Scrivener Licensing for Universities & Businesses

Some time ago, I wrote a blog post about 'Becoming a Sales Affiliate for Scrivener' http://www.literatureandlatte.com/blog/?p=98. This detailed how you could go about becoming a member of a virtual sales force for Scrivener, earning a 20% commission in the process. This method of getting a little something back as you spread news of Scrivener still exists, but what I wanted to cover today is bulk licence purchasing. This would typically be useful for a business or university.

We are fortunate that Scrivener is being adopted by numerous fields of practice, so we've tried to automate our web-store as much as possible in order to cater for most purchasing requirements. If you go to our web-store here http://www.getscrivener.com you will notice a Volume Discounts Available link associated with all our Scrivener licence types. If you press the link, you will then be able to see that we offer pricing in discrete bands that depend on the number of licences being purchased in a single transaction. Taking Scrivener 2 for Mac OS X (Regular Licence) as an example, it is typically $45.00 for each licence, but if an institution were to purchase 51 licences then they would only cost $27.00 each.

Going the volume discount route and purchasing licences within a single transaction can obviously lead to a decent saving, but note the institution will only receive a single user name associated with a single serial number covering the number of Scrivener installation seats requested. It is therefore advisable that an institution name is used when going through the purchasing process. If you were purchasing on behalf of Stanford University, for example, using 'Stanford' as the 'User's First Name:' and 'University' as the 'User's Last Name:' would be advisable. If you were buying a number of licences for a particular department, perhaps the library, then 'Stanford' as the 'User's First Name:' and 'Library' as the 'User's Last Name:' would probably be a good way to go.

When buying in bulk, note that the number of licences purchased should equal the number of computers within your organisation. Volume discounts have been tiered to ensure good savings are provided when there are a large number of computers. For instance, if more than 250 licences are purchased within a single transaction, then you'll save 60% on the normal licence rate for Scrivener. If your site or campus is in the order of 500 licences, please contact salesATliteratureandlatteDOTcom to get rates for site licensing.

If individuals within an organisation want personalised licensing for Scrivener, tied to their specific user name, then going the volume discount route is not possible. Licences tied to a single user name need to be purchased separately. Likewise, volume discounts are provided for organisations and institutions purchasing a multi-user licence, and are not intended for buying individual licences in bulk. For example, a group of PhD students should not band together to purchase licensing jointly.

Some institutions may be exempt from sales taxation. As there is no global database available detailing exempt universities or businesses, it is a limitation of the automated system that sales tax, if appropriate, will always be charged in the first instance. If you're organisation is exempt from taxation, the value can be rebated to your method of payment once you're in receipt of your STxxxxxxxx order confirmation. The order number is dispatched immediately to the given email address, and if you send this, along with your exemption certificate, to csfileattachmentATdigitalriverDOTcom then the sales tax portion of your order will be rebated to your method of payment.

The easiest methods of payment in our web-store are via credit card or a PayPal account, but if your order value is over $500.00 then the option to complete the transaction using a purchase order will open up. The company that run our web-store (eSellerate) manage the entire purchase order process. E-check (ACH) (U.S. only) and wire transfer are further payment options, with the wire transfer attracting a non-refundable banking fee.

I trust the above information will make the process of cleanly securing a bulk licence order for Scrivener easier to achieve. I hope any institutions that implement Scrivener into their workflows really benefit from the experience.

All the best, David.