the API.
Where Keygen Stops, Monaiq Starts
Commerce & Billing
Keygen has no billing layer. You need Stripe, a billing system, and checkout flows — all stitched together yourself. Monaiq handles product catalog, offerings, pricing, invoicing, and consumption tracking in one platform.
Marketplace & In-App Purchase
Keygen has no storefront. Monaiq lists your offerings on a public marketplace and your own storefront page, and lets an app you ship sell from inside itself — the buyer signs in and pays as themselves, so no key of yours ships in the build.
AI Integration
Keygen has no official MCP server. Monaiq's MCP server lets AI assistants in VS Code, Cursor, or any MCP-capable client build your catalog — products, features, offerings — and hand back the enforcement code for your project.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
A detailed look at what each platform offers across licensing, commerce, distribution, and developer experience.
| Feature | Monaiq | Keygen |
|---|---|---|
| Licensing | ||
| Feature gating | ||
| License types (perpetual, timed, trial, etc.) | ||
| Cryptographic verification | Signed, cached authorizations | |
| Machine activation | A license code per machine | |
| Entitlements | ||
| Commerce | ||
| Product catalog | ||
| Offering management | ||
| Billing & invoicing | ||
| Usage-based metering | ||
| Payment processing | Stripe | None |
| Distribution | ||
| Public marketplace listing | ||
| Hosted storefront and checkout | ||
| In-app purchase for distributed apps | ||
| Developer Experience | ||
| Official MCP server | ||
| .NET SDK | ||
| REST API | ||
| Self-hosting | ||
| Business | ||
| Pricing model | Monthly package + fee (package free in preview) | Per-user tiers |
| Revenue share | 7% of each sale | None |
| SOC 2 compliance | Planned | Type II |
Pricing Model Comparison
Keygen uses Active Licensed User (ALU) tiers with flat monthly pricing — you pay based on how many unique users activate licenses each month. Monaiq charges a flat monthly platform package regardless of user count, plus a 7% platform fee on each sale you make: your buyers pay through Stripe Checkout, Monaiq takes 7% of each payment, and the rest is paid out to your own Stripe account.
Keygen takes no percentage of your sales — it also processes none of them. Monaiq's 7% fee buys the commerce layer Keygen leaves to you, and it is not a Merchant of Record arrangement: the sale settles into your own Stripe account, and you remain the merchant your customer sees.
Visit keygen.sh/pricing for their current pricing tiers, and our pricing page for Monaiq plans.
When to Choose Keygen
Keygen is the right choice if you need only licensing (no commerce), want to self-host the entire stack via their Fair Source license, or already have billing and storefront infrastructure in place. Their licensing primitives are battle-tested and well-documented.
If you need the full monetization pipeline — licensing plus billing, a marketplace, and AI integration — Monaiq is built for that.