Not “free up to 10,000 MAUs.” Not free for non-commercial use. And not free until your product becomes successful.
Free.
The core Switchboard SDKs available on our downloads page will have no per-user, per-device, or activation-based licensing fees.
Switchboard will remain closed source, and some Extensions and services will still cost money. But we want developers to be able to build and ship products on Switchboard without creating a recurring paid dependency on us.
Why are we doing this?
The simple answer is that we want more people using Switchboard.
We originally priced Switchboard like a conventional software platform: start free, then pay as usage grows. That made sense when we were thinking about building a traditional SaaS-style business.
Over time, though, we’ve learned something fairly obvious from our own customers: distribution is more valuable to us than metering the SDK.
We make considerably more money helping companies design, build and optimize real-time products than we have historically made from SDK licensing. When those projects use Switchboard, it tends to be win-win. So we don’t want to disincentivize its use by making it paid.
We found some developers hesitant to introduce something that requires procurement approval or creates an unknown future cost. In other cases we felt resistance to introducing a commercial dependency because the engineering time and headaches saved are often more obvious in hindsight, after using the SDK.
Making the SDK free removes that friction.
We also think it makes Switchboard easier to share. If you're a developer, an AI coding agent, or a company whose technology can be used through a Switchboard Extension, recommending a useful free tool is easy. Recommending something that eventually generates a licensing bill feels a lot more like selling it.
So how will we make money?
Initially, mostly the way we already do: engineering services and support.
The SDK is free; our engineers' time isn't. Developers who need integration help, new platform support, custom Nodes or Extensions, optimization, or other engineering work can purchase support in small blocks or work with Synervoz on larger projects. You can see the current options on our pricing page.
Over time, there are plenty of other possibilities: hosted services, premium tools, paid Extensions, Editor services, usage credits, marketplace revenue, enterprise offerings, and things we haven't thought of yet.
We don't need to decide all of that today.
First, we want to maximize the usefulness and distribution of the platform. Then we can build businesses around the things people actually want.
What about Extensions?
We plan to make many of our own Extensions free, including wrappers around useful open-source technologies.
Third-party Extensions are different. Some will be free; others will remain subject to the provider's pricing. Where practical, we'd like Switchboard to offer both free/open alternatives and integrations with best-in-class commercial technology.
And if we haven't built the integration you need, our BYON (Bring Your Own Node) framework lets you build your own.
The goal is simple: using the Switchboard core shouldn't force you into paying us anything.
We think that makes Switchboard substantially more useful—and gives us a better foundation on which to build everything that comes next.