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In US English should I say

You have already activated more sites than your license allows

Or

You have already activated more sites than your license permits

Mario Trucco
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In some degree, 'permits' sounds a wee bit more formal. Given the formality of the sentence, I would suggest 'permits'. But then again, you were specific about AmE, and a little digging showed that the use of 'allows' is more widespread in American literature.

This Google Ngram on 'license allows' vs 'license permits' clearly shows that the usage of 'allows' is far more extensive.

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Note: The comparison has been done over books written in AmE.

Varun Nair
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    I can't edit because it's too minor, but you might want to change the body of your post so that your spelling of "license" is consistent (even though "licence" is OK in the UK) – Azor Ahai -him- May 17 '16 at 17:09