Understanding what goes into a license and what drives its cost will help you plan ahead and stay confidently covered as your business evolves. Let’s dive in!

In the beginning was the craft.

Fonts aren’t generated at the push of a button; they’re meticulously drawn by passionate designers who pour months, sometimes years, into perfecting each curve, serif, and alternate character. Creating a high-quality font also involves rigorous testing across platforms, languages, and use cases, not to mention constant iteration to ensure readability, beauty, and performance. This level of craftsmanship is what sets professional type apart from mass-produced options. And, like all creative work, it deserves to be valued accordingly.

Font pricing reflects the time, skill, and care invested by type designers, studios and font engineers. Like in any creative industry, when market costs rise or economic conditions shift, so too does the value of that creative work. Licensing is more than a legal formality — it’s how we honor, sustain, and protect the craft of type design.

Licensing grows with your brand.

As your company expands, so does the way you use fonts — often in ways that aren’t immediately obvious. What once worked for a small team designing internal documents or a single website might no longer cover the demands of a global marketing campaign, multiple digital channels, or an interactive app. Just like any other creative or software asset, fonts follow your growth, and their associated licenses need to scale accordingly.

Think of it this way: Are the fonts being used in static PDFs only a few people will read or across high-traffic websites with millions of monthly impressions? In internal presentations or customer-facing apps? In a regional campaign or a worldwide brand activation? Each of these scenarios represents a different level of exposure, distribution, and complexity, and each comes with its own licensing needs. Licensing isn’t about restriction; it’s about ensuring that your use of type matches the scale and reach of your brand. Getting this right doesn’t just keep you compliant, it gives you the confidence to create, publish, and grow without second-guessing the fine print.

Reflects performance and updates.

Fonts are software, and like any software, they evolve continuously. From performance enhancements and expanded language support to bug fixes and new technologies like variable fonts, the fonts you use today are regularly updated to meet tomorrow’s standards. These updates aren’t just nice to have; they are essential for maintaining accessibility, consistency, and high performance across platforms and devices.

A modern font needs to work just as well in an app interface as it does in an AR experience or on a desktop display. It needs to support more languages, respond fluidly to different screen sizes, and stay legible in changing environments. That kind of functionality requires ongoing improvements and updates — a reflection of the continued investment made by foundries and designers to improve the product long after its initial release.

Correct licensing helps support that continual development and ensures you’re using fonts that are reliable, optimized for today’s creative and technical standards, and future-proof. When you license a font, you’re not just accessing a set of files; you’re investing in a product that performs, adapts, and improves over time.