The small print

Terms of sale and licence

Last updated 10 November 2026

1. Who we are

Literally is made by PenWise Software Ltd, a company registered in Scotland (company number SC845352), registered office 6 Dryden Road, Loanhead, EH20 9LZ. You can reach us at hello@penwise.co.uk.

Literally is sold through Lemon Squeezy, which is the merchant of record. When you buy Literally, Lemon Squeezy is the seller: it takes your payment, handles VAT and sales tax, issues your invoice and emails your licence key. Your purchase is also covered by Lemon Squeezy's buyer terms.

2. What you're buying

A one-off payment of £20 buys a licence for Literally. It is not a subscription. Prices include VAT where applicable.

  • It covers every 1.x release of Literally.
  • One licence covers all of your own computers, on macOS, Windows and Linux. There's no limit on how many of your own machines you activate.

A licence is for one person. If Literally is for a team or a business, please buy one licence for each person who writes with it.

3. Free trial

You can use every feature of Literally free for 30 writing days. The trial needs no account and no internet connection.

A writing day is a day on which the words in a book change, whether by writing, revising or pasting. These don't use up a day:

  • reading
  • planning or rearranging the outline
  • renaming chapters
  • changing settings
  • leaving the app open

Each computer keeps its own trial count. In the last 7 days a small notice counts down the days left, and you can hide it.

After the 30 days you get 7 more writing days with everything still working. A notice, which you can hide, shows how many are left.

4. When the trial ends

Literally becomes read only. It never switches while you are typing: it waits until you next open the app or a book, or until you've been idle for 10 minutes.

Nothing is deleted, locked away or changed. You can still:

  • open, read and search every book
  • export to every format (EPUB, Word, HTML, Markdown, send to Kindle)
  • keep folder sync running
  • see your progress stats
  • change settings

These stop until you enter a licence:

  • writing and editing
  • rearranging chapters, sections, drafts and moments
  • editing book details
  • changing challenges
  • creating or joining books

Entering a key unlocks everything at once and carries on where you left off, including your streak history.

5. Activating your licence

Activation needs the internet once. After that Literally never needs to be online, and your licence keeps working offline for good.

When you are online, Literally may check your licence with Lemon Squeezy in the background, at most once a month. A check that can't get an answer, because you're offline or Lemon Squeezy can't be reached, changes nothing.

If Lemon Squeezy tells Literally outright that a key has been refunded or disabled, Literally shows a notice with a date 7 days ahead, and checks again once a day. If the answer is still the same after that date, the licence is removed from that computer, which returns to its trial, or becomes read only if its trial is used up. This never happens while you are typing, nothing is deleted, and export keeps working. As soon as a check comes back valid, the notice goes away. If you think it's a mistake, email hello@penwise.co.uk and we'll put it right.

You can remove a licence from a computer in Settings › Licence, even offline. That computer then returns to its trial, or becomes read only if its trial is used up.

6. Your writing

Everything you write in Literally belongs to you. Your books are stored on your own computer and are never sent to us. The privacy policy lists the small amount of licence data that does leave your computer.

7. What you can't do

Literally is licensed to you, not sold, and PenWise Software Ltd keeps the rights in the software itself. Your licence is personal to you. Please don't:

  • share, publish, sell or give away your licence key
  • resell, rent or sublicense Literally
  • remove or get around the trial or the licence check
  • copy, modify, decompile or reverse engineer Literally, except where the law gives you that right whatever these terms say

A key that has been shared or published may be disabled. Literally includes open source components, which stay under their own licences. They are credited in the app.

8. Future versions

Version 2 of Literally will be a paid upgrade. If you own a 1.x licence you'll be able to upgrade for less than the full price. The price for new buyers may change when version 2 is released. Your 1.x licence keeps working either way.

We may one day offer an optional subscription for end-to-end-encrypted sync hosted by PenWise, as an alternative to iCloud or Dropbox. Folder sync stays part of the one-off purchase.

9. Liability

We build Literally with care and use it every day ourselves, but no software is free of faults and we can't promise that Literally will be. Your books live on your own computer, so please keep backups, as you would for anything that matters to you.

If you're a consumer, the law says digital content must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. Nothing in these terms takes away from those rights, and the refund policy explains what happens if Literally is faulty. If Literally damages your device or other digital content because we failed to use reasonable care and skill, we will either repair the damage or pay you compensation.

We never exclude or limit our liability where it would be unlawful to do so. That includes death or personal injury caused by our negligence, and fraud.

Beyond that, we are responsible for loss or damage that is a foreseeable result of us breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill, but not for loss that wasn't foreseeable. Literally is sold for writing your own books. If you use it for a business, we aren't liable for lost profit, lost business or business interruption, and our total liability to you is limited to the price you paid for your licence.

10. Governing law

These terms are governed by Scots law, and the Scottish courts can hear any dispute about them. If you're a consumer living somewhere else, you keep the protection of the mandatory consumer laws of the country you live in, and you can bring a claim in your local courts instead.

Please email us first. Most problems are quicker to sort out that way.

11. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, for example when Literally gains a feature or the law changes. The current version is always on this page, with the date at the top, and we'll mention any significant change in the release notes of the next update.

A change never takes away something you've already paid for. The licence you hold stays under the terms in place when you bought it, unless a change is in your favour or the law requires it.