Celonis is the vendor of the Celonis Platform, a cloud service for process mining and what it now calls process intelligence: software that extracts event data from operational systems such as ERP and CRM, models it, and surfaces process analyses, applications and automations. Celonis sells this as a subscription. The terms that apply depend on how the customer buys: if a signed agreement exists, its terms govern; if the customer buys or renews through an order, or accepts online terms, the applicable agreements listed on the Celonis terms page govern.[1] In practice that means a Master Services Agreement (MSA), an Order, and a set of documents the MSA calls the Metrics Description and the Documentation. This article describes how those parts fit together. The detailed counting rules sit in the companion articles listed under See also.
Contract structure
The MSA is the base contract. It governs access to the Services named in an Order or bought online, and it begins on the earlier of the first Order’s effective date or first access to the service.[2] The June 2026 version is the one published on the Celonis terms page, with addenda for artificial intelligence features, additional services such as APIs and proofs of value, and several fair use policies.[1]
Order of precedence matters for a licence manager. The MSA states that where it conflicts with an Order, the MSA prevails unless the Order expressly says otherwise by reference to the section it intends to override.[2] The Metrics Description points the other way for its own definitions: the provisions of each individual Order prevail over the metric definitions in the event of a conflict.[3] The reading is that an Order cannot loosen the MSA by implication, but it can override a metric definition. An Order placed through an Authorized Reseller cannot amend the MSA without Celonis’s written consent.[2]
Three documents define what is licensed:
- the Order, which lists product names and SKUs, quantities, Region and line-of-business (LoB) scope and fees;
- the Metrics Description for the edition bought, which defines the units (users, capacity, credits); and
- the Product Description, a feature matrix showing which capabilities are included, optional add-ons, or not available in each edition.[4]
Editions
The current Product Description lists two editions. “Celonis Process Intelligence - AI Platform” is marked as available for sale to new customers and the earlier “Celonis Infrastructure (OCPM Enabled)” is marked as not available to new customers; both are sold directly and through Celonis resellers.[4] The older Infrastructure edition keeps its own metrics description, now filed under archived versions.[5] Customers may therefore hold contracts written against either edition, and some features differ. For example, the Shared Machine Learning Workbench is included in the Infrastructure edition but not available in the AI Platform edition, which instead includes a dedicated workbench by default, and Bring Your Own Model is an optional add-on in the former and included in the latter.[4]
Even older metrics documents remain archived for customers on earlier contracts: the Execution Management System scope of February 2023 and the Intelligent Business Cloud and Intelligent Process Mining scopes of July 2020. See Celonis legacy editions and partner programs.
What a subscription must contain
For the AI Platform, the Metrics Description says a subscription must include, at a minimum, the platform plus one or more Process or Domain Modules, or the platform plus a Center of Excellence SKU. Fees are determined by the modules selected and by the scope for which they may be used, stated on the Order under “Region” and “LoB”. Where no Region or LoB is designated for a module, there is no such limit for it.[3] The platform entitlement itself includes one productive team, one standard sandbox team and unlimited Analysts and Business Users; compute units, data capacity and AI Outputs scale with annual software spend.[3] These are described in Celonis platform capacity: APC, CCU and AI Outputs, and the module and user model in Celonis users, process modules and packages.
Metrics at a glance
| Unit | What it measures | Where defined |
|---|---|---|
| Process Module | A process (for example Accounts Payable) licensed for a Region and LoB scope | Metrics Description |
| Analyst and Business User | Named users with build or view rights | Metrics Description |
| APC | Uncompressed raw data ingested concurrently | Metrics Description |
| CCU | Monthly processing capacity equal to a 4 vCPU instance | Metrics Description |
| AI Output | One AI response or annotated record | Metrics Description |
| Active Concurrent User | Workforce Productivity users per calendar month | Metrics Description |
| Make Credit | Billing unit for Make Enterprise scenarios | Make product description |
The definitions come from the Metrics Description. The APC, for example, is “the amount of uncompressed raw data that the customer ingests into the Celonis Platform concurrently at any given time for processing”, and a CCU represents the compute power of a 4 vCPU instance for a month.[3]
Term, renewal and pricing mechanics
Subscriptions have an initial term set in the Order. Afterwards they renew automatically for successive 36-month periods unless a party gives at least 30 days’ written notice not to renew, and Celonis may raise fees for a Renewal Term by no more than 7% per annum unless the customer has exceeded its permitted use.[2] The Celonis terms page states that a purchased subscription is non-cancelable and non-refundable for the committed term, and that a subscription includes support, updates and upgrades.[6] The MSA likewise says subscription fees are non-refundable except as it expressly states.[2]
Celonis does not publish a general price list. The AI Platform Metrics Description does, however, state rates that tie entitlements to annual software spend and prices for additional capacity: for instance additional compute units at an annual rate of $12,000 each, additional APC in 10 TB increments at $10,000 per year, and AI Outputs in blocks of 1,000,000 at $10,000 per year.[3] Where an Order uses a different currency from the customer’s reporting currency, a fixed exchange rate is applied: the closing rate on the last trading day of the previous calendar year, as published by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, for the whole following year.[3]
Compliance, audit and overuse
The MSA lets Celonis verify compliance through technical features in the product, ask the customer to certify in writing that its use is in full compliance, and requires the customer to keep records and make them available to Celonis or a designated third-party auditor on request and free of charge.[2] It also grants Celonis the right to process usage information to meter consumption and check compliance with Order limits.[2] Use beyond the scope of the agreement or Order must be paid for at Celonis’s then-current price list.[2] Because capacity metrics are measured by the platform, a licence manager typically compares the Order against the admin consumption views rather than against an installed-software inventory.
Breach of the use restrictions can lead to termination or immediate suspension where use threatens the security, integrity or availability of the service.[2] Nonpayment of an undisputed invoice allows Celonis to disable access to the affected services on 30 days’ written notice.[2]
Use rights and restrictions
Users may access the Celonis Materials solely for the customer’s internal business purposes within the limits of the Order and Metrics Definition and not for third parties unless Celonis permits it in writing. Third-party suppliers and contractors may use the materials for the sole purpose of providing their goods or services to the customer.[2] The MSA forbids modifying or creating derivative works of the Celonis Materials and reverse engineering them to build a competing product.[2] Customers may not assign the agreement without Celonis’s written consent, whereas Celonis may assign to affiliates or in a sale of substantially all its assets.[2]
Named user types are tied to one natural person designated by name. The Metrics Description says they may not be made accessible to any third person, including employees of the same company or affiliates, but that the customer may replace the person by updating the name in the system.[3]
Where the money moves
A customer’s cost drivers are: the number and scope of Process or Domain Modules; the total annual software fee, which drives CCU, APC and AI Output entitlements; add-ons such as the premium sandbox, dedicated Machine Learning Workbenches, Workforce Productivity, Process Designer and the Process Management Bundle, premium applications and the System Transformation SKU; and support tier.[3] Standard Applications in the Marketplace carry no additional subscription cost but depend on an active licence for the process they analyse.[4]
Related rules and litigation
Celonis has also been a party to litigation about access to ERP data. See Celonis SE v. SAP SE, which is filed under SAP in the litigation repository, and SAP licensing for the indirect static read and runtime licence questions that arise when third-party tools extract SAP data.
Out of scope
This overview does not cover Celonis’s data processing agreement, security annexes or sub-processor lists, the industry process and domain catalogs, partner agreements, or services contracts. It does not state prices beyond the rates printed in the Metrics Description, because the Order governs. Hardware, perpetual on-premise licences and the former SAP Process Mining by Celonis arrangement are not covered.