---
title: "Is self-hosting Fluxer free?"
description: "Yes. Fluxer is free to self-host under the AGPL, with no license key, paid tier or reduced edition, and the Operator Pass is optional."
url: "https://fluxer.com/help/is-self-hosting-free"
language: "en"
last_updated: "2026-11-01"
category: "Self-hosting and federation"
---

> Index of Fluxer's official pages for AI agents: https://fluxer.com/llms.txt
> Links to Fluxer pages go to their Markdown versions when they have one. For other Fluxer help, policy or blog links, remove any #section part and add .md to the end.

# Is self-hosting Fluxer free?

Yes. Fluxer is free to self-host under the AGPL, with no license key, paid tier or reduced edition, and the Operator Pass is optional.

Yes. Fluxer is free and open source software under the AGPLv3, and you can [run your own instance](https://fluxer.com/help/self-hosting-fluxer.md) with no license key, paid tier or reduced edition.

You don't have to pay Fluxer anything to self-host. Your costs are the usual ones for running a website, such as the machine, the domain name and an email service if you want email sign-in, and you pay those costs to the providers you choose.

## Is self-hosting Fluxer free?

Yes. The [license](https://fluxer.com/help/open-source.md) lets you run, change and share Fluxer's open source software. You don't have to buy anything from Fluxer to install an instance, update it or let people sign up.

## Do I need the Operator Pass to self-host?

No. Everything in the Fluxer software works without the Operator Pass. The [Operator Pass](https://fluxer.com/help/operator-pass.md) is an optional one-time purchase that comes with a numbered Operator certificate, and [section 3.4 of its terms](https://fluxer.com/operator-pass-terms.md) lists what the pass doesn't include.

## Do people on my instance get Plutonium features?

Yes, by default. Plutonium is the subscription on fluxer.com, and on a new self-hosted instance every account has premium, with the features and higher limits that Plutonium gives on fluxer.com. As the admin, you can change those limits.

You can also switch the instance's [premium mode](https://docs.fluxer.com/admin-api/instance/#premium-modes) to `mirror`. When you do, an account on your instance only has premium if it has a subscription or has redeemed a gift code there, and you can sell those subscriptions with your own payment account.

---

Canonical page: https://fluxer.com/help/is-self-hosting-free

Last updated on November 1, 2026