GOOD TO KNOW / 03
Questions,
answered.
Everything you need to know about the registry, your trial, and how recipient access works.
FREQUENTLY ASKED
The details,
up front.
Looking for the specifics? The features and pricing pages go deeper.
What is a private npm registry?
A registry that serves packages only to the credentials you allow. npm, pnpm and yarn work with it out of the box — it is the same protocol, pointed at your registry.
Shared or private registry — what is the difference?
Every publisher can reserve one scope on the platform's shared registry (npm install @your-scope/pkg). Private registries are separate namespaces with their own names, served from your own verified domain.
How does the 30-day trial work?
Sign up and your organization gets 30 days on the Growth plan — no card required. Before checkout, you can publish up to 3 packages with 10 GB of stored content, issue publisher and download keys, and serve authenticated installs to your team or customers. Add a card before the trial ends to keep the organization; you are not billed before then.
What happens when the trial ends?
An unpaid trial organization is locked when the trial expires and scheduled for deletion with its packages. Complete checkout before then to keep your organization and data.
What do the plans limit?
Plans cap packages, active download keys, private registries, seats and storage. Each plan also includes a monthly transfer allowance for content downloads. Above it, the excess is billed per GB at your plan's rate when the month closes — your first month over is on us, and the charge is capped at one month's plan price unless you change the cap. We email admins as usage approaches the allowance, and downloads never stop. Metadata and uploads are free.
How is transfer measured?
We meter the bytes of package content served to your installers: npm tarballs and packages served from the public-package cache. Metadata (packuments and listings) and uploads are measured but never billed. Units are decimal: 1 GB is a billion bytes, 1 TB a thousand GB.
Do annual plans get a bigger allowance?
No. Annual plans have the same monthly transfer allowance, and overage is computed and billed monthly on every plan. Billing annually only changes how the plan itself is invoiced: ten monthly payments once a year — two months free.
Do you bill people who install my packages?
No. Your own sales and invoicing stay in your system. Download keys only control which packages a recipient can install.
How do download keys work?
Give a recipient a reveal-once read-only key for one registry: all your packages there, one npm scope, or selected packages. Installs have no count limit. You can change access, rotate, or revoke the key.
Which formats can I publish?
npm, PyPI and Files, on every plan. npm uses the npm CLI. PyPI works with pip, uv, poetry and twine. Files are ordinary HTTP: curl or wget with a key, or an upload from the dashboard. PyPI and Files registries are private only, served from a path on the format's host or from your own domain, so a public name cannot shadow yours.
Can installs pull public npm packages through you?
On Growth and up, yes, if you turn public-package caching on for a registry. A name you have published, or a scope any publisher has claimed, is never fetched from the public registry — a missing private package stays missing. You can require a minimum release age, and a download key reaches the cache only when you allow it. Cached bytes count toward transfer, not toward your storage limit.
Which keys manage my organization?
Organization API keys (gsk_) call the Connect management API and are available from Growth up. Publisher keys (prt_) install and publish through npm; download keys (pdk_) only install. Neither registry key can call the management API.
Can I change plans later?
When online billing is enabled, you can change plans through Billing. Otherwise, contact support. Limits are enforced when you create, never retroactively.