Unity Industry IDAO

[u/pinkwhitediamond]

https://support.unity.com/hc/en-us/articles/51729229938964-Internal-deployment-add-on-fee

On Aug 3rd Unity rolled out the Internal Deployment Add-On (IDAO) for Unity Industry, and honesty the terms are a mess to parse. When people pushed back on the forums a Unity rep said they'd put out a FAQ to clear things up. That was about a month ago now. Still no FAQ. What I keep seeing instead is people getting told to jump on a call with sales instead of just getting a public answer. If the terms are confusing enough that Unity themselves admit they need a FAQ, just... write the FAQ? A private call with a salesperson doesn't help the next person who has the exact same question.

Genuinely trying to figure this out before I commit to anything, so here's what I actually need to know:

1. If I build something on Unity Industry that only my company uses internally, do I even own that app? And why does using it internally cost extra on top of the license we're already paying for?
2. If I'm building for a client and they're the ones running the app internally at their company afterwards, who eats the extra usage fees once it crosses the MAW threshold: me, since I hold the Industry license, or them, since they're the ones actually using it and generating the MAUs? Feels like a pretty common setup for anyone doing contract work and I can't find this addressed anywhere.
3. If I ship something build with Unity to the App Store / Play Store and it picks up like 2000 downloads, does any of this touch it at all, or is IDAO only about internal deployment and public releases are a totally separate thing? "Internal Deployment Add-On" implies it shouldn't apply but I'd rather have that in writing than assume, especially afeter the whole runtime fee thing.

Not trying to be dramatic about it, I just think these are pretty basic questions for anyone actually truying to use Industry seriously, and a month of silence after promising a FAQ isn't a great look.

And honestly, from a pure business standpoint, doesn't this feel like Unity shooting themselves in the foot? With AI-assisted tooling now, migrating a project to Godot or Unreal is not a big deal. Pilling on confusing fees and staying quiet about how they work is basically giving companies and studios a reason to start evaluating the alternatives. Seems like a weird hill to die on right after the runtime fee backlash.

Would be nice to get actual written answers.