Anaplan is a vendor of cloud planning software. Customers do not install it. They subscribe to a hosted service that is accessed in a web browser, and the commercial terms are set by an Order Schedule that references the Anaplan SaaS Subscription Agreement.[1] This article maps the licensing constructs that appear in Anaplan’s own contract and documentation, and links to deeper articles for each. The sources are Anaplan’s agreement PDF and the Anapedia help site; Anaplan publishes no price list in the documents reviewed, so no prices are given here.
Anaplan’s licensing is built from four layers. The first is the contract: the Agreement, the Order Schedule and the policies it references. The second is the platform subscription, which combines named user licences, workspace capacity in gigabytes and a fair-use allowance of in-memory processing capacity called Hyperbytes. The third is a set of applications, pre-built planning solutions that are priced separately and rely on the platform resources the customer already owns. The fourth is a group of entitled services, such as Workflow, Optimizer, Forecaster, Analyst and CoModeler, that must be bought and enabled before use.[2][3][4]
Editions
Anaplan’s public documents do not describe a fixed price book of editions with part numbers. They describe constructs that an Order Schedule combines. The table summarises them.
| Construct | What the documents say | Deeper article |
|---|---|---|
| Platform access subscription | Grants a Hyperbyte allowance, the “Fair Use Limit”, measured in 1 GB increments[5] | Workspace capacity and the Fair Use Policy |
| Workspaces on the Classic Engine or on Polaris | A workspace is one engine or the other and cannot be converted; Polaris needs a subscription that includes it[6][7] | same |
| User licences | Licence types with an allocated number of seats, assigned by user administrators[8] | User licences and administration |
| Applications | Finance, Supply Chain Planning, Revenue Performance Management and Workforce Planning solutions; separate from platform entitlements[9] | Applications, AI Credits and entitled add-ons |
| Entitled services | Workflow, Workflow Advanced, Optimizer, Analyst, CoModeler, each enabled only for entitled tenants[2][10][3][11] | same |
| AI Credits | A consumption balance used by AI products, through AI Starter Credits or an AI Credits Add-on[12] | same |
| Forecaster tiers | Standard and Advanced tiers with a monthly prediction quota[13] | same |
| Data Orchestrator packages | Tenant allowances that scale with the number of packages[14] | same |
The ten Finance applications and the Supply Chain, Revenue Performance Management and Workforce lists named on Anapedia change over time, so the live pages should be checked before an inventory is built.[15][16][17][18]
Metrics
The contract defines an Authorized User as “a named person” supplied with access within the usage limits of an Order Schedule.[1] The contract also says usage limits “may be based upon” Authorized Users, the size of the client’s business, data consumption, or another metric defined in an Order Schedule or the Documentation.[1] In practice the documents show several metrics in use at once.
- Named users by licence type. Each licence type purchased has an allocated number of seats that user administrators assign.[8] See User licence type seat.
- Workspace capacity in GB. Workspace size is the sum of the sizes of all non-archived models in the workspace, and each workspace has an allowance tied to the subscription.[19] See Workspace capacity (GB).
- Hyperbytes. A Hyperbyte is a unit of in-memory data processing capacity measured in 1 GB increments, granted with the platform access subscription as the Fair Use Limit.[5] See Hyperbyte.
- Entity revenue. Finance and Supply Chain Planning applications are priced by application type and by the annual revenue of the legal entity that subscribes.[15][16]
- Consumption units. Forecaster prediction points, AI Credits and Data Orchestrator allowances measure the add-ons.[13][12][14]
The task description for this vendor mentioned user types such as full, read-only and workflow users. The Anapedia pages reviewed do not publish a definition table of licence types. They name Planner, Contributor and Participant as examples when explaining the licence report and the licence summary, and they say that the types in a tenant depend on the customer’s licence terms.[20][8] Which user types a customer holds is therefore a matter for its own Order Schedule, not for the public documentation.
Counting / floors
Several floors and rules apply regardless of the product.
