Skip to content

License Management Guide (Super Admins)

Super Administrators manage platform licenses through the Authifi UI.

Table of Contents

Overview

License management is a Super Administrator-only feature that controls tenant and application quotas across Authifi. Licenses support:

  • Multi-tier SaaS offerings (Free, Pro, Enterprise)
  • Department or business unit quotas
  • Trial period limitations
  • Resource allocation and billing control

The Admins > Licenses menu is hidden for non-Super-Administrator users. Only Super Administrators can view or manage licenses.

Accessing License Management

Location: Admins > Licenses

Prerequisites:

  • Super Administrator privileges
  • The Admins menu will not appear for tenant admins or regular users

Navigation:

  • Log in to the Authifi UI with super admin credentials
  • Select any tenant from the tenant dropdown
  • Navigate to Admins in the left navigation menu
  • Click Licenses

License Management Operations

Viewing Licenses

The Licenses dashboard lists all configured license tiers.

Table columns:

  • Name: Unique license identifier
  • Max Tenants: Maximum number of tenants allowed (0 = unlimited)
  • Max Clients: Maximum number of applications per tenant (0 = unlimited)
  • Settings: Edit license (hidden for default license)
  • Delete: Remove license (hidden for default license)

Use the search box to filter licenses by name.

Every platform has a "Default License" that:

  • Cannot be edited
  • Cannot be deleted
  • Is the fallback when no other license is assigned
  • Typically configured with platform-wide default limits

Creating a License

Create a license tier with resource quotas.

Steps:

  • Click + ADD LICENSE button
  • Fill in the license creation dialog:
    • Name*: Unique identifier for the license tier
    • Max Tenants: Tenant quota (0 = unlimited)
    • Max Clients: Application quota per tenant (0 = unlimited)
  • Click Save

Validation:

  • Name is required and must be unique
  • Max Tenants and Max Clients must be non-negative integers

Example:

Name: Professional
Max Tenants: 0 (unlimited tenants can use this license)
Max Clients: 50 (each tenant can have up to 50 applications)

Best practices:

  • Use descriptive, business-meaningful names
  • Document license tiers in your product documentation
  • Consider growth patterns when setting limits
  • Leave room for expansion (set limits higher than immediate needs)

Editing a License

Update quota limits for an existing license tier.

Restrictions:

  • Cannot edit the "Default License"
  • Can only edit custom licenses

Steps:

  • Click the Settings icon (gear) next to the license
  • Modify license properties:
    • Max Tenants: Update tenant quota
    • Max Clients: Update application quota
  • Click Save

Changes behave as follows:

  • Increasing limits: Takes effect immediately; tenants can create additional resources
  • Decreasing limits:
  • Does not automatically delete existing resources that exceed new limits
  • Prevents creation of new resources beyond the new limit
  • Consider communicating with affected tenants before reducing limits

Reducing limits does not trigger automatic cleanup. A tenant with 100 clients keeps them after Max Clients is reduced to 50, but cannot create more until its count is below the limit.

Best practices:

  • Audit current usage before reducing limits
  • Notify affected tenants before limit reductions
  • Provide grace period for compliance
  • Document limit changes in changelog

Deleting a License

Remove an unused license tier.

Restrictions:

  • Cannot delete the "Default License"
  • Can only delete custom licenses
  • Should not delete licenses currently assigned to tenants (verify first)

Steps:

  • Click the Delete icon (trash) next to the license
  • Confirm deletion in the dialog
  • The license is permanently removed.

Pre-deletion checklist:

  • [ ] Verify no tenants are currently assigned this license
  • [ ] Re-assign affected tenants to different licenses (if any)
  • [ ] Document the removal in your change log
  • [ ] Communicate to stakeholders if this was a published tier

What happens to assigned tenants?

  • If tenants are assigned a deleted license, they may fall back to the default license
  • Recommendation: Re-assign tenants to appropriate licenses before deleting

Best practice: Archive documentation about deleted licenses for historical reference and billing records.

