License-key delivery
The automatic step that gives a buyer their unique software unlock code as soon as payment succeeds.
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What it is
License-key delivery is the digital fulfillment step that creates or assigns an unlock code once payment succeeds, then shows it on the receipt page and sends it by email. It turns a software purchase into something the buyer can activate without waiting for a person to copy a code from a spreadsheet. The 25-character Windows product key, printed in five groups of five, is the shape most buyers already recognize.
Reach for it when each sale needs a unique entitlement: desktop software, plugins, game keys, paid datasets, or any download that must be activated. Keys can be generated at purchase time or drawn from a preloaded pool supplied by the publisher, but either way issuance must be tied to the paid order.
Gotcha: payment webhooks are retried, so the same event must never issue two keys. Make issuance idempotent, store only a hashed form when the raw key is not needed again, and define what refund, chargeback, expiration, and activation-limit changes do to the entitlement.
Ask AI for it
Build automated license-key delivery for a digital product using Stripe Checkout. Verify the Stripe webhook signature, handle checkout.session.completed only when payment_status is paid, and use the Checkout Session ID as an idempotency key so retries cannot issue a second license. Generate a 128-bit key with Node.js crypto.randomBytes, store its SHA-256 hash for lookup and AES-256-GCM ciphertext for later retrieval with the order, product, activation limit, and status, then show the raw key on the success page and send it by email. Add an authenticated order page where the buyer can view it again, plus admin actions to revoke or replace it and an audit log for every issuance and status change.