Understanding the Delphi Community Edition $5,000 Revenue Rule
TL;DR
- The Delphi Community Edition eligibility is based on total annual revenue of the licensee, not just software income.
- Employees may use Community Edition personally (on their own hardware, with no employer benefit).
- Business owners or self-employed freelancers exceeding $5,000/year are not eligible, even for unrelated work.
- If you have any questions, simply ask them via email to: compliance@embarcadero.com
What the official license actually says - and what it means for you
Disclaimer This article is an unofficial, non-legal interpretation of the Delphi Community Edition license. It does not represent an official position of Embarcadero. The license agreement itself is the controlling document.
Although this article uses “Delphi Community Edition” for brevity, the same Community Edition license terms apply equally to C++ Builder Community Edition. RAD Studio itself is not offered as a Community Edition.
Why this post exists
Few persistently contentious topics resurface more often than the Community Edition $5,000 revenue limit. This was brought up again today on the Delphi Developer group on Facebook by Roland Bengtsson. I provided the comment referenced below from Marco Cantu which seemed to answer his question but decided to provide a more detailed response here.
Common questions include:
- What revenue actually counts?
- Does unrelated income matter?
- Are employees treated differently from business owners?
This post summarizes a practical reading of the official license agreement and FAQ, using direct excerpts from the legal text where relevant.
Official source: License Agreement (v13)
The Community Edition terms are governed by the official RAD Studio / Delphi / C++Builder Software License and Support Agreement (Version 13 current at time of writing, December 2025.) View the latest version on the customer agreements page on Idera Corporation’s legal document list.
Extracted Community Edition license text (key sections)
“The Community Edition license applies solely if Licensee cumulative annual revenue (of the for-profit organization, the government entity or the individual developer) does not exceed USD $5,000.00.”
“If Licensee is an individual developer, the revenue of all contract work performed by developer in one calendar year may not exceed the Threshold (whether or not the Community Edition is used for all projects).”
“For example, a developer who receives payment of $5,000.00 for a single project (or more than $5,000.00 for multiple projects) even if such engagements do not anticipate the use of the Community Edition, is not allowed to use the Community Edition.”
“If Licensee is a company that has a cumulative annual revenue which exceeds the Threshold, then Licensee is not allowed to use the Community Edition, regardless of whether the Community Edition is used solely to write applications for the business’ internal use…”
“…any such use is unauthorized, constitutes a violation of this Agreement and may constitute a misappropriation of Licensor’s intellectual property rights.”
(See the full license PDF for complete wording and context.)
Plain-English interpretation
1. The $5,000 limit is total revenue
The license does not say:
- Delphi revenue only
- Software revenue only
- Consulting revenue only
- App sales only
It explicitly refers to cumulative annual revenue of the licensee.
2. Unrelated income still counts
For individual developers performing contract/freelance work:
- All contract revenue counts
- Even if Community Edition was not used
- Even if the work is not software-related
The license text explicitly anticipates and rejects the “unrelated income” argument.
3. Companies have no personal-use exception for the company itself
If a company exceeds $5,000 in annual revenue:
- Community Edition use is not permitted
- Even for internal tools
- Even for free or non-commercial software
What should a company do instead?
- Companies can use the 30-day Free Trial Version before purchasing
- Companies can always purchase unrestricted commercial licenses with the choice of Professional, Enterprise, and Architect Editions
- Accredited educational institutions should look into the Academic Edition and also check out the Embarcadero Academy
Employee versus Owner (critical distinction, typically missed)
Employees
If you are an employee (not an owner):
- Your employer’s revenue does not automatically count as your own revenue.
- You may use Community Edition personally if:
- It is not installed on employer hardware
- It is not used on employer networks or premises
- It does not benefit your employer directly or indirectly
This is clarified in the official Community Edition FAQ.
Note: ensure to prevent accidental connectivity to a corporate wifi from your personal laptop as the Community Edition can gather telemetry data about what network it is operating within.
Owners / self-employed
If you are:
- A sole proprietor
- A contractor
- A freelancer
- A business owner
Then all business or contract revenue counts, regardless of source.
Real-world examples
| Scenario | Community Edition Allowed? |
|---|---|
| Fast-food employee earning $30k | Yes |
| Salaried dev at large company learning at home | Yes |
| Unemployed dev living on government aid | Yes |
| Retired dev living on savings | Yes |
| Student with no income | Yes |
| Freelancer earning $5,000+ (any industry) | No |
| Fast-food restaurant owner | No |
The determining factor is employee versus licensee, not job type.
Community Edition Renewals
In a previous post, How To Easily Extend your Delphi Community Edition License, I explained how the annual Community Edition license term works, including:
- The one-year Community Edition license duration
- How re-installation or re-registration renews the Community Edition term
- Staying technically compliant with annual license expiration
Renewing a Community Edition license does not override the $5,000 revenue eligibility requirement. You must satisfy both:
- A valid Community Edition license term, and
- The annual revenue threshold
Why this topic remains controversial
- Many tools use “non-commercial” or “personal use” licenses
- Visual Studio Community uses a different eligibility model
- “Revenue” is often assumed to mean “software revenue”
The Community Edition instead uses a bright-line revenue rule, which avoids ambiguity but surprises many users.
Final takeaway
Community Edition eligibility is determined by the total annual revenue of the licensee, regardless of source - with a narrow exception for employees using Community Edition purely for personal, non-employer-related purposes.
This interpretation follows directly from the license text itself.
