The end-user licence.
Monthly or yearly, tiered by seats and machines, what the free download does and what a code opens. Written to be read, not skipped.
Version of 13 September 2026
What a licence is
A subscription, monthly or yearly, to run one BlueGrey plugin, or both, for the number of seats and machines your tier allows. It comes as an activation code. It renews at the end of each period until you stop it, and every update is included while it runs. Pay yearly and pay half.
Nester
| Tier | Seats | Machines | Who it is for | A year | A month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | 1 seat | 2 machines | Sole traders and single workstations | £90 | £15 |
| Shop | 5 seats | 10 machines | A working sign shop | £210 | £35 |
| Site | 20 seats | 40 machines | Bigger shops, everything under one roof | £540 | £90 |
Setout
| Tier | Seats | Machines | Who it is for | A year | A month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | 1 seat | 2 machines | Sole traders and single workstations | £60 | £10 |
| Shop | 5 seats | 10 machines | A working sign shop | £150 | £25 |
| Site | 20 seats | 40 machines | Bigger shops, everything under one roof | £360 | £60 |
Both tools
| Tier | Seats | Machines | Who it is for | A year | A month |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solo | 1 seat | 2 machines | Sole traders and single workstations | £120 | £20 |
| Shop | 5 seats | 10 machines | A working sign shop | £270 | £45 |
| Site | 20 seats | 40 machines | Bigger shops, everything under one roof | £690 | £115 |
Every tier is the whole product: the same engine, every mode and every control, every update. The only difference is the number of seats and machines.
When a subscription ends, the code stops opening the plugin at the close of the period you paid for. Nester drops back to the free version, which still nests and prices your artwork but will not place it. Setout shades over until you subscribe again. Nothing is deleted and your files are untouched.
The download, and what a code opens
The plugin is one free download, the same file whether you have paid or not. Anyone can install it and use it on their own artwork; the download needs no code and no account.
Nester nests and prices your artwork but will not place the result on your artboard. Setout runs in full for 7 days from install; when Illustrator opens, the panel says how many days are left and carries a Buy now button. Nester locked still shows you a finished nest and what it costs, so a lock on placing leaves something useful; Setout's whole job is writing the numbers onto the drawing, so the same lock would leave it doing nothing, and a clock is the honest limit for it.
Enter your activation code in the panel and the same panel becomes the full one. There is no second file to fetch.
Seats and machines
One seat covers two machines, for example a desktop and a laptop. The number of seats is how many people can be signed in at the same time.
A machine is one computer with Illustrator on it. When you enter your code on a machine it is activated, and it counts against your tier until it is released. The licence server keeps that count, so the machine limit is a real limit rather than an honour system.
On one more machine than your tier covers, the panel says so and stays as it was: locked for Nester, on its trial clock for Setout. Release an activation, or move up a tier, and it activates.
Site covers 20 seats, 40 machines under one roof. Two locations need two licences.
If you replace a machine, the old activation can be released so the new one takes its place. Email us if you get stuck.
Working offline
A machine that is off the network keeps working for 30 days. After that it needs to reach the licence server once to carry on. A shop machine that never sees the internet should be connected briefly once a month.
Updates and new versions
Every release is included while your subscription runs, and the free download is always the current version. There is no separate upgrade to buy: a new major version is the same subscription, not a new licence.
What you may do
Install it on as many machines as your tier allows, for as many seats as it allows, and use it for any work, commercial or not, for as long as your subscription runs. Move it between machines as described above. Make a copy for backup. Give the free download to anyone; it is public.
What you may not do
Share the activation code beyond the seats and machines your tier allows, resell or sublicense it, remove or work around the licence check, or reverse-engineer the nesting engine. If you need more seats or machines, the next tier is cheaper than a second licence.
Open-source components
Nester's nesting engine is open source, and we say so plainly. When you click Nest, the solving is done by sparrow, used unmodified at revision a4bfbbe0bf864a7eaf136f9d06456155b1163195 (7 May 2026), which its author publishes under the MIT licence, built with jagua-rs version 0.7.2, also unmodified, published under the Mozilla Public License 2.0. Their source is at github.com/JeroenGar/sparrow and github.com/JeroenGar/jagua-rs, with the licence text in each, and both licence texts ship inside the plugin folder from v0.18.2.
Versions up to and including v0.18.1 also shipped an earlier WebAssembly build of the same two libraries, which the panel did not use: jagua-rs at revision 877aaa3c3217f0dd2b6f1c8af8d3e53d4023e422, unmodified, and sparrow at revision 04f54ff77fd9b614311879e8c62ee4e13294165e, published under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 at that time, with two small build changes of ours so it would compile single-threaded for the browser. We removed that build in v0.18.2. If you hold v0.18.1 or earlier, the MPL entitles you to those two changed files: email hello@bluegrey.ai and we send them.
The panel itself, the Illustrator bridge, the hole-filling and the estimating code are BlueGrey's own. Setout is BlueGrey's own throughout.