help/_articles/hosting/licensing-on-premise.md

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article	Licensing for paid features	hosting	false	false	hosting licensing

Hosting Bitwarden yourself is free. However, some features of Bitwarden require that you obtain a paid license in order to unlock.

Premium Membership

Using premium features of Bitwarden in a self-hosted installation requires that you obtain a premium membership license.

1. If you haven't already, purchase a premium membership by logging in to your bitwarden.com account at https://vault.bitwarden.com and navigating to Settings → Go Premium.
2. Download your premium license file from https://vault.bitwarden.com by navigating to Settings → Billing → Download License.
3. Log in to the web vault of your self-hosted Bitwarden installation. Ensure that the email address used for your user account on your self-hosted installation matches the email address used on your bitwarden.com account. Also make sure that your account's email address is verified.
4. In your self hosted installation's web vault, navigate to Settings → Go Premium.
5. Upload the license file that you downloaded in step 2 and your user account will upgraded to premium.

Organization Account (Sharing)

The sharing features of Bitwarden require that you create an organization account. To create an organization in an on-premise hosted Bitwarden installation you must first obtain a families organization (for personal use) or enterprise organization (for business use) license. Only families and enterprise organization plans are eligible for on-premise hosting.

1. If you haven't already, purchase a families or enterprise organization plan by logging in to your bitwarden.com account at https://vault.bitwarden.com and navigating to Settings → New Organization. If you would like to upgrade an existing organization account to a families or enterprise plan, please contact bitwarden support.
2. Download your families or enterprise organization license file from https://vault.bitwarden.com by navigating to your organization's admin area, and then Settings → Billing & Licensing → Download License. Enter the [installation id]({% link _articles/hosting/install-on-premise.md %}#install-bitwarden) that matches your bitwarden installation. You can always locate your installation id in the ./bwdata/env/global.override.env configuration file.
3. Log in to the web vault of your self-hosted Bitwarden installation and navigate to Settings → New Organization.
4. Upload the license file that you downloaded in step 2 and your organization account will be created.