{"id":6165,"date":"2026-10-25T06:39:53","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T05:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/candy-arts.com\/?page_id=6165"},"modified":"2026-10-25T18:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T17:34:17","slug":"free-indie-tiers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/candy-arts.com\/index.php\/free-indie-tiers\/","title":{"rendered":"Free & Indie Tiers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The following is provided as a simplified overview of our Asset licenses.<\/strong>
Nothing written here overrules our license terms<\/a> nor is legally binding or contractual.
Always refer to the actual Candy Arts licenses for the most accurate information.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Free & Indie Tiers<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The Free and Indie tiers are designed for small indie projects: solo devs, hobbyists, or small teams who want to make games with small budgets and without all the professional resources of a studio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We want to encourage and support these projects, so we do two things:
\u2022 We offer them our Assets for free or at a price that is affordable and reasonably low for what our Assets provide.
\u2022 Developers only need to pay for our Assets once: they can then re-use them in unlimited projects, forever, without paying again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we can’t afford to offer this to everyone. Larger, professional projects need to pay a fair price. For this reason, there are a few restrictions on which projects qualify for the Free and Indie tiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Team Size<\/strong>
\u2022 Free and Indie projects are limited to a team size of 5 people.
\u2022 Those 5 people can be replaced, with restrictions: when someone leaves the team for any reason, they can only be replaced 12 months after they joined the team.
\u2022 If someone leaves the team due to severe, unexpected circumstances, such as health issues or death, they can be replaced immediately.

Who Can Join The Team<\/strong>
\u2022 Creators are always part of the team. Creators are the people who own the project, who control its development, or who earn money from it.
\u2022 Companies are not allowed in the team: only real humans. This applies to Creators too.
\u2022 Creators can’t hire employees to work on the project: that’s not indie.
\u2022 Distribution Platforms (like Steam) and Payment Processors (like Stripe) don’t count as Creators, even if they technically earn money from sales of your game: you can use those services, and they don’t count in the team.
\u2022 You can pay for commissions (e.g. pay an artist to make sprites or music). The people you commission work from don’t count in the team.
\u2022 You can get help from unpaid volunteers, like friends and family who make free art for your game. Volunteers count in the team<\/span>.
\u2022 You can ask your project’s user community to help with testing or translations. The community does not count in the team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, you can have a team of 5 Creators, or 3 Creators + 2 Volunteers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related Works<\/strong>
\u2022 The Creators and Volunteers of Expansions, Access Products and Alternate Versions count in the team for your project.
\u2022 If an Expansion, Access Product or Alternate Version doesn’t use our Assets and isn’t bound by our licenses, it doesn’t have official Creators or Volunteers: you must determine who would be considered a Creator or a Volunteer if the Expansion, Access Product or Alternate Version was bound by our licenses, and count those people in your project’s team.
\u2022 See the Related Works<\/strong><\/a> page for more information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publishers<\/strong>
The role of a publisher is usually to finance the development of your game, and\/or advertise and market your game, in exchange for a percentage of its revenue.
Generally, if you work with a publisher, your project is already more professional than indie.

Whether you can work with a publisher under the Free and Indie tiers depends on a few things:
\u2022 If a publisher is paid in proportion to your project’s revenue, holds rights to it, or can control its development, distribution or sale, it must be considered a Creator.
\u2022 If a publisher is only paid a fixed price to advertise your game, that’s just an ordinary service and it doesn’t need to be considered a Creator.
\u2022 If a publisher gives you funding for your game and expects you to pay it back, but the publisher won’t be paid based on the project’s revenue, that’s just a loan and the publisher doesn’t need to be considered a Creator.

In addition, under the Free and Indie tiers, only individuals can be Creators, not companies. Unfortunately, most publishers are companies, so you have two options:
1) Find a publisher who is an individual (they count as a Creator and in the team).
2) Use the Professional tier for your project: it has no restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Budget<\/strong>
\u2022 Your project’s Budget is how much money you spend on your project. See the Budget<\/strong><\/a> page for details.
\u2022 Your project’s Budget must not be more than \u20ac7’500. If it’s higher, your project needs to use the Professional tier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commercial vs. Non-Commercial<\/strong>
\u2022 The Free tier is only available for Non-Commercial projects.
\u2022 A Non-Commercial project is a project that doesn’t earn Direct Revenue. Direct Revenue is money you are paid directly for your project, such as game sales, donations, exclusivity deals, selling or licensing the rights to your project, etc.
\u2022 Indirect Revenue does not make your project Commercial. Indirect Revenue is incidental benefits, like your game’s brand becoming more popular and increasing in economic value.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Changing Tier<\/strong>
What happens if you have too many people on your team, if you exceed the Budget limit, if you want to hire an employee, or if you accidentally work with a publisher who isn’t human…?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Don’t worry, there’s a solution: you just need to upgrade from the Free tier or Indie tier to the Professional tier.

The same applies if your project under the Free tier accidentally earns direct revenue: you can upgrade to the Indie tier.

Or as an alternative, you can contact us, explain what happened, and we might be able to find a solution that will allow your project to continue under the Free or Indie tiers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is provided as a simplified overview of our Asset licenses.Nothing written here overrules our license terms nor is legally binding or contractual.Always refer to the actual Candy Arts licenses for the most accurate information. Free & Indie Tiers The Free and Indie tiers are designed for small indie projects: solo devs, hobbyists, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6165","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/candy-arts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/candy-arts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/candy-arts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candy-arts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/candy-arts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6165"}],"version-history":[{"count":30,"href":"https:\/\/candy-arts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6165\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6215,"href":"https:\/\/candy-arts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6165\/revisions\/6215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/candy-arts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}