BEFORE YOU INSTALL
The money questions
What people ask before they install, answered in their own words. Every answer is checkable in the docs.
- Is there anything to pay?
- Nothing. Talon Studio is in beta as a free Community Edition, on the key that comes with your Talon Labs account; Enterprise is in development and not on sale.
- What does the AI cost?
- Whatever your provider charges: your Claude subscription through the Claude Code engine, a metered API key, or nothing at all on a local model. Talon Labs adds nothing to it and never meters a model call.
- Does it phone home?
- Only to ask whether a new release is out, and to fetch its notes when one is — a check that sends nothing about the install, and that TALON_DISABLE_UPDATE_CHECK=true turns off. A Community key is checked on your own server and is never activated or checked in; only an Enterprise key checks in.
- What if an Enterprise key lapses?
- The instance returns to Community, within Community's limits. Nobody is locked out and nothing is deleted.