It's a question worth asking directly rather than assuming, because the free download and the commercial terms live on different pages of PureRef's own site and say fairly different things.
PureRef is pay-what-you-want for individual use, with no minimum required. Its license, though, draws a clear line beyond that: "If You are a Legal Entity, You may not use the Software without a paid for Commercial License," with a carve-out only for its Beta version. That's a studio or a company, not a person working alone — and it's worth reading the license text directly rather than assuming, since the boundary between "an individual" and "a Legal Entity" is exactly the sort of thing worth getting right for yourself.
What the paid tiers actually cost
PureRef publishes its commercial pricing directly: a Small Business tier at $49 one-time for up to three users per studio, or $10 per seat billed monthly, with a separate per-seat Business tier above that for larger teams. Schools are called out separately — PureRef's license permits them to copy and distribute it for educational use without falling under the commercial terms.
Why this trips people up
It's a common enough pattern across creative software — a friendly, donation-style front door for individuals, and a stricter set of terms for anyone using the same download at work — that it's worth checking for any tool you're about to roll out past your own desk, not just this one.
The confusion mostly comes from PureRef's own download page, which leads with the pay-what-you-want option and a message thanking people for trying it before buying — language aimed at an individual deciding whether to support the developer, not at a studio deciding whether it's compliant. The commercial terms sit on a separate license page rather than beside the download button, so it's entirely possible to install PureRef at a company, never see the "Legal Entity" clause, and assume the free tier covers everyone using it. It's the license, not the download page, that actually governs the answer.
How this compares to a one-time purchase like Coii Ref
Coii Ref's $19 covers the software itself, once, for up to three of your own devices — it isn't priced or licensed by seat or by organisation, because it isn't aimed at teams sharing one library with permissions attached. That's a different shape of pricing question than PureRef's, not a directly cheaper answer to the same one: PureRef's per-seat commercial tier is solving for multiple studio members sharing boards, which Coii Ref doesn't do at all. The full comparison covers what each app is actually built for, board format included, rather than price alone.
If PureRef's commercial terms don't fit
Reading the license and deciding a per-seat commercial tier isn't what you need is a reasonable outcome, not just a workaround — see what else people weigh against PureRef, or how PureRef and Eagle actually differ if the choice is between those two rather than settling on PureRef's pricing specifically.