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LTD Explorer
9 min read••Verified Guide

What Happens to Your Lifetime Deal When the Company Is Sold?

When a company is sold, your lifetime deal can be honored, frozen, swapped for a discount or cancelled. Four real cases, AppSumo's acquisition rule, and how to protect your license.

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SaaS Lifetime Deals Directory

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A software app packed in a moving box with a lifetime tag, handed to a new owner

Last reviewed: October 25, 2026

Short answer: a lifetime deal usually lasts as long as the product and its current owner keep it alive. When a company is sold, the new owner can honor your license, freeze it, swap it for a discount on a replacement, or end it. On AppSumo, partner terms say an acquiring company must keep lifetime licenses running or reimburse buyers, but deals sold elsewhere often have no such rule.

Most lifetime deal buyers worry about the shutdown email. The quieter risk is a different email: the one that says the product has "a new home."

A lifetime deal (LTD) is a promise from one company. When that company sells the product, merges it, rebrands it or hands it to someone else, the promise does not always travel with it. Here are four real cases, from mild to severe.

Key facts

  • "Lifetime" in an LTD means the lifetime of the product, not your lifetime.
  • AppSumo's partner rules say the acquiring party "must honor and maintain all lifetime licenses, or otherwise reimburse all customers."
  • In 2025, the new owner of VPN Secure cancelled thousands of lifetime accounts sold through StackSocial and offered no refunds.
  • In 2025, Pluralsight ended A Cloud Guru lifetime course access under a "termination for convenience" clause.
  • In 2026, Studiocart LTD holders were offered a discount on the replacement product, PublishPress Cart, instead of a free carry-over.

Case 1: Studiocart becomes PublishPress Cart (discount on the replacement)

Studiocart was a WordPress checkout and funnel plugin that grew fast after its AppSumo launch in 2020, sold with lifetime access.

On May 24, 2026, the Studiocart team announced that the PublishPress team would take the product forward as PublishPress Cart, a new plugin built from the Studiocart codebase. Studiocart's own post is unusually honest about what that meant:

  • It was "not a traditional acquisition." The team says it did not sell Studiocart for money.
  • PublishPress Cart is "a new product," so it "can't continue every previous business arrangement unchanged."
  • Lifetime deal customers would get "a significant discount" on the new product, not a free carry-over. The exact discount was not stated in the announcement.
  • Existing Studiocart installs keep working, but more releases are unlikely, and the Studiocart site and social channels retire later in 2026.

The Studiocart listing on WordPress.org has been closed since October 29, 2025. PublishPress Cart shipped version 1.0.1 on October 19, 2026.

If you bought Studiocart as a lifetime deal, you still have the plugin you paid for. What you no longer get is future updates. Staying current now means buying the new product.

Case 2: iThemes Security, three names in three years (honored, but harder to use)

  • 2018: Liquid Web acquired iThemes.
  • April 2023: iThemes became SolidWP, and iThemes Security became Solid Security. Some older iThemes products were sunset in December 2023. SolidWP said it would keep honoring lifetime licenses for the products it still develops.
  • May 2026: Liquid Web retired its StellarWP umbrella and folded about ten brands into four products. Solid Security became Kadence Security, and solidwp.com and kadencewp.com now redirect to liquidweb.com.

The Repository reported that on launch day some lifetime holders could not reach their downloads or API keys, and that a group of older tools will get critical security patches only through April 2027. In WordPress.org support threads, the company says lifetime licenses bought before the change stay valid.

Both can be true. A license can be honored on paper while the path to using it (the portal, the download page, the key) moves three times.

Case 3: A Cloud Guru lifetime access ended by Pluralsight

Pluralsight acquired A Cloud Guru in 2021. In January 2025, lifetime course access holders received an email saying their license would end on February 1, 2025 "due to the plan being retired," citing the termination for convenience clause (section 14.2) in Pluralsight's terms of use. The A Cloud Guru platform itself began its final shutdown on November 4, 2025, according to Pluralsight's help center.

The lesson: the terms you accept at checkout, including clauses that let the company end your access at any time, follow the product to its new owner.

