Can I offer free fonts?
Monotype's e-commerce website, MyFonts.com, is not free font site, therefore families that are entirely free are not accepted. Additionally, we do not sell fonts that are offered for free elsewhere. When reviewing font submissions, we check to see if they're available for free elsewhere.
What about demo fonts?
You are welcome to offer a demo version of your font for free elsewhere and offer your font on our site for a price, however this demo version must be a modified version of the typeface. This demo typeface may have fewer characters, or modified in other ways that would make it non-usable in a production situation. For example, you could include a “not def” or “tofu” symbol in the space glyph, removing the dots above the i and j, only offering uppercase and lowercase letters with no punctuation, etc. Demo fonts are intended to provide a customer a version of the font with enough information for them to make the decision whether they will use it in the project, and then license (and pay for!) the full version. If you are offering a free demo font download on other sites, we recommend and prefer this free demo version to be included on our site in the family page as well.
What about personal use licenses?
We do not offer personal use licenses, only commercial licenses. You can offer a “personal use” license of your complete font for free elsewhere and and also sell your font on our site. However, your fonts for personal use must be licensed through a site or other mechanism where the customer is agreeing to a personal-use license, not just downloading the font through an open download.
What about for marketing?
For promotional purposes, some foundries will include free demo fonts in their families. Sometimes, foundries will price one or two styles out of a large family for free as a marketing tactic; this is totally fine, and often a very effective strategy.
Additionally, foundries can also use the Promotions tools to offer families for free for a limited time.