License Properties Reference

Name

  • Type: String
  • Required: Yes
  • Unique: Yes
  • Max length: Varies (typically 50-100 characters)
  • Format: Alphanumeric with spaces, hyphens, underscores allowed
  • Examples: "Free Tier", "Professional", "Enterprise", "Trial-30-Day", "Department-A"

Naming conventions:

  • Use title case for customer-facing tiers (e.g., "Professional", "Enterprise")
  • Use descriptive names for internal tiers (e.g., "Internal-Development", "Partner-Integration")
  • Include duration for time-limited licenses (e.g., "Trial-14-Day")

Max Tenants

  • Type: Integer
  • Required: Yes
  • Range: 0 to unlimited
  • Special value: 0 means unlimited tenants

Interpretation:

  • Maximum number of tenants that can be created with this license
  • Used for platform-wide licensing (not tenant-specific quotas)
  • Use case: Control how many tenant instances a customer organization can create

Examples:

  • Free tier: 1 (single tenant per account)
  • Professional: 5 (multi-tenant for small teams)
  • Enterprise: 0 (unlimited tenants)

Note: This typically limits tenant creation at the platform/customer level, not per-tenant quotas.

Max Clients

  • Type: Integer
  • Required: Yes
  • Range: 0 to unlimited
  • Special value: 0 means unlimited clients

Interpretation:

  • Maximum number of OAuth 2.0/OIDC clients or SAML service providers a tenant can create
  • Applied per tenant (each tenant under this license gets this quota)
  • Use case: Control application integration density

Examples:

  • Free tier: 5 (up to 5 apps)
  • Professional: 50 (moderate integration needs)
  • Enterprise: 0 (unlimited apps)

Planning guidance:

  • Consider typical customer integration patterns
  • Factor in dev/staging/production environments (3x multiplier)
  • Allow headroom for growth (don't set exact limits)
  • Monitor actual usage to inform tier definitions

License Assignment

Licenses are assigned to tenants via Tenant Settings.

How to Assign a License to a Tenant

  • Navigate to Tenant > Settings
  • Click Edit
  • Go to the Metadata tab
  • In License Assignment dropdown, select the license
  • Click Save

License assignment is available in the tenant edit dialog's Metadata section. Only Super Administrators can change tenant license assignments.

Viewing Tenant's Current License

  • Open Tenant Details or Tenant Edit dialog
  • Check the Metadata tab for current license assignment
  • The license name and limits are displayed

Enforcement

Authifi enforces license limits:

  • Client creation: Blocked when Max Clients limit is reached
  • Tenant creation: Blocked when Max Tenants limit is reached (at platform level)
  • API responses: Return error with quota exceeded message

Applications should handle quota errors and tell users when they need a license upgrade.

Use Cases

1. SaaS Multi-Tier Pricing

Scenario: Offer Free, Professional, and Enterprise tiers with different capabilities.

Configuration:

Free Tier:
  Max Tenants: 1
  Max Clients: 5

Professional:
  Max Tenants: 5
  Max Clients: 50

Enterprise:
  Max Tenants: 0 (unlimited)
  Max Clients: 0 (unlimited)

Benefits:

  • Clear differentiation between tiers
  • Automated enforcement of limits
  • Easy upgrades (just change license assignment)

2. Trial Periods

Scenario: Offer time-limited trials with reduced quotas.

Configuration:

Trial-14-Day:
  Max Tenants: 1
  Max Clients: 3

Implementation:

  • Assign "Trial-14-Day" license to new accounts
  • Set user expiration or automate license change after 14 days
  • Monitor trial usage in analytics

Combine license limits with tenant-level expiration dates to control trial quotas and duration.

3. Department or Business Unit Quotas

Scenario: Internal deployment with different departments having different limits.

Configuration:

IT-Department:
  Max Tenants: 0
  Max Clients: 200 (large integration needs)

Marketing-Department:
  Max Tenants: 0
  Max Clients: 20 (fewer integrations)

Finance-Department:
  Max Tenants: 0
  Max Clients: 50

Benefits:

  • Cost allocation per department
  • Prevent resource monopolization
  • Enforce governance policies

4. Partner and Integration Tiers

Scenario: Different limits for different types of partners.

Configuration:

Integration-Partner:
  Max Tenants: 1
  Max Clients: 10 (for partner's integration testing)

Reseller-Partner:
  Max Tenants: 0 (unlimited - they manage sub-tenants)
  Max Clients: 100 (per sub-tenant)

Use case: Partner ecosystem with varied needs.

