Druva licenses enterprise workloads through prepaid credits. These are servers, virtual machines, databases, file servers and NAS in the data centre, and cloud-native workloads in AWS and Azure. “A credit is the unit of measurement across all Enterprise Workloads such as servers, VMs, databases, and cloud-native workloads”. One credit is 1 TB of deduplicated, compressed backup data stored in the cloud for one month.[1] The Master Customer Agreement calls these “consumption-based Cloud Services” and lets Druva suspend them when the credits run out.[8]
Editions
The Enterprise Data pricing page offers Business, Enterprise and Elite tiers for both Data Center and Public Cloud workloads. Each is priced “TB/month after deduplication”.[7]
| Capability (Data Center) | Business | Enterprise | Elite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protection for files, VMs, NAS and databases; global deduplication; recovery | Included | Included | Included |
| Intelligent storage tiering for Long-Term Retention | Not included | Included | Included |
| Multiple storage regions and Data Lock | Not included | Included | Included |
| TurboTier local backup and instant VM recovery | Not included | Included | Included |
| Security Center | Not included | Add-on | Add-on |
| Anomaly detection, Quarantine Bay, orchestrated cyber recovery, Threat Insights | Not included | Add-on | Add-on |
| Disaster Recovery as a Service | Not included | Add-on | Included |
Source: Enterprise Data pricing page, which marks optional capabilities with a ”$” sign.[7] For Public Cloud, Business lacks long-term retention tiering, multiple storage regions, cross-region and cross-cloud backup and automated cloud DR, which Enterprise and Elite include.[7] Druva’s partner console describes the Business edition as having limited features, with Enterprise and Elite adding to it.[9] Catalog: Druva Enterprise Workloads Business; Druva Enterprise Workloads Enterprise; Druva Enterprise Workloads Elite.
Metrics
Credit. “1 Credit = 1 TB of deduplicated, compressed backup data stored in the Cloud for 1 month (1 TB-Month)”. Credits are calculated on post-deduplication, post-compression data, not on the source data size.[1] Catalog: Druva Credit (TB-month); One credit is one TB of deduplicated data stored for one month.
Purchase sizing. Before contract, Druva sizes the credit requirement from total source data volume, workload-specific deduplication rates, data growth and change rates, and retention policies. The required capacity is then converted into a total credit allocation for the term.[2] Druva’s examples: 10 TB for 12 months is about 120 credits, and 50 TB for 24 months is about 1,200 credits.[1]
Counting / floors
Daily draw-down. Credits are deducted daily. The formula is:[2]
Daily Credits Consumed = (Deduplicated TB Stored Today x 12) / 365
So 1 TB of deduplicated data stored for a day consumes about 0.032 credits.[1] The balance is updated daily at 12:15 AM UTC.[1] Catalog: Credits are drawn down daily from a shared pool.
Shared pool. All purchased credits go into one pool. All workloads, backup sets, organizations and departments draw from it, and credits are not assigned to individual servers or workloads.[2] Administrators can set a Credit Limit per organization, with alerts or disabled backups at thresholds such as 80%, 90% or 100%.[1] Mid-term credit purchases are added to the existing balance.[2]
What drives consumption. Druva lists the amount of data backed up, backup frequency, retention and workload type as the main factors. It names application logs that are not truncated, poorly deduplicating data such as database dumps and compressed media, Changed Block Tracking resets and overly inclusive backup rules as causes of sudden spikes.[3] For a licence manager, these are the levers that change the bill: credits follow stored data, not the number of protected machines.
80/20 rule. “Druva requires you to consume at least 80% of the purchased credits during the contract term.” At renewal, at most 20% of the purchased credits carry over to the next term.[1] Druva’s documentation states that slow consumption is therefore a financial risk as well as an operational one, because carry-over above 20% is forfeited.[1] Unused evaluation credits do not carry over when an account converts from Evaluation to Commercial.[1] Catalog: At least 80% of credits must be consumed and at most 20% carries over; Evaluation credits do not carry over to a commercial subscription.
Virtualization & partitioning
Credits measure backup storage, so hypervisor hosts, sockets and VM counts do not enter the calculation directly. The same credits pay for VMware, Hyper-V, Nutanix AHV and Proxmox virtual machines, file servers and NAS, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle and SAP HANA, and Azure and AWS cloud-native workloads. Druva’s suspension rules list all of these as enterprise workloads.[4]
Cloud / BYOL
Credit-based customers only. The credit model, and its reporting in the console, does not apply to customers onboarded through AWS Marketplace public offers or through Managed Service Partners.[2] The credit overage suspension does not apply to Dell, MSP, AWS GovCloud (US), FedRAMP GovCloud or Marketplace customers.[4] Catalog: Credits do not apply to AWS Marketplace public offers or MSP customers.
Storage tiers. Long Term Retention (LTR) keeps cold copies in Amazon Glacier Deep Archive or Azure Cold Storage. Druva states it reduces data protection costs by 20%.[6] LTR is limited to the Enterprise and Elite editions, and only backup sets with a retention period of at least one year are eligible.[6] Data in LTR backup sets consumes fewer credits. Moving eligible data to the Archive tier can save up to 50%.[3] Data deleted from the cold tier before one year incurs an early delete fee, charged in credits:[3]
Early Delete Fee (credits) = 0.35 x (12 - months in cold tier) x (TB deleted)
Druva’s example: deleting 14 TB after 7 months in the cold tier costs 24.5 credits.[3] Archive storage is limited to Enterprise and Elite and is not supported on Azure storage.[9] Catalog: Long Term Retention (LTR); LTR data deleted within 12 months incurs an early delete fee; LTR is limited to Enterprise and Elite and to retention of one year or more.
Programs
Credit term
The Credit Term is the duration of the active contract, typically 12 or 24 months. All purchased credits must be consumed within it.[1] Catalog: Enterprise Workloads credit term.
Overage and suspension
Druva sends alerts at 70%, 80%, 90% and 100% of purchased credits.[1] Backups are suspended automatically once consumption exceeds 110% of available credits for the current term. The check runs every 24 hours. On-demand, scheduled and API-triggered backups stop, but jobs already running complete.[4] Restores from warm, LTR and archive tiers, disaster recovery operations and the management console stay available, and existing data is preserved. When more credits are bought mid-term, backups resume automatically.[4] The MCA also lets Druva suspend consumption-based services within 15 days after pre-purchased credits run out and terminate within 30 days after the suspension period.[8] Catalog: Backups are suspended at 110% credit consumption; Druva may suspend consumption services within 15 days of credit depletion.
Term expiry
When the credit contract expires, Druva suspends all automated, manual and API-triggered backups, “regardless of your remaining credit balance”.[1] Suspension takes effect at 11:59 PM UTC on the expiration date. Warning alerts go out at 90, 60, 30 and 15 days before expiry, and daily in the last 7 days.[5] Existing backup data stays available for restore under the configured retention.[1] Catalog: Backups stop at credit term expiry regardless of remaining balance.
Chargeback
Druva’s console has a cost allocation feature. Protected resources are mapped to cost codes with a storage rate in USD per GB per month, which supports internal chargeback of credit consumption. Druva also provides storage consumption and credit consumption reports.[1][3]
Out of scope
- Credit prices and the price of each edition.
- Druva GovCloud and FedRAMP offerings.
- Enterprise workloads bought through AWS Marketplace, Dell or Managed Service Partners, which follow other commercial terms.