MERCHANT OF RECORD
Merchant of Record for Open-Source Software
Anyway Team
· 8 min read ·
A Merchant of Record for open-source software handles the covered customer sale, applicable transaction tax, buyer invoice, and payout. The project can keep its source-code licence, repository, release process, cloud service, support terms, and product access under its own control while the MoR owns the commercial transaction.
Anyway provides hosted checkout, one-time and recurring billing, tax handling, compliant buyer documents, and net bank payouts for this product-owned model.
Can open-source software be sold?
Yes. The Open Source Initiative states that open-source software can be used commercially and can be sold. Its Open Source Definition requires free redistribution, which means an approved licence cannot forbid a recipient from selling or giving away the software and cannot require a royalty merely for redistribution.
That distinction matters: open source does not mean “no business.” It means recipients receive the rights stated in the licence. A company creates paid value around those rights through service, convenience, assurance, hosted operation, or separately licensed components.
Before charging for a product, identify what the customer is buying. Do not imply that payment grants an exclusive right the open-source licence already grants to everyone.
Merchant of Record for open-source software use cases
Paid offer: Hosted cloud; What the buyer receives: Operated instance, updates, storage, backups, and availability; Typical billing: Monthly or annual subscription
Paid offer: Managed deployment; What the buyer receives: Installation, configuration, upgrades, and monitoring; Typical billing: One-time setup plus recurring service
Paid offer: Support plan; What the buyer receives: Response time, troubleshooting, and maintenance assistance; Typical billing: Monthly or annual subscription
Paid offer: Signed builds; What the buyer receives: Trusted binaries, tested releases, packaging, and update channel; Typical billing: Annual access or one-time version
Paid offer: Commercial licence; What the buyer receives: Alternative terms for code where the seller owns the required rights; Typical billing: One-time or annual licence
Paid offer: Private extensions; What the buyer receives: Paid add-ons under compatible terms; Typical billing: One-time or recurring access
Paid offer: Training or certification; What the buyer receives: Course, assessment, and credential; Typical billing: One-time purchase
Each offer needs its own entitlement. A cloud subscription may activate a workspace. A support plan may create an SLA tier. A signed-build plan may grant repository or download access. A commercial licence may create a signed agreement and licence record.
Anyway can process the covered sale while the project's own systems grant those entitlements.
Hosted open source is usually the clearest offer
The customer can download and operate the code, but many teams prefer to pay the maintainers for a working hosted service. The paid value comes from operations, security updates, backups, monitoring, support, and saved engineering time.
This model has a clean checkout promise:
Pay $49 per month for one managed workspace with stated limits and support.
Anyway supports recurring subscriptions, including monthly and annual plans. The project can connect a successful commerce event to workspace provisioning, then keep infrastructure and account logic inside its own application.
The source licence remains visible. The commercial terms describe the hosted service, included resources, acceptable use, renewal, cancellation, refunds, support, and data handling.
Dual licensing requires ownership discipline
Dual licensing offers the same code under an open-source licence and a separate commercial licence. It can work when one party owns the relevant copyright or has contributor agreements that grant the rights needed to issue both licences.
If independent contributors own parts of the code, the project may not have authority to relicense their work. Copyleft obligations can also affect how combined or derivative code is distributed.
Treat this as a legal design task. Keep a contributor and copyright inventory, record the licence of every dependency, and obtain specialist advice before selling alternative terms.
Anyway adds a useful commerce boundary after the offer is legally defined: hosted checkout, MoR tax treatment, compliant buyer document, payment status, and bank payout. The project keeps the actual licence grant and acceptance record.
Donations and product sales are different
GitHub Sponsors supports one-time and monthly sponsorship tiers for eligible open-source contributors and organizations. Its documentation also allows rewards such as sponsor-only repository access within its rules.
A sponsorship is not automatically the same as a product sale. If payment guarantees access, support hours, cloud usage, a licence, or a defined deliverable, document it as a commercial offer. The promised exchange affects consumer terms, refunds, accounting, and transaction tax.
Use a sponsorship channel for voluntary support and an MoR checkout for a defined paid product. Keeping the labels accurate gives contributors and finance teams a clean record.
How Anyway works as a Merchant of Record for open-source software
An open-source project often already owns its technical distribution:
Git repository and release tags;
package registry and container images;
cloud control plane;
documentation and support portal;
licence or entitlement database.
