Roboflow Licensing
Last modified: September 24, 2026
What is a commercial model license, and do I need one?
Computer vision models, like all software, are distributed under licenses which dictate how that model may be used. Some models have restrictive licensing which makes them difficult or impossible to use in a commercial context.
Take the AGPL-3.0 license as an example. Many popular models like YOLOv8 and YOLOv11 are distributed under this license. AGPL-3.0 requires the user to open-source any code changes they make (including the code of any other projects that connect directly to the model). While this structure often works for hobby and research projects, it may not be a great fit for commercial use.
For businesses, the default way to use a model distributed under AGPL-3.0 (or similar restrictive) licenses is to purchase a commercial license. A commercial license is a separate license which gives end users the right to use the model without an obligation to open-source related code changes.
Commercial licenses are needed in cases where:
- A model with restrictive licensing is the best technical solution, and;
- You are commercially unwilling or legally unable to open-source related code.
Commercial licenses are not needed in cases where:
- A model with permissible licensing (like MIT or Apache 2.0) is the best technical solution, or;
- You are willing and able to open-source your code.
Roboflow Commercial Licensing
Uncertainty around licensing can delay or stop a project.
To add confidence and simplify the licensing process, Roboflow plans include commercial licenses for the models listed below on this page. Additionally, we often utilize open source models that do not require separate licensing for commercial use.
The commercial licenses included in your plan are restricted to cover specific deployment methods based on the plan that you choose.
| Plan | Roboflow Managed Cloud | Self-Hosted Deployment |
|---|---|---|
| Core | Included | Not included |
| Enterprise | Included | Add-on |
Models with Included Commercial Licenses
Roboflow provides commercial licenses for the following models that would otherwise have restrictive licensing. This is a comprehensive list of models with included commercial licensing, but it is not a comprehensive list of models you can use with Roboflow as the community and Roboflow team are adding more models regularly. Do not hesitate to reach out with questions for your commercial project.
Commercial License Included
The following models are normally distributed under restrictive licenses. By using these models with a Roboflow plan, you are provided with a commercial license to use them in the deployment methods associated with the plan you have chosen (listed above). You will continue to be covered by this commercial license as long as you maintain your plan.
| Model Name | Model Type | Default License | Commercial License Included | Other Considerations |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| RF-DETR (XL and 2XL) | Object Detection | PML 1.0 | Yes | |
| NAS | Object Detection, Instance Segmentation | PML 1.0 | Yes | |
| Roboflow 3.0 | Object Detection, Instance Segmentation, Keypoint Detection | AGPL-3.0 | Yes | YOLOv8-derived. |
| Roboflow 2.0 | Object Detection, Instance Segmentation | GPL-3.0 | Yes | YOLOv5-derived. |
| YOLO26 | Object Detection, Instance Segmentation | AGPL-3.0 | Yes | |
| YOLOv12 | Object Detection | AGPL-3.0 | Yes | |
| YOLO11 | Object Detection, Instance Segmentation | AGPL-3.0 | Yes | |
| YOLOv10 | Object Detection | AGPL-3.0 | Yes | |
| YOLOv8 | Object Detection, Instance Segmentation | GPL-3.0 or AGPL-3.0 | Yes | YOLOv8 moved from a GPL-3.0 to an AGPL-3.0 license in April, 2023. |
| YOLOv5 | Object Detection, Instance Segmentation | GPL-3.0 or AGPL-3.0 | Yes | YOLOv5 moved from a GPL-3.0 to an AGPL-3.0 license in April, 2023. |
| YOLO-World | Object Detection | AGPL-3.0 | Yes | |
| YOLOE | Object Detection | AGPL-3.0 | Yes |
Default Permissive Licenses
The following models are distributed under permissive licenses and therefore do not require a commercial license to use.
| Model Name | Model Type | Commercial License | Other Considerations |
|---|---|---|---|
| RF-DETR (Nano to Large) | Object Detection | Apache-2.0 | All sizes besides Object Detection XL and 2XL |
| RF-DETR Seg (All Sizes) | Instance Segmentation | Apache-2.0 | |
| OwlV2 | Object Detection | Apache-2.0 | |
| YOLO-NAS | Object Detection | Apache-2.0 | This model’s code is created & released under an Apache 2.0 license, but the Deci-provided pre-trained weights are under a special license. If you train with Roboflow Train, commercial usage is allowed because we do not use the Deci weights. If you train your own model outside the Roboflow platform, ensuring adherence to the Deci YOLO-NAS license is your responsibility. |
| Roboflow 2.0 (Semantic Segmentation) | Semantic Segmentation | MIT | DeepLabV3+-derived. |
| Roboflow 1.0 (Instance Segmentation) | Instance Segmentation | MIT | YOLOACT-derived. |
| ViT | Classification | Apache-2.0 | |
| ResNet | Classification | Apache-2.0 | |
| DocTR | OCR | Apache-2.0 | |
| TrOCR | OCR | MIT | |
| CLIP | Foundation / Embedding | MIT | |
| L2CS-Net (Gaze Detection) | Gaze | MIT, Apache-2.0 | |
| CogVLM | VLM | Apache-2.0 | |
| GroundingDINO | Foundation, Object Detection | Apache-2.0 | |
| Florence-2 | Foundation, Multimodal | MIT | |
| PaliGemma | Foundation, Multimodal | Apache-2.0, Gemma | Review Google’s Gemma License before use. |
| Segment Anything | Foundation, Segmentation | Apache-2.0 | |
| Segment Anything 2 | Foundation, Segmentation | Apache-2.0 | |
| Segment Anything 3 | Foundation, Segmentation | SAM License |
Contact us with questions
Unsupported Models
Roboflow is unable to provide commercial licenses for the following models: YOLOv7, YOLOv9.