Free until money is involved. Free for learning, paid when money is on the line. That is the honest comparison. - Free does three things well: explain license basics, look up Apache and MIT, draft simple checklists. - Paid earns it in three places: version tracking as licenses change, audit trails diligence actually asks for, and human review standing behind the verdict. - The trap is the middle: a paid app that does nothing a free one cannot. Ask what you get that the license file itself does not give you. - Forgotten third option: a commercial use clearance API. Overkill for a two-person startup; sensible when compliance becomes a workflow. Whatever you choose, the deliverable is identical: model, version, license, date checked, source link. PrivateLLM deploy sets up the licensed model on your own AWS for $50 plus usage.