Qt Small Business vs Commercial Seat Limits and Pricing — what do I need to change?
Desktop product teams choosing Qt licensing need the current seat caps, eligibility rules, and commercial pricing tradeoffs, because Qt packaging has changed enough that old forum answers are unreliable for budgeting and compliance.
Blockers
- Lock-in via capability/named-individual-licensing
- breaking_change_in: package/qt-ad-pre2022 → package/qt-ade-enterprise
Who this is for
- cost-sensitive
- small-team
- compliance
Candidates
Qt for Application Development Enterprise Small Business (ADE-SB)
As of 2026-03-18, Qt lists ADE-SB at "546 EUR/year" and describes it as the same license as full commercial Qt ADE but discounted for small businesses. It is for creating applications for desktop and mobile, not devices. Eligibility requires being a registered business, having combined revenue and funding of no more than 1 million EUR or USD, and needing no more than 3 developer licenses. Support is limited to 5 tickets per year, the term is 12 months, renewal is manual, and Qt says only one small-business license type is allowed per company.
When to choose
Use this when your team is a true small business, is building only desktop or mobile applications, and can stay within 3 named developer licenses. It is the cheapest verified commercial route, but only if you can pass Qt's eligibility verification and accept the operational limits.
Tradeoffs
Lowest verified price and commercial terms for proprietary desktop apps, but strict eligibility, capped seat count, limited support, and no device rights.
Cautions
Qt states the first eligibility verification occurs within 30 days of initial purchase, customers are subject to audits, and failure to complete verification can lead to suspension and cancellation. If you were eligible at the start of the 12-month term and later exceed 1 million EUR during that term, Qt says the small-business license pricing continues through the current term and converts to standard-priced licenses on renewal. All users on the same product or project team must use the same Qt developer license type.
Standard Qt Commercial Application Development Enterprise
As of 2026-03-18, Qt's official licensing FAQ says commercial Qt is licensed per named individual and every Qt user on the team needs their own assigned commercial license. A commercial license can be used across multiple products, and Qt says one license holder may install Qt tools on up to 5 computers. For older subscriptions bought before 2022, Qt says Qt for Application Development subscriptions auto-convert at renewal to Qt for Application Development Enterprise. Qt's public pages reviewed here do not provide a verified standard commercial ADE list price, so the current list price must be confirmed on Qt's pricing page or through sales.
When to choose
Use this when you need more than 3 developer seats, exceed the small-business revenue or funding cap, or cannot risk eligibility audits and manual-renewal friction. It is also the default path once a small-business team no longer qualifies at renewal.
Tradeoffs
Removes the small-business seat and eligibility caps and is the stable long-term contract path, but pricing is higher and not publicly verifiable from the official pages I found in this pass.
Cautions
Qt says all members of the same product or project team need the same Qt developer license type, and you cannot mix commercial Qt with Qt Community Edition inside the same application or device development project. If a company stops qualifying for small-business terms, renewal pricing moves to Qt's standard list price in effect at renewal.
Try with your AI agent
$ npm install -g pocketlantern $ pocketlantern init # Restart Claude Code, Cursor, or your MCP client, then ask: # "Qt Small Business vs Commercial Seat Limits and Pricing — what do I need to change?"