Display Licences and Authorisation | easyCMS Digital Signage

easyCMS licences are lifetime, and they are counted per display. One screen, one licence. There are no monthly fees and no per-user charge on the standard plans.

Two different licences share that word, and it is worth separating them now. An easyCMS Licence is what you buy from us; it adds one more display to your account. On Android and LG webOS the player software also carries its own commercial player licence, using the code in your purchase confirmation email. Windows players need no such thing. Almost every confusing licence symptom comes from mixing the two up, and player licence problems covers the second one in full.

What your account includes

An easyCMS account (49€ one-time) includes the CMS and one display licence.
Each additional screen needs its own easyCMS Licence (99€ one-time, lifetime).
A standard account is sized for up to 5 displays. Beyond that, the PRO account covers up to 25, and an Enterprise account is the right fit above that.

Licences do not expire and are not billed again. The purchase is permanent. The commercial player licence on an Android or LG webOS screen is separate, and it re-verifies over the internet about every 30 days. A player that cannot complete that check keeps playing what it has, but stops taking anything new. Screens on isolated networks are the ones to think about here, so talk to us before deploying any. See pricing for the current figures.

Authorising a new display

When a player connects to easyCMS for the first time it registers itself but stays unauthorised, it appears in the CMS and waits. Nothing plays until you authorise it. This is deliberate: it stops an unknown device consuming a licence.

In easyCMS, open Displays.
Find the new entry, it will be named after the device unless you set a name in the player.
Open its row menu and choose Authorise, or open Edit and set Authorise display to Yes.
Give it a meaningful name straight away: “Reception – ground floor” beats “android-8842f1” the first time something goes wrong.
Assign it to a display group, a display settings profile and a default layout.

A registered-but-unauthorised display is the classic cause of “the player says it is connected but nothing happens”. See Connecting Your First Display.

Naming and grouping from the start

On a network of any size, do this at authorisation time, not later:

Name by location, not by hardware.
Group by what they show, schedules target groups far more comfortably than individual screens.
Tag by anything you will want to filter on later: region, client, screen orientation.

Retrofitting a naming convention across 40 screens is a genuinely miserable afternoon.

Replacing or moving hardware

A licence belongs to your account, not to a specific box. When a player dies:

Deauthorise the old display in easyCMS. Open Displays, find its row and switch authorisation off. This releases the display slot straight away and is reversible, unlike deleting.
Install and connect the replacement, then authorise it and re-apply the name, group, profile and default layout.
Once the new screen is confirmed playing, delete the old entry if you no longer want it in the list.

The authorisation control on a display Deauthorising releases the licence and is reversible. Deleting is not, and is almost never what you want.

Tip Deauthorise first, authorise second, delete last. Working in that order means you never need a spare slot, and you still have the old record to fall back on if the replacement gives trouble.

Deleting a display also removes its history and statistics, and it cannot be undone. Export any reports you need first.

On Android and LG webOS there is a second thing to release. Those players carry a commercial player licence that lives in a licence pool, not on the display record, so neither deauthorising nor deleting hands it back. easyCMS manages that pool for you: tell us the screen is retired and we will release its licence entry. Until that happens the retired device still counts against the pool.

When you run out of licences

Every screen you run needs its own licence, and we check accounts against what they hold. Where an account has a display allowance set, Add a display will say so when you reach it: “Your plan covers N displays and all of them are in use. Add a licence to connect another screen.” Nothing is lost when that happens, the screen simply stays unclaimed until there is a licence for it.

Two ways forward. Either buy another licence, which lands on your account as soon as the order completes. Or free one up by deauthorising a display you no longer run. Deauthorising, not deleting: it releases the licence immediately, keeps the name, schedule and history, and can be undone.

Displays you are not using

A screen taken down for a month still holds its slot while it stays authorised. That is usually what you want, it keeps the name, schedule and history intact for when it comes back. If you need the slot elsewhere in the meantime, deauthorise the display rather than deleting it, then re-authorise it on its return.

One thing not to worry about: a display that is simply switched off does not need releasing. Player licences are only a problem when a device is retired for good.