Anyway can sit between those systems and the buyer. Put the hosted link on a pricing page, README, documentation page, or authenticated upgrade screen. Connect the payment event to the correct GitHub identity, product account, organization, licence request, or cloud workspace.
For covered sales, Anyway acts as Merchant of Record, handles applicable sales tax, VAT, and GST, issues a compliant invoice or receipt, and pays net proceeds to the project's bank account.
This lets the maintainers focus commercial engineering on the product boundary rather than building a payment-and-tax stack.
An open-source monetization branch that connects community adoption with a product-owned paid offer.
Entitlement design for open-source products
Keep the purchase record separate from source access that is already public. Grant the paid value explicitly.
For a cloud plan, store the workspace ID, plan, resource limit, subscription ID, and paid-through date. For support, store the covered organizations, response target, named contacts, and contract period. For signed builds, store the buyer organization, permitted channels, release access, and expiry rule.
The payment handler should:
verify the event on the server;
reject unknown product IDs;
connect the order to a stable customer or organization ID;
apply the entitlement once;
record the event and resulting state;
handle renewal, cancellation, refund, and failure under the published policy.
Anyway's webhook data gives the project the payment state it needs to run this product-owned process.
Global tax and buyer invoices
Open-source customers may be individuals, startups, universities, enterprises, or public bodies. A project can receive a B2C purchase in one country and a VAT-registered business purchase in another within minutes.
Anyway's MoR service handles applicable sales tax, VAT, and GST for covered transactions and issues the buyer document. This is especially valuable for a small maintainer team selling a $20 add-on or $99 hosted plan across many jurisdictions.
The project still records the MoR payout under its own accounting and income-tax rules. Keep the buyer order, Anyway fee, refund state, and net payout connected. The Merchant of Record accounting guide provides a sample record map.
Pricing a paid open-source offer
Price the delivered outcome rather than code scarcity. A hosted plan can be tied to projects, storage, users, or a fixed capacity tier. Support can be tied to a response window and covered organization. Signed builds can be tied to an update term.
For an open-source commercial offer, Anyway's public price is 3.9% of the transaction + $0.50, with no monthly subscription or setup charge. At $20, the fee is $1.28. At $100, it is $4.40. An annual plan can reduce the number of fixed per-transaction charges and give a business buyer a simple renewal cycle.
Make the free and paid boundaries explicit. Buyers should know what remains available under the open-source licence and what service or entitlement the paid order adds.
Launch checklist
Confirm the licence and copyright ownership of the code being distributed.
Write one sentence that names the paid value beyond public source access.
Define the customer, entitlement, start date, expiry rule, and refund policy.
Publish the source licence and separate commercial service terms.
Create the matching one-time or recurring Anyway product.
Link checkout to a stable account, organization, or licence request.
Verify the server payment event before granting the paid entitlement.
Test renewal, cancellation, refund, and duplicate delivery.
Reconcile one real order through invoice, fee, tax, payout, and access.
Frequently asked questions
Can I charge money for open-source software?
Yes. Open-source licences permit commercial use and sale, subject to their terms. The licence may also permit the buyer to redistribute the code. Paid services, hosted access, support, trusted builds, and valid dual-licence offers can create separate commercial value.
What is a Merchant of Record for open source?
It is the legal seller for covered paid offers around an open-source project. It handles payment and applicable transaction tax, issues the buyer document, and pays the project net proceeds.
Can I sell a commercial licence for an open-source project?
Potentially, if you own or control the rights needed to offer alternative terms. Contributor ownership and dependency licences must be reviewed before making that offer.
Can Anyway sell a hosted open-source service?
Yes. Anyway supports one-time and recurring checkout, acts as MoR for covered transactions, and can connect payment events to the project's own workspace or account system.
Should I use donations or paid products?
Use sponsorship for voluntary support and a product checkout when payment promises a defined licence, service, access level, or deliverable. A project can offer both with clear labels.
What does Anyway cost?
Anyway lists a single Business transaction formula: 3.9% + $0.50. Its public pricing has no recurring platform charge or setup fee.
Turn maintenance value into a clear product
Create an Anyway product for one hosted plan, support tier, build subscription, or commercial offer, then connect the paid event to the exact value promised.
Official sources checked
Information checked on August 26, 2026. Software licensing is fact-specific; obtain legal advice for dual licensing, contributor rights, and copyleft obligations.