No monthly licence fee, ever
The Wintertrace software itself is free under GNU AGPLv3. There is no paid tier, no enterprise upgrade, no monthly invoice from the project.
Winter service software without subscription
No monthly fee. No per-vehicle pricing. No contract.
Wintertrace is open-source winter service software under GNU AGPLv3. The operator pays for hosting; the project itself charges nothing. The pricing model that says "your bill grows with your fleet" is structurally absent — and that is the deliberate point, not a temporary promotion.
Why "no subscription" is a structural choice, not a marketing line
Subscription pricing for B2B software exists because it makes sense for the vendor. Predictable recurring revenue, expansion revenue as the customer grows, churn metrics that map cleanly to investor expectations. For an operator running winter service, those properties are not benefits — they are the reason a five- truck contractor ends up paying like a fifty-truck contractor would have a decade ago.
Open-source software is not a competitor to subscription software on the same dimension. It is a different deal. The maintenance burden moves to the operator side; in return, the cost shape flattens to zero on the licence side and roughly constant on the hosting side.
What "no subscription" concretely means
No per-vehicle or per-driver pricing
Adding a fifth truck does not change the bill. Adding a fiftieth does not either. The pricing model that says "your costs grow with your fleet" is structurally absent here.
No mandatory cloud account
There is no Wintertrace login, no Wintertrace customer portal, and no Wintertrace data centre. The software runs on the operator hosting and nobody else.
No contract
There is no agreement to sign, no notice period, no cancellation window. Stopping the use of Wintertrace means uninstalling it.
What "no subscription" does not mean
Honest framing matters. The four caveats below sit alongside the "free" claim and are not hidden in fine print.
Hosting is not free
The software is free; the hosting plan it runs on is paid by the operator, typically a few euros per month for a small operator. That cost goes to the hosting provider, not to Wintertrace.
Time is not free
Installing the software is a 10-minute browser flow, but operators value their time. The "no subscription" framing is about what the project charges; the operator still spends time on setup and operation.
Optional paid services may exist in future
A managed-hosting offering or paid installation support may be introduced later as an optional add-on. The core application stays free. This is on the roadmap as a vision; nothing exists today.
Country-specific compliance modules are roadmap
Future country-specific compliance modules may be paid add-ons in some form. They do not exist today. The core documentation features are not affected and remain free.
A rough three-year comparison
Indicative figures for a five-truck operator. Subscription costs vary widely by vendor and region; the numbers below represent a common mid-range case, not a specific competitor.
| Period | Typical subscription | Wintertrace (hosting only) |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | 5,400 EUR | 60 EUR |
| Year 2 | 5,400 EUR (or more if price rises) | 60 EUR |
| Year 3 | 5,400 EUR (or more) | 60 EUR |
| 3-year total | ~16,200 EUR | ~180 EUR |
Indicative numbers, not a vendor-specific comparison. Subscription figure assumes roughly 90 EUR per vehicle per month for five vehicles; Wintertrace figure assumes 5 EUR per month for standard shared hosting. Specific costs will vary.
Common questions about pricing
Is "free" really free, or are there hidden costs?
The Wintertrace software is free of charge and free of restrictions in the GNU sense. The only cost on the operator side is the hosting plan that runs it, which the operator pays to a hosting provider, not to Wintertrace. There is no licence fee, no per-vehicle fee, no premium tier.
Why is it free?
Because it is open source. The project does not need a subscription business model to sustain itself; the code is published under GNU AGPLv3, anyone can run it, and the community can contribute back. The cost of running the project is paid by the maintainer, not by per-seat licensing.
What happens if the project starts charging later?
The current version stays free and stays open source — the licence guarantees that. A hypothetical future version under a different licence would be a separate decision, and existing operators would not lose access to the existing code.
Is there a paid support tier?
Not today. Support today is community-based — GitHub issues, discussions, direct contact. Optional paid services (managed hosting, installation help, custom modules) are on the long-term vision list, but they would be add-ons, not gates on the core software.
How does the economics compare to a typical subscription?
A common pricing range for proprietary winter service software is roughly 50–150 EUR per vehicle per month. For a five-truck operator at the lower end, that is approximately 5,400 EUR per year. Wintertrace is the cost of standard web hosting — typically 60–120 EUR per year — regardless of fleet size. Specific numbers vary by vendor and operator.
Are updates free?
Yes. Auto-updates are part of the application and do not carry a fee. Every update is cryptographically signed, and the signature is verified before installation.
What if I need a feature that does not exist?
Three paths: open an issue on GitHub and the project may take it on, write the feature yourself (the source is open), or pay a developer to write it. None of these involve a subscription to Wintertrace.
Source code on GitHub. Free under GNU AGPLv3.
Try Wintertrace.
Upload one small file to your web hosting, open it in your browser, and the installer puts the latest signed Wintertrace core on your webspace. About ten minutes — no FTP client needed.