Coupa sells a spend management platform that Coupa describes as an AI-native total spend management platform covering direct and indirect spend across finance, procurement and supply chain.[1] Its licensing has three separate parts. Customers who buy the hosted platform contract under the Master Subscription Agreement (MSA) and an Order Form.[2] The small set of customers with software installed on their own infrastructure contract under a Master License Agreement (MLA).[3] Suppliers of Coupa customers use the Coupa Supplier Portal, which is free, and may buy optional subscriptions.[4][5] This article gives the map. Prices for customer subscriptions are not public, and the contract documents leave the commercial metric to the Order Form.
Editions
Coupa does not publish editions with part numbers. The platform page groups its capabilities into six areas, and the Order Form decides which of them a customer has bought.[1][2]
| Capability area | Capabilities named on the platform page |
|---|---|
| Supply Chain Optimization | Network Optimization, Transportation Optimization, Inventory Optimization, App Studio, Demand Modeler |
| Supply Chain Collaboration | PO Collaboration, Forecast Collaboration |
| Source-to-Contract | Sourcing, Advanced Sourcing Optimization, Contract Management, Category Management, Supplier Risk & Performance |
| Procure-to-Pay | Intake & Orchestration, Procurement, Inventory Management, Services Procurement, AP Automation, Expense Management, Spend Analysis |
| AP Automation | Invoicing, Payments, Virtual Cards, Expense Management, Fraud Detection |
| Treasury & Cash Management | listed as a capability group |
The platform page is a marketing page and it does not say how each capability is sold.[1] The reliable evidence of what a customer holds is the Order Form and the licence flags in the product. The Coupa Users API documents a separate yes or no licence flag per user for modules such as Purchasing, Invoicing, Expense, Treasury, Supply Chain, Sourcing, Contracts, Analytics, Inventory, Risk Assess, Category Strategy, Category Planner, Contingent Workforce, Travel, AI classification and Spend Guard.[6] See Module licence per user.
The MSA also separates what is subscribed from what is not. Updates are provided at no additional fee, but they “shall not include” new functionality or upgrades to modules or applications not included in the Hosted Applications, called Additional Modules, which are ordered through an additional Order Form.[2] A customer should therefore not assume that a module announced in a release belongs to its subscription.
Metrics
The MSA names the elements that a metric can be built from, without choosing one. An Order Form is the document that specifies “the subscription model and/or usage meters”, together with the term, fees and billing period.[2] See Order Form subscription and Usage meter. The following units are documented.
- Users. “Users” are employees of the Customer and its Affiliates and their representatives, consultants, contractors, subcontractors or agents who use or are authorized to use the Hosted Applications.[2] Each User account is restricted to one authorized User at a time.[2] See User.
- Module licences per user. The Users API shows which module licences each user holds.[6]
- On-premise licences. One User on one computer or instance, with each virtual instance needing a separate licence.[3] See On-premise License.
- Suppliers. Suppliers are a counted party in the definitions but are not charged by default for interacting with the Customer.[2]
The task description for this vendor suggested that Coupa prices by spend under management. None of the Coupa documents reviewed, which include the MSA, the MLA and the public supplier pages, uses spend under management as a stated licence metric. The contracts defer the commercial basis to the Order Form. Whether a customer’s subscription is priced on spend, on user counts or on another meter can therefore only be read from its own Order Form.
Counting / floors
Fees. Coupa invoices subscription fees annually in advance as specified in the Order Form; all payment obligations are non-cancellable and amounts paid are non-refundable except as the Agreement provides. A customer may dispute an invoice in writing within 60 days of the invoice date. If an undisputed invoice is more than 30 days overdue, Coupa may suspend the Hosted Applications after at least 15 days’ notice.[2]
Precedence. The order of precedence is the Order Form, the MSA page, the Exhibits and then the Subscription Terms, so any quantity, meter or special term in the Order Form outranks the standard text.[2]
Release currency. The Customer is required to use the most current version of the Hosted Application unless otherwise agreed under the Standard Release Process, and Coupa is not liable for defects or uptime failures that arise from a customer delaying a release.[2] See Standard Release Process.
On-premise verification. For on-premise software, Coupa may ask for usage records and a written certification once a year, with excess use stopped or paid for at Coupa’s option.[3] See On-premise compliance verification. The hosted MSA, by contrast, contains no equivalent verification clause in the version reviewed.[2]
Virtualization & partitioning
Virtualization matters only for on-premise software. Under the MLA, each licence allows one User to install and use the Licensed Software on one computer or instance, physical or virtual, and each virtual instance created on a system where the software is installed requires a separate licence.[3] See Virtual instance. The hosted service has no processor or host concept. Its partition is the instance, and the Customer’s production instances are the reference for the uptime commitment of 99.8% over a calendar month.[2] Sandboxes appear in the support exhibit, where sandbox refreshes are service requests, but the MSA does not state a separate fee for them.[2]
Cloud / BYOL
The hosted platform is a subscription, so BYOL does not apply. The MSA grants the Customer and its Affiliates the right to use the Hosted Applications during the Subscription Term for their internal business purposes, and forbids reselling, service bureau use and use for any purpose other than the Customer’s own internal use.[2] On termination, Customer Data stays in the instance for sixty days, and a one-time Decommissioning Package is available at no additional cost if requested before the termination date.[2] See Decommissioning Package and Transition Period.
Either party may assign the whole MSA, including all Order Forms, to an Affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition, corporate reorganisation or sale of substantially all assets without consent.[2] Coupa itself was acquired by Thoma Bravo; the completion was announced on 2023-02-28 in an all-cash transaction valued at about USD 8.0 billion.[7]
Programs
- Order Form pricing. The commercial basis of each hosted subscription is set in the Order Form.[2]
- Standard Release Process. Coupa’s wave-based release policy is referenced by the MSA, and the Customer must keep within it.[2]
- Free supplier access and paid supplier subscriptions. The Supplier Portal is free, with optional Verified, Advanced and Premium Support plans.[4][5]
- Support. The MSA’s support exhibit sets four severity levels with response times from 30 minutes for severity 1 to 5 business days for severity 4, and a maximum of 10 designated support contacts unless the Order Form says otherwise.[2]
What a software asset manager should collect
- Every executed Order Form, with its subscription model, usage meters, terms and billing periods.[2]
- The version of the MSA or MLA referenced, since both agreements are versioned and carry the version date in their headers.[2][3]
- A user export with the module licence flags, to compare users and modules with the Order Forms.[6]
- For on-premise software, a count of installations and virtual instances against licences.[3]
- Affiliates that signed their own Order Forms.[2]
- Supplier-facing subscriptions bought by the customer’s own business units when they act as Coupa suppliers.[5]
Out of scope
This article does not cover implementation services, partner terms, privacy exhibits or the security exhibit. It does not give customer prices, because none are published. Third-party estimates of Coupa pricing are not used.