Four problems. One platform.
Most publishers land in one of four situations — formalizing how they license, protecting revenue and IP, licensing software that can't stay connected, or needing something no packaged platform covers. Find yours below.
Most publishers define terms. Few enforce them.
A licensing model that worked for a one-time sale doesn't hold up once the business shifts to subscription — nothing in the product checks whether a term has lapsed, or whether a customer three months into a 12-month contract has actually paid. This is one of the most common reasons publishers come to Bastion.
Define a commercial model — perpetual, subscription, trial, or usage-based — issue it through AuthGuru, and your application enforces it directly, without custom engineering.
- Why it matters: Revenue matches what's actually licensed, and new terms roll out through configuration, not engineering.
- Who it's for: Publishers relying on manual enforcement, or shifting to a new commercial model.
A license is only as strong as its enforcement
Without protection, a licensing model is a policy your customers are trusted to follow, not a rule your software applies. Publishers often find this out only after discovering their own software running somewhere they never sold it — a cracked build on a forum they've never heard of.
Protection stops unauthorized use, reverse engineering, and tampering from turning your licensing terms into a formality — enforcing exactly what's issued and entitled.
- Why it matters: A cracked build stops being free advertising for piracy, and IP protection becomes provable, not just claimed.
- Who it's for: Publishers with meaningful IP value, or distributing into environments they can't fully control.
Most licensing tools assume constant connectivity
A licensing platform that needs to "phone home" simply doesn't work in an air-gapped facility — and this isn't rare. Industrial, government, and regulated buyers often won't even shortlist a vendor without offline support, treating it as a hard requirement, not a preference.
Licensing terms are provisioned onto the delivery method itself — a hardware dongle or RTC time dongle — and validated locally, with no server call required.
- Why it matters: Deals don't die on a connectivity requirement, and time-bound terms hold up fully offline via RTC dongles.
- Who it's for: Publishers selling into industrial, embedded, government, or air-gapped environments.
Nothing off-the-shelf fits what you actually need
AuthGuru covers most publishers' needs — but some infrastructure or licensing logic is specific enough that no packaged platform fits cleanly. Bastion designs and builds around the environment as it actually exists.
Not sure which one fits?
Tell us what you're trying to solve, and we'll point you to the right part of AuthGuru — or build something new if nothing fits.
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