An industrial software management system uses subscription tokens to license industrial software to customers. According to an example licensing structure, a software customer can purchase subscription tokens that are shared among users within the customer's organization and that allow those users to check out and use industrial software products. The subscription tokens regulate the number of software product instances that may be used concurrently by the users. When a user checks out a software product for use, the customer's total number of available subscription tokens commensurate with a cost of the selected software product. When the user relinquishes use of the product, the subscription tokens are returned to the pool of available tokens. Users may only check out a software product for use is if a sufficient number of unused subscription tokens are available.