Historical Statements
Marco Cantu specifically lays out who the Community Edition is for in the Embarcadero Blog Post:
The Community Editions are perfect for:
- Freelance Developers: Create and sell apps until your revenue reaches $5,000 per year.
- Startups: Use the Community Edition if your annual revenue is less than $5,000 and if your team has up to 5 developers.
- Students: Learn and experiment with professional-level tools to kickstart your development career.
Marco Cantu commented on his Community Edition Blog Post back on July 21, 2018:
For the revenue limit, this is tied to the direct use of Delphi CE or software development and related consulting revenues, or revenues obtained based on the use of the software. Anyone with a regular employee job (where Delphi is not used) or a non-work income (retirement pension, unemployment funds, financial revenue, parent inheritance) should be covered. Ultimately, read the EULA, this is just my personal and non-binding interpretation.
Invitation for clarification
If Embarcadero wishes to clarify or update any of these points, such clarification would be welcome and this document may be updated accordingly.
The goal of this post is to help provide clarity and not criticism. As I do not work for Embarcadero and am not an attorney, this is my personal and non-binding interpretation.
Update
Iam Barker responded to the same Facebook post. Below is his full response:
I think Darian Miller’s link points people in the right direction. First of all, if you’re not sure and you want an official answer about your own particular circumstances then email our compliance team - compliance@embarcadero.com - and they can give you an answer that is backed by their own assertions. They’re the people who would get in touch if you are doing something shady like using pirated or cracked copies and so on. Marco and I are not the legal experts, so we’d pretty much pass on any direct questions to Compliance for them to respond on behalf of the company.
The CE version is often abused - and by people who definitely know they’re not covered, It’s also surprising how many people email and ask me for help and have a cracked copy of the software. It’s a bit like taking a swig from a beer while you’ve just pulled up and parked beside a cop to ask for directions. Seriously, it boggles your mind.
The CE version is intended or people who are learning to code, or do it as a hobby, or are a start-up trying to get something out the door - an app, a proof of concept and so on. The financial income limit is as Marco says, intended to relate to using the Delphi or C++ CE in those sorts of circumstances.
As an example, based on how I understand it, during the day you’re a Dentist, and you’re doing well at it, but at night you’ve always dreamed of creating the ultimate dating app for dental students. You’re not writing as part of your business and you’re going to list it on Google Play as a free app. You use your personal laptop to write the app and you never bring it into your work-place or connect it to your work network - it’s just you’ve always wanted to write an app, to learn how it is done, and to see if you can do it. You don’t put any ads in the app advertising your Dental surgery - after all, it’s just for fun.
Because you’re a good dentist you make a ton of money out of your dental skills - way more than the CE limit.
Your app makes nothing. But it does inspire you to think about writing apps in the future because you’re a bit tired of telling people to floss and knowing they’re lying when they say they will…
That. to me, and to most of us, seems to be fair use, doesn’t it?
Now imagine the app gets popular. You decide to offer a version which includes Ads and a premium version for $1.99 where the ads are disabled.
Due to the popularity of your new app you make $11,000 in combined ad revenue and for $1.99 the premium no-ads version in 11 months. If, in your country, the revenue limit is $10,000 then it looks, to me, like you no longer quality for the CE version and should purchase a paid version. You can probably get away with using the Professional version (the lowest priced SKU).
Now compare that with the same dentist. He/she decides to write a little FREE app for patients to use while they are waiting to be called in for their appointment. That is directly connected to the dentist’s business. He’s not making money directly from the app - it’s free and it’s designed to simply keep the waiting patients occupied and distract them from the drilling sounds and screams of the other patients. 😁
So, his income as a dentist would apply. That income is likely to be way in excess of the threshold. You could argue he wrote the app for fun and to learn how to create apps - but, ultimately, he’s also using it in his workplace.
In most cases where people have written or spoken to me directly it was usually obvious whether or not the CE version could or should be used. On various Facebook and other social media groups people like to come up with all sorts of diverse, convoluted, theoretical sets of circumstances and say “well, can they use CE or not” and usually the answer leads to a whole bunch of trolling and Well Aktually comments, often to grind their own personal axe - and I get it.
But if you’re not sure if the CE version would be OK for you and your personal circumstances please feel free to email our compliance people so they can talk it through with you. If you email me about it unless it’s absolutely clear cut, then I would also reply and then forward you on to compliance as well.
I want as many people as possible to be able to use Delphi or C++ and the CE version does work well for many thousands of people. The law of large numbers means you will definitely find some people who feel like we’ve been unfair to them, and also others who think they are fine with CE when they’re really not, and obviously so.
Unhappy people often are much more motivated to say we’ve dumped on them than happy people. Maybe sometimes it might even be borderline too. But an overwhelming majority of people out there are using CE just fine. Do people abuse it? Yes. Do we catch them and ask them to purchase a copy? Also, yes. Yet we know from our usage stats - and from personal interactions - that there are a lot of CE users who use it to create all sorts of apps for a variety of purposes. It would be great if we could give away the product for free to everyone (it would make my life a lot easier!) but we also have things like payroll to meet, dev teams, translators, infrastructure, license deals for components, and yes, investors too. And it’s those financiers at Idera who have managed to keep Delphi alive where even the likes of Inprise and CodeGear failed. Even Borland, an awesome company back in the day, foundered on the financial rocks.
The rule of thumb with CE is - if you’re not sure, get in touch. It’s not a trick. I mean it, ask - we’re not a faceless corporation.
Remember, any questions, simply email Embarcadero: compliance@embarcadero.com