F5 Distributed Cloud Services are cloud-delivered security, networking and application management services that F5 offers as SaaS. They are “SaaS Offerings” under the F5 Platform Terms of Use, so the customer receives a right to access and use them and the related documentation during the subscription term, for internal business purposes, rather than a licence to install software.[1] Because they are metered services, licence management for Distributed Cloud is mainly about commitments and usage units.
How Distributed Cloud is bought
F5’s compare page states that Distributed Cloud Services is “available on an annual subscription, cloud marketplace private offers and Pay-as-you-Go in the AWS Marketplace”, and that it comes in two annual subscription packages: Essentials, aimed at securely delivering public-facing web applications, and Enterprise, aimed at customers needing advanced security with behavioural traffic analysis.[2] The catalog rows are Distributed Cloud Essentials package and Distributed Cloud Enterprise package. Layer 3-4 routed DDoS mitigation is an add-on managed service that can be sold standalone or added to either plan.[2]
Distributed Cloud is also an FCP product. Under Schedule B of the Subscription Program Terms, the customer may consume or stop consuming any service made available, and the annual commitment adjusts upward with measured growth.[3] The F5 FCP page states that Schedule B supports Distributed Cloud Services, that usage is reported through automated telemetry for all available Distributed Cloud products, and that cumulative actual usage counts toward committed annual spend.[4] Details of Billing Terms, Annual Services Growth and the month-12 rule are in the FCP article; the key points are repeated here.[3]
- Consumption is the dollar amount at List Price of the total usage of services under the subscription, measured by each service’s Usage Metrics.
- If aggregate consumption in a Billing Term is below the Annual Services Commitment, it does not reduce the payment obligation.
- If consumption in month 12 is at least 1.5 times month 11, the difference is billed once within 30 days of the quote (“Month 12 Permitted Overage”).
- Growth in the Billing Term, together with consumption in the 11th month, above the commitment is paid as a one-time charge and becomes part of next year’s commitment.
Usage Metrics
The Subscription Program Terms list one Unit of Measure for each service, defined as “the metric that is being measured and charged for (e.g. # of instances, # of API calls)”.[3] The terms organise the table by area.
| Area | Service | Unit of Measure |
|---|---|---|
| Cloud infrastructure | Cloud Mesh Nodes; Cloud Stack Nodes | Number of active nodes deployed |
| Cloud infrastructure | Cloud Mesh VIP (BYO); Mesh VIP (Anycast) | Number of active VIPs deployed |
| Networking and traffic | Load Balancers | Maximum number of active load balancers deployed |
| Networking and traffic | Mesh Rate Limiting | Total number of requests |
| Networking and traffic | CDN Bandwidth; CDN HTTP(s) Requests | Data transferred to the internet; number of HTTP(s) requests |
| Networking and traffic | App Stack Traffic | Sum of data generated by node |
| Threat protection | DDoS Mitigation Tunnel; ACL Rules; Monitor Routing | Maximum tunnels, ACL rules or routers enabled |
| Threat protection | Bot Defense; API Security; Client-Side Defense | Interactions with F5 systems; total API requests; distinct page views |
| Threat protection | WAF | Maximum number of WAF-enabled XC Load Balancers deployed |
| Application and identity protection | Synthetic Monitoring | Sum of times a monitor has run across configured regions |
| Application and identity protection | Authentication Intelligence; Account Protection | Login POST transactions; login POST or account creation transactions |
| Application and identity protection | Data Intelligence; Aggregator Management | POST events; interactions with F5 systems |
| Application and identity protection | Mobile App Shield | Unique monthly active users of protected apps |
| DNS | DNS Zones; DNS Load Balancer Record; DNS Health Check | Maximum active zones; maximum records configured; health checks performed |
| AI security | AI Workforce Security | Number of users |
Table source: Subscription Program Terms, SaaS Usage Metrics.[3]
The units fall into three metering styles. Maximum-deployed units (load balancers, tunnels, DNS zones) measure a peak count; event units (requests, POST transactions, page views) measure volume; and identity units (monthly active users, users) measure people. The metric rows are Unit of Measure (Distributed Cloud usage metric) and Consumption (Distributed Cloud, List Price).
