Grafana Enterprise licensing covers the commercial, self-managed edition of Grafana. It adds “enterprise data source plugins, reporting, and role-based access control” and other premium features to the open-source product. To use them “you must purchase and activate a Grafana Enterprise license”, either from Grafana Labs or through AWS Marketplace.[1] The same Enterprise build runs without a licence as the free, proprietary binary described in Grafana Labs AGPLv3 relicensing. A purchased licence key unlocks the commercial features.[4] The pricing page also offers Enterprise visualization in Grafana Cloud “or self-hosted”.[7]
The licence is a file, license.jwt, downloaded from the customer’s Grafana Cloud account portal. It is installed by uploading it, by placing it in the data directory or by setting it in configuration. The instance must run a Grafana Enterprise build.[1] Catalog row: Grafana Enterprise subscription.
Editions
Grafana Labs publishes no price list for self-managed Grafana Enterprise. Quantities and price are set in an Order Form, defined in the MSA as the document containing “product name, license quantity (or other applicable metrics), price, Subscription Term, and billing contact”.[2] The documentation describes two commercial shapes: a standard licence with a fixed number of seats that “prevent more users logging into Grafana than have been licensed”, and usage billing (see below).[1]
Metrics
Grafana Enterprise active user. “An active user is a user who has signed in to Grafana within the last 30 days. This is a rolling window that is updated daily.”[1] The count ignores the user’s role, the number of dashboards the user can view or edit and the number of organizations the user can access.[1] The licence that sets this limit is a named user measure with a recency window. A user who has not signed in for 30 days drops out of the count.
Grafana Enterprise production instance. Contracts list production instances. “Each production instance includes a paired development instance and a paired test instance.”[1]
Counting / floors
Limit enforcement. “When you reach the maximum number of active users, only currently active users (users who have signed in over the past 30 days) can sign in.” New or previously inactive users see a licence-limit error, and administrators see a banner.[1] Catalog proof: Grafana Enterprise active users are counted over a rolling 30 days; At the active user limit new users cannot sign in.
Shared pool across instances. With several production instances, “your licensed users form a shared pool”. The documentation’s example is a contract with 3 production instances and 180 users, which may be split 60/60/60 or 100/40/40. The documentation adds: “You aren’t licensed for 180 active users on each instance.” “If the same user signs in to 2 production instances, that user counts once on each instance, consuming 2 users from your total allocation.”[1] Allocation changes are requested from Grafana support or the account team.[1] Catalog proof: Licensed users are a shared pool across production instances.
Development and test. Paired development and test instances “receive the same user count as the production instance they’re paired with”.[1] Catalog proof: Each production instance includes paired development and test instances.
Tiered licences (deprecated). Older licences set separate limits for dashboard viewers and for editors and administrators. Grafana now enforces only the total. “if you purchase 150 active users, you can have 20 admins, 70 editors, and 60 viewers, or you can have 150 admins.”[1] Versions before 9.0 follow their own documentation.[1] Catalog proof: Tiered viewer and editor licensing is deprecated; only total active users are enforced.
Concurrent sessions. “As of Grafana Enterprise 7.5, users can initiate up to three concurrent sessions of Grafana.” A fourth sign-in succeeds and signs out the longest inactive session.[1] Catalog proof: Each user may hold up to three concurrent sessions.
Usage billing
As an alternative to hard seat limits, “your license includes a certain number of included users and you are billed on a monthly basis for any excess active users during the month”. Usage billing needs a contractual agreement and an updated licence. It is available only on Grafana Enterprise 10.0.0 or later configured to refresh its licence token automatically.[1] Under usage billing, “each active user counts only once toward your license, regardless of how many instances that user signs into”. Each instance submits a daily list of hashed user identifiers, which Grafana Labs de-duplicates.[1] The shared-pool rule above therefore applies to standard licences, not to usage billing. Catalog proof: Usage billing charges excess Enterprise active users monthly and de-duplicates across instances. Catalog row: Grafana Enterprise usage billing.
