Should I license or sell my company's data?

A job file, a matter file or a ticket history isn't only a data asset. It's your warranty or audit trail, your evidence when something is disputed, your reference when a customer calls back in six years, and the input for your own estimates, forecasts and tools. Selling the records means asking permission to use your own history. A license leaves your systems and your daily work exactly where they were.

Your business produces new records every week. Selling the whole record empties the shelf. A license doesn't.

• A non-exclusive license can go to more than one buyer.
• You can split by use: the calls to one buyer, the tickets or claim photos to another.
• A later license can cover records you haven't made yet.

That repeatability is the main reason an operating business licenses instead of selling.

If a buyer wants the record to themselves, an exclusive license gives them that for the scope and term in the contract, without a transfer of ownership. The four licenses on our case studies page, closed by buyers in our network, were all exclusive: one perpetual, two for 24 months and one for 18 months. A perpetual exclusive license is about as close to a sale as a license gets. With a term, the buyer has the record to themselves while it runs, and the rights come back to the company when it ends.

The trade-offs are covered in exclusive vs. non-exclusive licenses.

With a license, the limits are part of the deal. Limits you can ask for include no use by named competitors, no re-identifying anyone in the data, no resale outside the license and no use in a product built to compete with yours. When ownership moves, most of that control moves with it. It's easier to say what you'll allow before you hand something over than to claw it back afterward.

Ask yourself three questions.

1. Will I need these records again, for a dispute, an audit, a warranty claim, my own estimates or my own tools?
2. Will I keep producing records worth licensing?
3. Is there a buyer I'd rather not give an edge to?

If you said yes to any of them, a license fits better. It lets you keep the records, license again later and write limits into the contract.

A sale can fit when the business is closing and the records have no further use to you, when you're selling the whole company and the records go with it, or when a buyer insists on ownership and pays for it. In any of those cases, compare the offer with what a license would bring.

How the two are treated for tax and under your customer contracts can differ, so talk with your lawyer and accountant first. This isn't legal or tax advice. We broker licenses, not outright sales of records.

Selling to a single buyer usually means working from the terms that one buyer proposes. A marketplace listing waits for someone to find it. We take an anonymized summary of your record to several qualified buyers at once and ask each for a license offer, then line the offers up on price, exclusivity, term and payment so you can choose. How a deal works walks through the stages.