Software & SaaS
A SaaS licensing model is a commercial architecture decision — it determines pricing flexibility, channel strategy, and how enterprise customers evaluate your product against competitors. The legal framework needs to reflect that, not work around it.
We advise software companies and SaaS providers on the legal structures that sit at the core of the product: subscription agreements, platform terms, API access frameworks, open-source compliance, and the licensing architectures that determine how your product is sold, distributed, and scaled. Our approach starts with understanding the product's commercial model — pricing tiers, deployment architecture, data handling — and designing the legal layer to support it, rather than bolting on standard templates after the fact.
What We Do
- SaaS subscription agreements — drafting and negotiation for self-serve, enterprise, and hybrid models
- Licensing architecture — perpetual, subscription, usage-based, and hybrid structures aligned to your pricing and distribution strategy
- Platform terms of service, acceptable use policies, and end-user license agreements
- Open-source licence compliance, contribution policies, and mixed-source commercialisation strategy
- API terms of use and developer ecosystem agreements
- White-label, OEM, and reseller agreement structuring
- Software escrow and business continuity arrangements for enterprise clients
Regulatory Context
Software and SaaS companies in India sit at the intersection of several regulatory regimes — the IT Act 2000, the Intermediary Guidelines Rules 2021, the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules 2020, and the Copyright Act 1957 as it applies to software. These frameworks were largely drafted before the modern SaaS model existed, which creates gaps and ambiguities that require careful navigation. We help clients work within these intersecting regimes without slowing down the product development cycle.
Who This Is For
Early-stage teams building their first contract stack. Growth-stage SaaS companies moving upmarket into enterprise sales and needing agreements that survive procurement scrutiny. Platform businesses managing developer ecosystems and marketplace dynamics. Open-source projects layering commercial offerings onto community codebases. If the product is software and the questions are legal, this is where we work.