Deltek licensing is the set of terms under which Deltek sells project-based enterprise resource planning (ERP), accounting and project management software to organizations that run on projects, contracts and billable time. Deltek’s current ERP range is organized by industry: Costpoint for government contractors and aerospace and defense, Vantagepoint for architecture, engineering and consulting firms, Maconomy for professional services firms, ComputerEase for construction and Ajera for small architecture and engineering firms.[1] Around those ERP products sit time tracking, project information management, schedule analytics and compliance products, several of which have their own licence terms.
Deltek publishes its contract terms openly. The Deltek Contracts page explains that a contract starts with an Order Form received from a sales representative; the Order Form describes the products being purchased and links to the web page of terms, and the General Terms plus the product-specific terms plus the Order Form “constitute the entire agreement between you and Deltek.”[2] The web terms are split into three layers. The General Terms apply to every contract. The SaaS Terms apply to Deltek software as a service. The Software License Terms apply to Deltek solutions installed by the customer on site.[2] The General Terms also refer to separate Maintenance and Support Terms and Professional Services Terms.[3] Each of the SaaS and Software License Terms ends with a chart of product-specific terms that are added only for customers who bought that product.[4][5] The deeper article Deltek General Terms, SaaS Terms and Software License Terms walks through the layers.
Editions
Deltek does not publish a price list or part numbers. The documents show the product lines and how each is counted.
| Product line | How Deltek documents counting | Deeper article |
|---|---|---|
| Costpoint, Costpoint Standard, GovCon Cloud Moderate | Employee License covering Employees in the employee master file; licensed add-on modules with termination dates; Costpoint BI user roles[5][6][7] | Deltek Costpoint licensing |
| Vantagepoint, Vision | Employee-based, named user per module, Full and Time & Expense, or mixed; Subcontractor pricing for time and expense[8][9][10] | Deltek Vantagepoint, Vision, Maconomy and Ajera licensing |
| Maconomy | Employee and Subcontractor definitions; Front Office and reporting data limits[11] | same |
| Ajera | Registration Code carries the employee limit[12] | same |
| Acumen, TIP, PIM, PPM Administrator, PM Compass, WorkBook, Replicon, Talent Management | Concurrent Pool, Named, Server Named, Concurrent, Employee, External and Invited Access licences[13][14][15][16] | Deltek project portfolio, PIM and specialist products licensing |
Metrics
The Deltek contracts define the units that matter. Most products are counted by one of four constructs.
An Employee is a person recorded in the Customer’s employee records. For Costpoint it is “any full-time, part-time, or seasonal employee who is accounted for in the employee master file contained in the Software”. For Vision, Vantagepoint and Maconomy it is a natural person directly engaged under a contract of employment or similar engagement and recorded in the employee table. For Cobra, MPM, wInsight Analytics, wInsight and Open Plan it includes independent contractors paid directly by the Customer or its staffing providers.[5] See Employee. An Employee License lets the whole workforce use the software without user limits, subject to growth rules described below.
A Named User is “anyone whom Customer has authorized to use the Software by issuing an access code.”[5] A Concurrent User is “the maximum number of users who may be logged on to the Software at the same time.”[5] See Named User and Concurrent User. In Deltek’s EPM help, a concurrent licence is a number of licences that any individual may use, as long as the maximum is not exceeded, while a named licence is purchased for each individual’s exclusive use.[17]
For SaaS the unit is the Authorized User: an individual authorized by the Customer to access the Services, who must be an Employee of the Customer or an Affiliate, a Subcontractor, or third-party personnel contracted to operate the Services for the Customer.[4] A Subcontractor under the Vantagepoint, Vision and Maconomy terms is a non-employee engaged under a services, consulting or independent contractor arrangement and recorded in the employee table.[4]
Further metrics are product-specific: the Vantagepoint Full user and Time & Expense user, the Acumen Concurrent Pool User, the TIP Concurrent Users and the Web Portal Authorized User.
Counting and floors
Four floors and caps recur across the terms.