5. Environment-Based Licenses

Scenario: Different limits for dev/staging/production.

Configuration:

Development:
  Max Tenants: 0
  Max Clients: 0 (no limits in dev)

Staging:
  Max Tenants: 0
  Max Clients: 100

Production:
  Max Tenants: 1
  Max Clients: 200

Benefits:

  • Generous limits in development
  • Production parity in staging
  • Controlled production deployment

Security and Operational Best Practices

Security

  • Restrict access to super admins only

    • License management affects billing and resource allocation
    • Limit super admin role to trusted personnel
    • Audit super admin actions regularly

  • Monitor license changes

    • Review audit logs for license modifications
    • Alert on unexpected license deletions or quota changes
    • Track who made changes and when

  • Validate license assignments

    • Ensure tenants have appropriate licenses
    • Prevent unauthorized license tier escalations
    • Implement approval workflows for license upgrades (external to Authifi system)

  • Protect quota integrity

    • Don't set limits that could be easily bypassed
    • Monitor for quota circumvention attempts
    • Investigate accounts repeatedly hitting limits

Operational

  • Plan capacity

    • Set limits based on infrastructure capacity
    • Monitor aggregate resource usage across all tenants
    • Plan scaling before reaching platform limits

  • Document license tiers

    • Maintain clear documentation of what each tier includes
    • Publish tier limits in customer-facing documentation
    • Keep internal runbooks for tier management

  • Monitor quota usage

    • Track tenants approaching their limits
    • Proactive outreach for upgrade opportunities
    • Alert operations team when limits are reached

  • Version control license definitions

    • Document when licenses were created/modified
    • Track historical limit changes
    • Maintain changelog for compliance

  • Test limit enforcement

    • Verify quota limits are properly enforced
    • Test error handling when limits are exceeded
    • Validate that unlimited (0) works correctly

Billing and Commercial

  • Align with pricing model

    • Ensure license limits match published pricing tiers
    • Keep licenses synchronized with billing system
    • Update licenses when pricing changes

  • Handle upgrades/downgrades

    • Document upgrade process (increase limits)
    • Define downgrade policy (reduce limits)
    • Communicate changes to affected tenants

  • Audit license assignments

    • Regularly review tenant-to-license mappings
    • Identify tenants on incorrect licenses
    • Ensure billing matches assigned licenses

  • Grace periods for limit breaches

    • Consider allowing temporary overages
    • Notify tenants approaching limits
    • Provide upgrade path before hard enforcement

Compliance

  • Record retention

    • Maintain records of license assignments
    • Track license changes for auditing
    • Correlate with billing records

  • Access audit

    • Log all license management operations
    • Review who accessed license management UI
    • Investigate unauthorized access attempts

  • Contractual obligations

    • Ensure licenses enforce contractual limits
    • Validate limits match customer agreements
    • Document exceptions with approval

Troubleshooting

Tenant Cannot Create Clients

Symptom: Error message "Maximum clients limit reached" when creating application.

Solution:

  • Check tenant's assigned license (Tenant Settings > Metadata)
  • View current client count vs. Max Clients limit
  • Options:
    • Upgrade tenant to higher license tier
    • Increase Max Clients for current license
    • Have tenant delete unused clients

License Quota Not Enforcing

Symptom: Tenant can create more resources than license allows.

Checks:

  • Verify license is correctly assigned to tenant
  • Check if Max Clients is set to 0 (unlimited)
  • Review audit logs for recent license changes
  • Confirm no system-admin bypass in place

Resolution: Contact development team if enforcement is broken.

Cannot Delete License

Symptom: Delete button not visible or operation fails.

Reasons:

  • Attempting to delete "Default License" (not allowed)
  • License is currently assigned to tenants (best practice: re-assign first)
  • Not logged in as super admin

Solution: Re-assign affected tenants to different licenses before deleting.

Additional Resources

Getting Help

For assistance with license management:

  • Review audit logs for recent license changes
  • Check tenant assignments to verify correct licenses
  • Monitor quota usage in tenant dashboards
  • Consult platform documentation for commercial/billing policies
  • Contact platform administrators for policy questions

Document version: 1.0
Last updated: 2025-12-12
Target audience: Super Administrators
Scope: Platform-wide license quota management