A tier that never expires, one price to own it, no subscription
$39 covers macOS, Windows and Linux on one key — 60% below the category leader, which does not run on your PC. These numbers are settled and written down so nobody has to guess what Audiowire will cost.
Checkout is not live
You cannot buy Audiowire today. There is no payment page, no pre-order, no waiting list with a card attached, and no licence key can be issued — the product has never been released and does not route audio on macOS or Windows yet. This page exists because a price a stranger cannot find is its own kind of dishonesty, not because there is something to sell.
When checkout does open, purchases will be handled by a merchant of record who acts as seller of record and handles billing and applicable taxes.
Get told when that changesFree
Route one app anywhere. Forever, and without a card.
Available when it is released
- One virtual device, stereo
- Capture any application by name
- Monitor to any output, with live meters
- No watermark, no time limit, no nagging
- On Linux this tier is the whole product — every feature, and it never asks for a key
Standard
Most peopleAs many devices as your setup needs.
Not on sale yet
- Unlimited virtual devices
- Up to 16 channels per device
- Save, load and share routing presets
- macOS, Windows and Linux on one key
- 3 machines
Pro
Scriptable, 64 channels wide.
Not on sale yet
- Everything in Standard
- Up to 64 channels per device
- The audiowire command line
- Declarative config and the local control API
- 5 machines
What each tier includes
| Capability | Free$0 | Standard$39 | Pro$79 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Virtual devices | 1 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Channels per device | 2 | 16 | 64 |
| Sources per device | 2 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Per-app capture | |||
| Hardware inputs and nested devices | |||
| Monitors — hear the mix while it goes out | |||
| Level meters, latency and xrun readout | |||
| Channel wiring with per-wire gain | |||
| Presets — export and import a routing config | |||
| Command line and declarative config | |||
| Local control API (JSON-RPC) | |||
| Machines per key | — | 3 | 5 |
| Linux, with no key at all |
The free-tier limits are the one part of this table still being settled. Everything else — the prices, the machine counts, the 14-day trial and the Linux exemption — comes from docs/licensing.md.
The 14-day trial is the whole app
Fourteen days, fully functional. No watermark on your audio, no channel limit, no disabled features, no session timer, no nag. If the trial cannot show you whether the product is worth $39, a crippled version certainly cannot. No card is required to start one, so there is nothing to cancel when it ends.
Why Linux is free, permanently
Because the operating system already does this. libpipewire-module-loopback creates virtual sinks and sources as a core module, per-app routing is one pactl move-sink-input, and two free graphical patchbays — qpwgraph and Helvum — are packaged in every distribution. There is no missing capability on Linux, only a missing nicety, and charging for a nicety on top of something the OS ships would be indefensible.
So the Linux build never asks for a key, on any version. It is there for the people who want one setup that exists on their Mac, their PC and their Linux box, and to keep the cross-platform core honest by making it carry a third backend. Said plainly: Linux is credibility, not revenue.
Major versions cost $19, and nothing else ever will
A major-version upgrade is $19. Between major versions, updates are free and there is no renewal date anywhere — a perpetual licence keeps working whether or not you ever pay again, including after we stop publishing. This is the pattern the established products in this category already use, and it is the one the market has voted for: the two vendors who tried a subscription here now sell a cheaper perpetual licence next to it.
Your licence verifies offline, with no account
The key is the licence. It carries its own claims — tier, machine allowance, issue date — signed with an Ed25519 key we hold offline, and the app checks that signature against a public key compiled into the binary. There is no account to create, no activation server to be down, and no grace period that can expire in a hotel with no wifi or on an air-gapped studio machine.
The one thing a signature cannot express is how many machines are using a key right now, so machine counting — and only machine counting — is the single thing that would ever talk to a server. Format and reasoning: docs/licensing.md.
Refunds
14 days, no questions asked, once there is something to refund. The full policy is on the refund page.