First, SaaS Authorized Users can be added during a Subscription Period, prorated to the end of that period, but “cannot be reduced during any Subscription Period.”[4] Second, an installed Employee License covers the Employees in place at the Effective Date; when Employees exceed 110% of the Existing Employees, the licence is subject to expansion at Deltek’s then-current prices, and the new count becomes the baseline for a later 110% test.[5] Third, Subcontractor users may not exceed 20% of Employees in the Vantagepoint, Vision and Maconomy terms.[10] Fourth, maintenance cannot be reduced on any portion of a product: the maintenance fee reflects the product mix and later add-ons, and Customers cannot “unbundle” it.[5]
Counting is by identity, not by login. SaaS user IDs may not be shared or used by more than one person, though an ID may be reassigned to a new Authorized User replacing a former one.[4] Named User logins must be unique and may not be shared, transferred or disclosed.[5] Deltek’s own staff accessing the Services for support do not count toward Authorized Users.[4]
Virtualization and non-production use
For its core ERP products the terms reviewed define no processor or core metric; the one core-based item found is the Microsoft SQL Server Standard Run-time sold with Project Information Management, licensed as a core pack of two.[15] The terms instead control instances and locations. The customer installs one Instance of the server portion at the Licensed Location, and may relocate with Deltek’s consent and a fee, running both locations concurrently for no more than 90 days.[5] One non-production Instance may be used for internal testing, development and training, limited to the same number of licensed users, and disaster recovery and archival copies may be kept but not used for production.[5] The permitted users of installed software include the Customer’s disaster recovery vendor.[5] Support for non-production instances under a maintenance plan is limited to set up.[5]
Cloud and subscription terms
Deltek’s cloud contracts grant a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicenseable right to use the Services for internal use, which the terms define as purposes that do not directly produce revenue for the Customer.[4] Each Service renews for twelve months unless either party gives written notice of non-renewal at least thirty days before the period ends.[4] Cloud customers choose a Cloud Customer Success Plan (Professional, Premier or Signature); the Uptime SLA applies only to customers subscribed to a plan, with 99.5% for Professional and Premier and 99.7% for Signature, and it does not apply to Replicon.[4][18] See Deltek Uptime Service Level Agreement.
Installed software can be licensed as a Term License, which gives a fixed period with maintenance included, renewing automatically for twelve-month periods unless notice is given thirty days before the renewal term.[5] For installed Costpoint AI Features, the Customer is responsible for providing its own licence and keys to a large language model.[19]
Programs
Deltek’s commercial wrappers are contract mechanisms rather than named enterprise programs. The catalog records the Order Form and Deltek Contracts structure, the Subscription Period and renewal rules, the Term License, Maintenance and Support, the Employee License expansion threshold, Subcontractor subscription pricing and the AI Features terms. Amendments to the web terms take effect on posting when required by law or for additions to products available to all customers; otherwise they apply at the Customer’s next contract event, such as an expansion Order Form or a renewal.[3]
Audit and reporting
Installed software carries a reporting duty and an audit right. No later than thirty days after each anniversary of the Effective Date, the Customer reports the numbers of Employees, User IDs, Concurrent Users and Named Users for each item of Software.[5] Deltek may enter the Customer’s premises during business hours on reasonable notice to examine books, records, the disaster recovery plan and computers; audits are at Deltek’s expense unless a material breach is found, and Deltek may share the results with its licensors.[5] For SaaS, the Customer keeps records of Authorized Users and user type and provides them on written request; if a material breach is found it pays Subscription fees at Deltek’s then-current prices.[4] Some products add their own measures: TIP lets Deltek request Concurrent User data not more than quarterly, and Vantagepoint disables functionality when licences in use exceed those held.[14][8] General practice for audits is described in Software license audit and for true-ups in True-up.
Out of scope
This article does not cover Deltek’s Professional Services Terms, the Data Processing terms, Partner terms for resellers, or the terms of GovWin, ProPricer, Dela and other products for which the catalog holds no counting rows. Pricing is not public, so the wiki does not state fees. Orders placed through a Deltek partner may be subject to the partner’s own invoicing terms: the General Terms state that the payment section applies only to transactions between Deltek and the Customer and not to transactions with Deltek partners.[3] ComputerEase is named on Deltek’s ERP page but no licence terms for it were found in the Deltek Contracts product-specific charts.[1][5]