SaaS-specific contract terms
The Platform Terms contain several rules that apply to SaaS offerings and that a licence manager should know:[1]
- Fees: where applicable, fees are based on usage; the amount is set in each order or in the documentation. Unless the customer has bought a SaaS offering with a committed fee structure for a specified period, F5 may adjust fees by notice, effective at least 30 days later and possibly by publication within the portal.
- Suspension and discontinuation: F5 may suspend or limit access to SaaS offerings for reasons including suspected breach of use restrictions, non-payment, material breach, risk to F5 or other customers, or fraudulent use, and may discontinue offerings or change or remove functionality, with notice of discontinuation to subscribers.
- Free Services and previews: free services are provided up to limits in the service policies; usage over the limits needs a purchase, and F5 may end free access without notice. Preview, beta and early-access services are for internal demonstration, test or evaluation, not production.
- Threat data: certain products generate threat data; the customer receives a licence to use licensed threat data and derived data for lawful cybersecurity analysis or audit purposes in connection with covered applications during the subscription term, F5 owns the threat data and derived data, and on termination the customer must stop using and destroy them and certify compliance on request.
- Usage Metrics and excess usage: the customer must certify compliance with usage metrics on request and is liable for fees for excess usage.
- Marketplace payments: if ordered through a cloud provider, the customer pays usage or subscription fees and taxes directly to the cloud provider.
F5’s data residency and processing locations document, referenced from the Platform Terms, describes where customer data is stored for each SaaS offering and which subprocessors support it; it is relevant to procurement review but is not a licensing metric.[1]
Managed service provider models
F5 publishes a licensing model addendum for partners in the Unity+ Partner Program that deliver managed services on Distributed Cloud.[5] The addendum (last updated 2026-08-01) offers two models.
Utility Model. Consumption-based; the partner pays for actual usage month to month in arrears, may add or remove end-user tenants on demand, and end-user tenants have no term and no renewal events. F5 provides a monthly usage report by the 5th calendar day, aggregated and by tenant; the partner has 10 days to dispute it, after which it is final and billing follows through the partner’s chosen distributor. Discounting is applied to the aggregate consumption, which “can lead to larger discounts when compared to the standard subscription model”, and partners are limited to SKUs ending in “-M”. Partners must not alter a report or manipulate reporting.[5] Program row: MSP Distributed Cloud Utility Model.
Subscription Model. A pre-paid, fixed-term subscription, typically 1, 2 or 3 years, with all XC SKUs available. For each end user the partner provisions a tenant, activates the chosen SaaS offerings and submits details such as the child tenant identifier, SKUs, quantities and term. Actual usage is reviewed monthly in governance reviews and, if an end user consistently or significantly exceeds its entitlement, F5 and the partner decide whether to increase it; upsells add services during the term and renewal is manual.[5] Program row: MSP Distributed Cloud Subscription Model.
Both models require the partner to keep a root tenant. F5 supports a three-level hierarchy and recommends one root tenant and two parent tenants, one for Utility and one for Subscription end users; “multitenancy within child tenants is not supported; one child tenant is required for each End User”. Partners must provide Level 1 and Level 2 support, and pricing is set per partner by tier and discount level and fixed for a pricing term.[5]
A separate Cloud Licensing Program addendum covers partners that run F5 software on their own infrastructure to deliver managed cloud services; it is described in the F5 licensing overview and is metered by Software Instance, not by Distributed Cloud unit.[6]
Practical notes for licence management
- Packages and metered services differ: an Essentials or Enterprise subscription is a package, while FCP consumption is dollar-denominated at List Price per service unit.
- Reconcile each service’s Unit of Measure with the tenant configuration; for example, WAF is metered by WAF-enabled load balancers, not by requests.
- Monitor months 11 and 12 under FCP, because of the Billing Term definition and the 1.5 times month-11 rule.
- Treat marketplace private offers as a separate contract path: the Platform Terms name F5, Inc. as the contracting entity for them regardless of location.[1]
Out of scope
This article does not cover Distributed Cloud feature comparisons beyond the packages, individual service pricing, SLA terms, or BIG-IP and NGINX licensing, which have their own articles. F5’s Distributed Cloud purchasing and billing FAQ in its technical knowledge hub was not retrievable as a document with stable sub-pages at the time of writing, so billing FAQs are not summarised.