Hello community,
I am new in envato. I am planning to sell PHP apps in Codecanyon. I was wondering if there was any way to validate the purchase of my app.
I will make an installer for my app. When the buyer will try to install the app in his/her server, in the installation page, the installer will ask for a purchase code (or something unique that is given by Codecanyon when the buyer bought the item). The installer will check the purchase code through an API and tell whether the purchase is valid or not. If the purchase code is invalid, the installation process is stopped, otherwise, the installation will continue.
Is it possible? or is there any other solution by which I can check my app is only used by a valid person?
I think it is really necessary to stop the unwanted distribution of any app/script.
I found an article where Envato says,
None of the items in our curated library requires a purchase code. You will have complete access to utilise the items core features as intended.
Does that mean I can’t do anything such?
Thank you.
The article you found is only applicable to Envato Elements, not CodeCanyon.
There used to be guidelines for CodeCanyon which stated that you could not “lock” the script behind a purchase code (“keygate”), but these guidelines vanished a few years ago. That doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s allowed now.
However, I would argue that you can add license verification to an installer, as long as it’s only the installer; buyers must be able to install the script manually to get around it, and you should provide basic manual installation steps in your documentation just in case.
Some important things to consider:
-
If someone wants to use your app without a purchase code, all they need to do is edit the code in your installer and remove that bit. You’re not allowed to encrypt the code so they can absolutely do this with minimal effort.
-
If your API goes offline due to an unexpected outage or maintenance, buyers will not be able to install your app with the installer, unless you allow them to skip that step.
-
Remember to make life easy for the reviewer. The faster they can install, the better. 
There are many apps on CodeCanyon which do this. I also add license validation to my installers, but I make it optional for the reasons highlighted above.
2 Likes
All of your points are logical. Even if I encrypted/encoded all my codes, there would be a way to decode them.
I found my answer.
Thank you very much. 
1 Like