Most licence questions are one of these five. Yours not among them? Skip to getting in touch and we'll sort it out.
Keys are emailed within a minute or two of purchase, from [email protected]. Check your spam folder first, since it's an address you've never received from before. Still nothing after ten minutes?, email us with your order number and we'll resend it.
Each licence covers three machines at once. To free one up, open Cartridge on a computer you no longer need it on, click the LICENCE badge, and choose Deactivate this machine. The seat is released immediately and you can activate elsewhere.
If that machine is dead, sold, or wiped, you can't deactivate from it. Email us and we'll release the seat manually.
You're pasting a key that has already been activated and tied to another computer. Use your original purchase key instead, and Cartridge will activate this machine as a new seat.
Activation normally needs one connection, but there's an offline route. Click the DEMO badge and copy the machine code shown in the dialog. Email us that code along with your licence key, and we'll send back a licence bound to that machine which activates with no connection at all.
After activation, Cartridge never needs the internet again on any machine.
Yes. If Cartridge isn't right for you, email us within 14 days of purchase and we'll refund it. No form to fill in, no justification needed.
If something is broken rather than just not for you, tell us what went wrong first. We'd rather fix it, and you'd rather have the plugin working.
Beta keys carry an expiry date and stop unlocking the plugin when they pass it. That's expected, not a fault. Still testing for us? Email and we'll issue a fresh one.
That's demo mode. Unlicensed instances overlay a short noise burst roughly every 45 seconds; everything else works normally. Click the DEMO badge and enter your licence key and it stops immediately.
Restart the DAW so it rescans plugins. Logic and GarageBand in particular often need a full quit and relaunch rather than just closing the project.
If it's still missing, check the format is installed: Logic and GarageBand need the Audio Unit, while Live, Cubase, Studio One and Reaper generally use VST3. The setup guide lists where each format belongs.
The Windows build isn't code signed yet, so SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC" the first time. Choose More info then Run anyway. The VST3 and CLAP plugins load in your DAW with no warning at all. The macOS build is signed and notarised by Apple, so it never shows this.
On macOS, ~/Library/Cartridge/Presets. On Windows, %APPDATA%\Cartridge\Presets. Each preset is a single file, so you can back them up or move them between machines by copying that folder. Uninstalling leaves them alone unless you ask it not to.
A real person reads every message, usually within a day.
Include your order number, your operating system, which DAW and plugin format you're using, and the Cartridge version from the top right of the plugin window. With those four things we can usually answer in one reply instead of five.