The F5 Flex Consumption Program (FCP) and Term Subscriptions are the two subscription models in the F5 Subscription Program Terms. By choosing either, the customer accepts the Requirements together with the Platform Terms or another licence and use agreement between the customer and F5; the terms take effect on the earliest of acceptance, first use of a product or placing an order for a product available through the subscription.[1] The page shows “Last updated: September 30, 2026”. F5 says updates apply prospectively to new orders only and will not reduce the scope of products already ordered, increase fees for existing subscription commitments or diminish rights during the current term; existing subscriptions stay governed by the Requirements in effect on their start date, except for changes related to new products.[1]
The two models
FCP subscriptions are “granted for a period of three years” and give access to a suite of F5 products to deploy and use as needed, with F5 reconciling actual usage against the commitment at the end of each year, which the terms call the annual true-up/true-forward.[1] Term Subscriptions license a specific product or set of products for a pre-specified period of one to three years.[1] F5’s purchasing page describes FCP as a 3- or 5-year annual spending commitment for deployable software and SaaS or managed services, adjusted annually from actual usage, with premium support and software upgrades included and activity reporting for visibility and compliance.[2] The FCP page states that the commitment adjusts annually and that FCP is the successor to the Enterprise Licensing Agreement (ELA).[3] The terms themselves provide for 36 months unless the quote says otherwise.[1] The purchasing page and the Requirements therefore differ on duration; a longer commitment would have to appear in the quote.
Common terms
Four common terms apply to both models.[1]
- Ordering: all products are ordered from an F5-authorised reseller unless F5 agrees otherwise in writing; additional purchases are initiated through the F5 sales representative and a purchase order to the reseller; licence keys, certificates or other authentication methods are issued after submission.
- Support: F5 provides Premium level technical support during the term under its then-current support policies, and pricing includes Premium Support unless indicated otherwise.
- Termination: either party may terminate for uncured material breach after 30 days’ written notice, or on the other’s insolvency events.
- Post-termination: unless renewed, the customer pays all fees for usage through the termination date, deletes all software including all Software Instances, licence keys and documentation, and on request provides a written statement certifying destruction.
The Subscription Start Date is, unless the quote says otherwise, the day registration keys, certificates or other authentication methods are first made available for any software, or the day F5 first gives access to any F5 service.[1]
How the FCP commitment works
The commitment is a financial amount stated at List Price: F5’s “then-current list price for the region of sale”. The customer issues a purchase order to its reseller for the List Price amount less any agreed discount, and the reseller invoices each Annual Term in advance on the Subscription Start Date and each anniversary, unless the quote says otherwise.[1] F5 issues an Annual Billing Quote, and the customer must submit a purchase order for the annual commitment within 10 days of receiving it.[1]
Schedule A covers software and Schedule B covers F5 services (SaaS). The F5 FCP page lists Schedule A as supporting BIG-IP Virtual Editions, NGINX, F5 Insight, AI Security and software on rSeries and VELOS, and Schedule B as supporting Distributed Cloud Services; availability varies by agreement.[3]
Schedule A: software
During the term the customer may deploy and retire any number of Software Instances.[1] Each calendar day, in UTC, produces a Daily Total at List Price from the Usage Metrics, and the monthly Run Rate summarises it. The relevant definitions are:[1]
- Billing Term for software is the 9th through 11th full calendar months of an Annual Term.
- Annual Software Growth is the average of the Run Rates in the Billing Term minus the Annual Software Commitment, rounded to the nearest whole dollar.
- Annual Software Commitment is the Initial Commitment in year one; in the second year it is the Initial Commitment plus the growth from year one; in each later year it is the previous commitment plus the previous Billing Term’s growth. If there is a fee for a licence management tool, it is added to each commitment. Hardware acquisitions do not count toward the commitment, but the Software SKU corresponding to hardware software modules does.
The terms give a worked example: with a commitment of $100k and Billing Term Run Rates of $110k, $120k and $130k, growth is ($10k + $20k + $30k) / 3, or $20k.[1] At the end of the final year, if usage in the last Billing Term exceeds the final commitment, the customer makes a one-time payment for that growth.[1] The terms as retrieved do not state how a negative difference, where average usage is below the commitment, is treated for the following year; the services schedule states that lower consumption does not reduce the commitment, and a customer relying on a reduction for software should confirm it in the quote or agreement. The metric rows are Software Instance and Run Rate.
