Who pays for the Hyvä license, the agency or the merchant?

The merchant usually pays for a Hyvä license, even when the agency places the order. The core theme costs nothing now, so the question only comes up for Hyvä’s paid add-ons. Each of those licenses belongs to one store and one business, which makes the merchant’s own Hyvä account the safest place for it.

Is there still a Hyvä Theme license to pay for?

No. Since 10 November 2025 the Hyvä Theme itself has no license fee. Hyvä relicensed it under OSL 3.0 and AFL 3.0 with version 1.4.0. You can pull it from GitHub or generate free Composer keys in the Hyvä Portal. According to Hyvä’s theme license page, an individual account gets up to 5 free keys and a partner agency account up to 50.

So if a quote covers only a Hyvä theme build, the license line should read zero. If it doesn’t, ask what that line pays for.

Which Hyvä products still need a paid license?

Only Hyvä’s add-on products need a paid license. Each paid license covers one Magento installation.

Hyvä adjusts its prices over time, so confirm current figures on Hyvä’s product pages before they go into a quote.

Why should the merchant own the Hyvä license?

Hyvä’s license agreement ties each paid license to one Magento installation. It also forbids holding a single license for several companies or legal entities. An agency can’t reuse one Checkout license across its client list, so every client needs its own anyway.

Support plans also renew per license, and trading licenses in for Hyvä Commerce only works under the same customer account and domain. If the license lives in the agency’s account and the relationship ends, the merchant has to request a transfer from Hyvä to take control of it.

Some merchants are happy for their agency to hold the licenses. That works, as long as the contract says who owns them and how they get handed over.

Can an agency transfer a Hyvä license to the merchant?

Yes. Hyvä’s license agreement lets licenses move between accounts on request. Hyvä also recommends that agencies transfer a license bought for internal testing to the client whose store will use it. Contact Hyvä to confirm eligibility before the handover.

What should the contract say about Hyvä licenses?

Write license ownership into the statement of work. List which Hyvä products the build needs, who pays for each, and whose Hyvä Portal account holds them at launch. If a white-label partner builds the store for another agency, settle this in both contracts so the license doesn’t get stranded between two agency accounts.

Agencies can connect client-owned licenses to their own Hyvä Portal through My Clients, so the agency still gets partner credit when the merchant holds the license.

The takeaway: check whether your build needs any paid Hyvä products at all, then make sure each paid license lands in the merchant’s account by launch day. If you’re scoping a build now, our Hyvä theme development team can tell you which paid licenses your store actually needs. For a theme-only build, that’s none.