Stability AI's free licence ends at a stated revenue line

The system

Stability AI is the company behind the Stable Audio family of generative-audio models, including the open-weights Stable Audio Open model used for experimentation and the flagship Stable Audio 3.0. Its site publishes a License page describing two licensing paths, Community and Enterprise, and a Stable Audio product page describing the model family itself. Both are living documents; the description below reflects the versions retrieved on 16 September 2026.

What the documents establish

The License page states the Community path covers researchers, developers, small businesses and creators generating under one million US dollars in annual revenue, and lists Stable Audio 3.0 among the models it includes at no charge, alongside Stable Diffusion 3.5 and other Stability models. It states the Enterprise path applies to businesses and API providers exceeding that one-million-dollar annual revenue threshold, and that crossing the threshold while already using the Core Models for a commercial purpose requires registering with Stability AI and potentially obtaining a paid Enterprise licence. The page states research and non-commercial use of the Core Models remains free under the Community License regardless of an organisation's revenue, and that an individual creating content at home for personal use does not need to pay. The Stable Audio product page separately describes Stable Audio 3.0 as trained on fully licensed data, and names Stable Audio Open as the model made available for open experimentation.

Craft and rights

For a small studio or independent developer, the one-million-dollar threshold functions as a practical line between free commercial experimentation and a negotiated agreement: a business under that revenue figure can build a commercial product on Stable Audio's Core Models without paying a licence fee, but must track its own revenue against the threshold and register with Stability AI once it approaches or crosses it. The licence's revenue basis, calculated regardless of the source of that revenue according to the page, means a company earning most of its income elsewhere still counts that income toward the threshold if it also uses Stable Audio commercially.

Outcomes and open questions

The License page does not state what specific obligations or pricing apply once an organisation moves to the Enterprise tier beyond registering and negotiating; that detail sits outside the public page. Because the threshold and included-model list are stated on a page Stability AI can revise, both should be reconfirmed before a growing business relies on them for compliance planning.

• Has the organisation's annual revenue, from any source, crossed the one-million-dollar threshold the Community License states?
• Is the specific Stable Audio model in use, such as Stable Audio 3.0 or Stable Audio Open, actually named on the current Community License page?
• What Enterprise obligations apply once registration is required, and has that process been completed?

Stability AI's revenue-based threshold is a clear, checkable number as currently published, but it is a licence term the company controls and can amend, not a fixed legal ceiling independent of Stability AI's own terms.