Case 4: VPN Secure cancels thousands of lifetime accounts

VPN Secure sold heavily discounted lifetime plans through StackSocial and similar sites. In April 2025, lifetime users started getting emails that their accounts were terminated. The new owner, InfiniteQuant, told The Register it had bought VPN Secure in 2023 in an asset-only deal (technology, domain and customer database, not the old owner's liabilities) and said the previous owner never disclosed the lifetime deals.

Its CEO admitted the team "did not dig deep enough into the legacy customer agreements." No refunds were offered; former lifetime users were offered discounted plans instead.

This is the worst case: the buyer of the company decides your deal was never its promise to keep.

Does a lifetime deal transfer to the new owner?

Sometimes, and it depends on where you bought it and how the sale was done.

  • AppSumo: its help center says partner obligations continue after an acquisition. The acquiring party must honor and maintain all lifetime licenses or reimburse customers, and AppSumo can claw back partner payouts to fund refunds if a product stops supporting buyers.
  • Other marketplaces and direct sales: check the deal terms. Many give the seller broad rights to change or retire plans.
  • Asset-only deals: as VPN Secure showed, a buyer may argue it took the software and users but not the old company's promises.

Our marketplace comparison covers what each marketplace says it does when a tool goes away.

The four ways an LTD lands after a sale

Looking at these cases next to the shutdowns in Why Lifetime Deals Die, four outcomes keep showing up:

  1. Honored as is. The new owner keeps your plan and keeps shipping updates. It happens, usually when LTD users are a small share of the customer base.
  2. Grandfathered with limits. Your plan stays, but new features, new products or easy access go elsewhere. iThemes Security is close to this.
  3. Converted to a discount. The old product stops and you get a cheaper price on the replacement. Studiocart and VPN Secure both ended here, on very different terms.
  4. Ended. The plan is retired and access stops, as with A Cloud Guru.

Only the first one matches what most buyers imagine when they read "lifetime."

Early warning signs a product may change hands

None of these prove anything alone. Together, they are worth noticing:

  • The founder goes quiet in public, or the team page shrinks.
  • Updates slow down while marketing stays loud.
  • The product is pulled from WordPress.org or another directory.
  • The company is part of a larger group that has started merging brands.
  • The parent company has a new owner itself. Liquid Web was bought by a private equity firm in 2023, three years before the StellarWP brands were folded.

How to protect your lifetime deal from day one

  • Save the terms. Download the deal page and your invoice as a PDF the day you buy. "All future updates" only helps if you can show it.
  • Read the termination clause. If the terms let the company end access "for convenience," a new owner can too.
  • Keep installers and license keys outside the vendor's account. If a portal moves, your files should not move with it.
  • Export your data on a schedule. Orders, contacts, courses, anything you would need to rebuild.
  • Note who really owns the product. A small tool owned by a large group carries that group's decisions.
  • Use the refund window to test hard. After it closes, your leverage is whatever the terms say.

Questions to ask before your next LTD

  • If this company is sold tomorrow, what does the deal page say happens to my license?
  • Does the product have paying monthly or yearly customers, or mostly lifetime buyers?
  • Would I still be happy with today's version if updates stopped?

If the honest answer to the last one is no, the deal is a bet on the current owner, not on the software. Our Black Friday checklist has a quick version of these questions.

FAQ

Is a lifetime deal still valid after the company is acquired? Often yes, but not always. AppSumo requires acquirers to honor lifetime licenses or reimburse buyers. Outside AppSumo, it depends on the deal terms and on what the new owner decides.

Can a new owner cancel my lifetime license? It has happened. VPN Secure's new owner cancelled lifetime accounts in 2025, and Pluralsight ended A Cloud Guru lifetime course access the same year using a termination for convenience clause.

Will I get a refund if my lifetime deal is cancelled after a sale? Not automatically. AppSumo says it can claw back partner payouts to cover refunds. VPN Secure offered discounted plans instead of refunds.

What should I do when a lifetime deal product announces "a new home"? Download your installers and keys, export your data, save the announcement, and contact the marketplace you bought from if your access or updates change.

Sources

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Verification Note

Deals and lifetime offers mentioned in this article are verified against official marketplace listings and checked regularly. If an offer has expired or terms have changed, please let us know or submit feedback directly on the deal card.

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