Reporting and compliance
The customer must provide a usage report for each deployed software product within 10 days after the end of each calendar month, produced with the applicable License Management Tool and submitted electronically to F5’s reporting address or by email attachment; products without such a tool require a written certification of the number and type of instances deployed.[1] After each report F5 provides a Run Rate report and a Subscription Activity Report, which are final unless disputed within 10 days.[1] If the report is missing, F5 may calculate the report from the highest monthly utilisation recorded in the preceding twelve months, final unless disputed within 10 calendar days.[1]
Customers must deploy any required License Management Tool promptly after the start date and may not alter a report, knowingly report inaccurate usage, transfer Software Instances between subscriptions or otherwise manipulate reporting; failure to comply is a material breach because F5 uses reported usage to set the commitment.[1] F5 also says that it may introduce automated reporting features and that the customer agrees to use them, subject to its internal security review.[1] Under the F5 FCP page, usage tracking depends on the product and may use automated telemetry, BIG-IQ or self-reporting, and Customer Success shares monthly activity reports.[3]
Schedule B: F5 services
For services such as Distributed Cloud, the customer may consume or stop consuming any service made available.[1] The Billing Term covers the 1st through 11th full calendar months. Annual Services Growth is the consumption in the Billing Term plus the consumption in the 11th month, minus the Annual Services Commitment, paid as a one-time charge at the end of each Billing Term and added to the next commitment.[1] If aggregate consumption in a Billing Term is below the Annual Services Commitment, “it shall not reduce your payment obligations”.[1] A Month 12 Permitted Overage applies if month-12 consumption is at least 1.5 times month 11: the difference is a one-time charge within 30 days of receiving a quote.[1] F5 provides a Services Growth Report, final unless disputed within 10 days.[1] Metric rows: Consumption (Distributed Cloud, List Price) and Unit of Measure (Distributed Cloud usage metric); the metrics themselves are described in the Distributed Cloud article.
Hardware in FCP
The terms contain hardware-specific rules for customers who subscribe to software modules for use on hardware. Software modules in the initial order appear as a Software SKU in the Subscription Activity Report on shipment, further SKUs are added for later hardware, hardware cannot be acquired or used without an active Software SKU, the customer must notify F5 promptly when it retires each module, and retiring all modules on an appliance retires the hardware and ends support.[1] Hardware may not be used beyond expiry of the subscription.[1]
Renewal and expiry
An FCP subscription expires at the end of the term unless terminated earlier. If the customer has not entered a new subscription, F5 and the customer may agree to extend the term for up to 30 days (the Grace Period); the new subscription then starts the day after the final day of the term, and without a new subscription the customer pays for usage during the grace period and the subscription terminates under the common terms.[1] For NGINX Plus, F5’s documentation adds that automatic JWT licence renewal is not supported for subscriptions renewed under FCP, so the updated token must be applied manually at each renewal.[4]
Term Subscriptions
Additional instances bought during the term run only to the end of the original term, so “all subscriptions end on the same date”.[1] The reseller invoices in accordance with the quote. List Prices for software under Term Subscriptions will increase by 3% each Annual Term, and F5 may set its list prices in its sole discretion.[1] The program row is Term Subscription.
Usage Metrics
Software usage metrics for FCP Schedule A and Term Subscriptions fall into three families named in the terms: capacity-based (for example storage), consumption or throughput-based (for example API calls or transactions) and resource-based (for example instances, workloads or containers deployed).[1] The SaaS usage metrics are a per-service table, listed in the Distributed Cloud article.[1] The Platform Terms add that the customer must certify compliance with usage metrics on written request and that excess usage is chargeable.[5]
Cloud marketplace private offers
If the customer accepts a cloud marketplace private offer, the cloud marketplace account is charged for each Annual Term on the start date and each anniversary, and the Account Administrator is identified through the marketplace account.[1] For private offers, the F5 contracting entity is F5, Inc. regardless of the customer’s location.[5]
Out of scope
This article does not cover reseller pricing or discounts, which the terms leave to the customer and its reseller, the ELA contract terms (not published on f5.com), or the Unity+ partner models, which are described in the F5 Distributed Cloud article.