Expiry
A licence has an expiration date. “If your license has expired, most of Grafana keeps working as normal.” Some enterprise functions stop or degrade, and Grafana Labs calls running on an expired licence “unsupported”.[1] After expiry, new reports and custom roles cannot be configured, custom branding is turned off and Enterprise plugins “might stop working”. LDAP, SAML, auditing and the Vault integration keep working. “The active users limit is turned off immediately”, while the concurrent session limit stays for seven days.[1] Catalog proof: On licence expiry the active user limit lifts but enterprise features degrade.
Virtualization & partitioning
The licence counts users and instances, not hardware. It is bound to a URL. “Your license does not work with an instance of Grafana with a different root URL.” The licensed URL must match the root_url setting, must start with https:// and cannot be localhost or contain wildcards.[1] A high-availability deployment of several nodes behind one URL therefore runs under one licence URL, as the licence URL should be “the URL that users type in their browsers to access the frontend, not the node hostname”.[1] Catalog proof: A Grafana Enterprise licence works only at its licensed root URL.
Cloud / BYOL
Licences bought through AWS Marketplace are activated by a separate procedure.[1] The licence token is a short-lived “digital key that activates your license”, renewed by default “every 24 hours by calling the Grafana API”. Renewal requires internet access and the auto_refresh_license setting. Instances that cannot reach the internet must contact Grafana Labs “for additional options for token renewal and license audit”.[1] Catalog proof: Licence tokens renew every 24 hours over the internet.
Contract terms
Grafana Enterprise subscriptions fall under the Grafana Labs Master Services Agreement (last updated 2025-09-30), which covers both “Software” and “Hosted Service(s)”.[2] The Terms of Service confirm that proprietary Software, including free trials, is governed by the MSA or another written licence agreement.[6] The main clauses for licence management are:
- Grant and restrictions (s.2). The licence is for “Customer’s own internal business purposes”. Customers may not make the products available to third parties other than Users. They may not bypass “any User limitations that may be described in any Order Form(s)”.[2] Catalog proof: Grafana Products may be used only for internal business purposes and user limits may not be bypassed.
- Users (Exhibit A). A User is an employee, agent, contractor or consultant of the customer or its Affiliates who is authorized to use the products, “whether via direct (i.e. with login credentials) or indirect access”.[2] Catalog proof: Users include indirect access.
- Affiliates (s.3). Each Affiliate may sign its own Order Form, which creates a separate contract.[2]
- Fees (s.6.2, s.6.4). Fees are due within 30 days, “non-cancelable and non-refundable”, and owed for the whole Subscription Term “whether or not actually used”. Disputes must be raised within ten days of receiving the invoice.[2] Catalog proof: MSA fees are non-cancelable and owed for the whole Subscription Term.
- Excess Usage and audit (s.6.5). Usage above Order Form quantities may be invoiced at then-current list price without discount, for the duration of the excess. On reasonable notice, Grafana Labs may audit use, and non-compliance must be addressed within 30 days.[2] Catalog proof: Excess Usage is invoiced at list price without discount and may be audited.
- Renewal (s.8.2). Subscription Terms renew automatically for the same length unless either party gives notice “at least sixty (60) days prior to the end”. A renewal with lower volume or a shorter term “will result in re-pricing at renewal without regard to the prior Subscription Term’s per-unit pricing”.[2] Catalog proof: MSA subscriptions auto-renew unless 60 days' notice; reduced renewals are re-priced.
- Changes (s.13.9). Grafana Labs may modify the MSA by posting a new version. For Order Forms with a fixed term of 12 months or more, changes take effect at the next Subscription Term.[2]
Programs
The Grafana Enterprise Support SLA provides support “24/7/365 for all issues”. First responses are targeted within 2 hours for Critical (SEV1/P1) issues and 4 hours for Production (SEV2/P2) issues, by ticket. The Supported Software is listed in the Service Order.[3]
Out of scope
- The free features of the Enterprise binary used without a licence key, which are licensed under the Grafana Labs License Agreement.[5]
- Grafana Enterprise Metrics and Grafana Enterprise Logs commercial licensing, for which no current public licence documentation was retrieved.
- Grafana Cloud billing, covered in Grafana Cloud pricing and usage.