Fees and quantities. Unless an Order Schedule says otherwise, fees are based on the service purchased “whether used or not”, are non-cancelable and non-refundable, and the number of subscription rights purchased cannot be decreased during the Subscription Term.[1]
Excess usage. If a party detects that the client exceeds a limit, it notifies the other, and the client must work with Anaplan to change its usage. If the usage is not brought within the limit in thirty days, or the client says it will continue, the client signs an Order Schedule and pays invoices for the excess usage.[1] The client must also verify, certify or give evidence that its use is within the limits on reasonable request.[1]
Automatic user assignment. Users who have no licence in the tenant are given the lowest-level user licence under the contract, and Anapedia says there is no penalty if that takes the tenant over its limit.[8] This is a platform behaviour, not a contractual release from the limits in the Order Schedule, so the true-up rule above still applies.
Licence report. In limited availability, a user licence report shows each user’s licence and a COMPLIANT or NON-COMPLIANT status for a trailing twelve-month period, based on the actions the user performed.[20]
Virtualization & partitioning
Anaplan is delivered as a hosted service, so there are no processor, core or host rules. The partitioning concepts in the documents are the workspace and the tenant. A tenant is the client account, containing workspaces and authorized users, and each workspace has its own set of users and models.[19] The engine is a partition too: the Classic Engine and Polaris each have their own workspaces, a workspace cannot hold both kinds of model, and a workspace cannot be converted.[6] For a software asset manager the practical consequence is that capacity is tracked per workspace, and that migrating from Classic to Polaris means creating new workspaces rather than changing existing ones.
Cloud / BYOL
Anaplan is a subscription service. The contract grants a non-exclusive, non-sublicensable and non-transferable right to access and use the service for the client’s internal business purposes during the Subscription Term, and there is no bring-your-own-licence construct.[1] The contracting entity is Anaplan, Inc. for clients in North or South America, and Anaplan Limited elsewhere.[1]
The Agreement allows either party to assign the whole agreement, including all Order Schedules, to an Affiliate or in a merger, acquisition, corporate reorganisation or sale of substantially all assets without the other party’s consent, if the assignee is bound and fees are paid.[1] That matters because Anaplan itself changed owner: Thoma Bravo announced the completion of its acquisition of Anaplan on 2022-06-22, in a transaction it valued at about USD 10.4 billion.[21]
Programs
Four programs shape the commercial relationship.
- Fair Use Policy. Sets the Hyperbyte allowance and reasonable-use expectations, and lets Anaplan align allocated capacity with actual usage over the last 12 months.[5]
- Entitled services. Features such as Workflow and Optimizer are available to tenants only if bought and enabled.[2][3]
- Applications terms. Define how applications relate to platform resources and how revenue tiers work.[9]
- AI Credits. A single consumption balance with an annual usage cap, requiring an AI Addendum.[22][23]
Support is governed by a separate Availability and Support SLA that the Agreement references; it is a PDF and is not analysed here.[1]
What a software asset manager should collect
A practical Anaplan position needs documents that Anaplan does not publish. The list below follows the constructs above.
- The signed Order Schedules and the version of the SaaS Subscription Agreement they reference, since the public PDF carries no date.[1]
- Seats purchased and assigned for each licence type, from the Administration console’s Summary page.[24]
- Workspace usage and allowance in GB for each workspace, and the model count, from the Workspaces page.[19][25]
- The Hyperbyte allowance and the Use Cases and Client Employees counts in the Order Schedule.[5]
- Entitlements for Workflow, Optimizer, Forecaster, Analyst, CoModeler and Data Orchestrator, with their quotas or credits.[13][14][12]
- For Finance and Supply Chain Planning applications, the revenue tier recorded for the subscribing legal entity.[15][16]
Out of scope
This article does not cover Anaplan’s implementation services, partner resale terms, security and data processing documents, or the Availability and Support SLA. It does not give prices, because none are published in the documents reviewed. Statements about third-party estimates of Anaplan pricing are not included because they are not vendor documents.