Assetto Corsa commercial licensing for venues, explained
If you're opening a sim racing lounge, arcade, or paid event space, you will hit this question fast and find remarkably little written about it: can I run Assetto Corsa on my venue's rigs and charge people to drive?
The short answer: not on the Steam copy you bought for $20. The longer answer is good news, a real commercial path exists, it's just sold in a place most people never think to look.
Why your Steam copies don't cover a venue
Two agreements sit on every consumer copy of Assetto Corsa:
- The Steam Subscriber Agreement, Steam licenses games to you for personal, non-commercial use. Using Steam-delivered software as the engine of a paid experience is outside that license.
- The Assetto Corsa EULA, explicitly prohibits public and commercial/entertainment use, paid or free, without written permission from the publisher.
Buying ten Steam copies doesn't change this, quantity isn't the issue, the license class is. A venue running on consumer copies is operating in breach, which matters the day you're big enough to notice: it's exposure in an insurance claim, a lease dispute, an acquisition, or a publisher enforcement letter.
The real commercial tiers (and where to buy)
Assetto Corsa's commercial program isn't sold on a public storefront, it's sold through authorized simulator resellers (companies like Vesaro and FPZERO list it publicly). As listed by resellers in 2025–2026, there are two tiers, priced per simulator (one-time):
| Tier | Listed price (per sim) | What it allows |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial | ~£3,495 | Run AC in a paid venue, but no mods and no external software. Stock content, stock launcher. |
| Commercial Pro | ~£3,750 | Everything above plus mods and third-party software, Content Manager, Custom Shaders Patch, mod cars and tracks, telemetry tools, venue-management layers. |
The tier choice is not close. Almost every serious venue runs Content Manager + CSP for graphics and stability, mod cars and tracks for variety, and some management/telemetry layer on top. All of that requires Commercial Pro. The ~£255 difference is the cheapest insurance you'll ever buy, take the Pro tier.
Prices are one-time per seat, so a 6-rig venue should budget roughly £22,500 (~$28,000) for licensing at list. That number belongs in your startup budget, not in the "we'll deal with it later" pile, retro-licensing an operating venue costs the same and buys you nothing extra.
The second trap: mod content is licensed separately
A commercial license for the sim does not license the content you run on it. This bites venues in one specific place: real-world branding in mods. That popular F1 mod with real team names, liveries, and driver likenesses? Formula One's commercial rights holders enforce their IP aggressively, and no Kunos license covers it. The safe pattern for a paid venue:
- Default to official Kunos content (cars and tracks that shipped with the game or its DLC).
- Treat real-brand mods as at-your-own-risk, and know which ones are on your rigs.
- If motorsport brands matter to your concept, that's licensing conversation number two.
The alternatives, honestly
- rFactor 2, licensed for location-based entertainment by Motorsport Games; it's the engine behind F1 Arcade. A real program with real enablement, oriented toward bigger operations.
- RaceRoom, has an explicit B2B/commercial program and is used in commercial simulators across Europe.
- Assetto Corsa EVO, the sequel is rolling out; commercial terms will evolve. If you're buying licenses today, ask the reseller how the transition is being handled.
Assetto Corsa remains the default choice for most independent venues anyway: the mod ecosystem, the physics reputation, and the hardware compatibility are unmatched at the price, you just have to license it properly.
FAQ
Can I run a free demo day on Steam copies?
The AC EULA's prohibition covers public/entertainment use whether or not you charge. Free exposure events are lower risk in practice, but they're not cleanly licensed either.
Does the commercial license include the game content?
The commercial tiers are sold per simulator and cover the sim itself; confirm with your reseller exactly which content packs are included with the version they ship you.
Do venue-management platforms come with a sim license?
No, and be suspicious of anyone implying otherwise. Software layers like SimPull run on top of your properly licensed sims; the sim license belongs to the venue. That separation is standard across the industry.
What about the customers' own Steam accounts?
Irrelevant to the venue question, the license that matters is the one on the machines you operate commercially.
Licensed and ready to open?
SimPull is the self-serve software layer for sim racing venues, booking, payments, automatic rig launching, AI coaching, and leagues, built by operators running three live venues on properly licensed sims.