HCP Terraform and Terraform Enterprise are the commercial editions of Terraform, HashiCorp’s infrastructure-as-code tool. HCP Terraform is a SaaS application that runs Terraform remotely and stores state and secrets. Terraform Enterprise is a self-hosted distribution of HCP Terraform for organizations with strict security and compliance requirements.[12] HCP Terraform pricing is based on managed resources, charged per resource per hour.[1] HashiCorp’s billing definitions call this unit the Resource Under Management (RUM).[2] Terraform Enterprise has custom pricing.[5] It reports billable RUM counts back to HashiCorp in its usage data.[7] For the free command-line edition, see HashiCorp Business Source License. For the contract framework, see HashiCorp licensing.
Editions
HCP Terraform offers Free, Essentials, Standard and Premium plans. Plans and billing are managed per HCP Terraform organization, so one user may work in organizations on different plans.[1]
| Plan | Published list price[5] | Managed resources[1] | Concurrent runs (remote / agent)[1] | Notable features[1] |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | No charge | Up to 500 | 1 / 1 | Remote execution, VCS integration, private registry, SSO |
| Essentials | From USD 0.10 per resource per month, rated hourly at USD 0.00013 | Unlimited | 3 / 1 | Adds teams and custom RBAC |
| Standard | From USD 0.47 per resource per month, rated hourly at USD 0.00064; includes HCP Waypoint | Unlimited | 10 / 10 | Adds policy enforcement and cost estimation |
| Premium | From USD 0.99 per resource per month, rated hourly at USD 0.00135; includes HCP Waypoint | Unlimited | 200 / 300 | Adds audit logging and priority support |
| Terraform Enterprise | Custom pricing, Premium support included | Customizable resource limits[12] | n/a | Self-managed, air-gapped and active/active installs[12] |
| HCP Terraform Europe | Custom pricing, includes HCP Waypoint Europe | n/a | n/a | Geographic service locality in Europe |
The developer documentation says Standard and Premium pricing comes from HashiCorp Sales. The pricing page publishes “starting at” prices for both.[1][5] HCP Europe organizations support specific contract billing plans only. They cannot use pay-as-you-go or Flex, or change plans themselves.[1][4][6][13]
Terraform Enterprise bought through IBM Passport Advantage Online is listed as IBM Terraform Self-Managed Premium. Its installation key takes the place of the HashiCorp licence.[7]
Metrics
The metric is the managed resource. HashiCorp defines a Resource Under Management as a resource in an HCP Terraform managed state file, counted from the first plan or apply run (or provisioning) and where mode = managed in the state file.[2] Each infrastructure object counts as one resource, including “Local Only” resources.[2] Managed resources include resources from Terraform providers, resources multiplied by count and for_each, and resources created by modules and no-code modules.[1] The billed quantity is the Hourly Peak Managed Resources: the sum of the highest number of concurrent managed resources in each HCP Terraform organization during an hourly billing period.[2]
Counting / floors
Five rules govern the count:
- Hourly billing at the peak. Each managed resource is charged per hour from provisioning until destruction. Each partial hour is billed as a full hour, and the peak number in the hour sets that hour’s charge (catalog rule).[1]
- Exclusions. Resources defined as null_resource or terraform_data, data sources (mode = “data”), local values and variables are not counted (catalog rule).[1][2]
- Workspaces and Stacks combined. Workspace and Stacks resources under management are added together when costs are calculated.[1]
- Aggregation across organizations. RUM is billed on the Hourly Peak Managed Resources across all HCP Terraform organizations linked to a single HCP organization, which is the billing boundary (catalog rule).[2]
- Free plan cap. Free organizations are limited to 500 managed resources. An organization can downgrade to Free only if it has 500 or fewer (catalog rule).[1][4]
HashiCorp publishes a worked example for Essentials with 1,000 managed resources. At USD 0.0001359 per resource-hour, that is USD 0.14 per hour and USD 97.85 for a 30-day month.[3] The example also covers a busier hour. If 1,000 resources are added and 500 changed and 500 destroyed within that hour, the peak is 2,000 and that hour is billed at the 2,000 count.[3] The hourly rate in this example differs from the rounded rate on the pricing page (USD 0.00013).[5] The managed resource count is on the organization’s Usage page. Charges are shown in the HCP portal, which refreshes hourly.[3]
Because the billed quantity is a peak, short-lived resources created and destroyed within one hour still count for that hour.[1] Consolidating or removing unused resources reduces the managed resource count.[3]
Concurrency
Concurrency is a plan limit, not a metric. Standard and Premium organizations on a self-service pay-as-you-go or Flex plan can buy extra remote and agent runs in the UI. Runs come in increments of 5, up to 50 additional runs and 100 agents.[4] Contract customers buy concurrency through their account team in bundles of 25 remote runs and 50 agent runs, at most two bundles (catalog rule).[4] Plan upgrades take effect immediately and are billed from the upgrade date. Downgrades take effect at the end of the billing period.[4]
Terraform Enterprise usage data
Terraform Enterprise sends HashiCorp licence usage metrics automatically by default.[8] The collected payload includes billable_rum_count, the count of all billable RUM on the installation, with per-workspace average, median and percentile figures.[7] HashiCorp describes the reported data as the minimum needed to validate licence usage as defined in its contracts.[8] Air-gapped installations can opt out with TFE_LICENSE_REPORTING_OPT_OUT. The customer must still collect and send licence utilization metrics manually (catalog rule).[8] Under the General Terms, usage above the Entitlements must be reported and is then added and co-termed to the Order Form.[10]
Virtualization & partitioning
The metric counts resources in Terraform state, not the hosts that run Terraform, so there are no virtualization or partitioning rules. HCP Terraform agents can run Terraform on private or on-premises infrastructure without changing the managed resource count.[1] For Terraform Enterprise, the licence is applied to the deployment through the TFE_LICENSE or TFE_LICENSE_PATH environment variable. Kubernetes and OpenShift deployments can also supply it as a secret.[7]
Cloud / BYOL
HCP Terraform is a hosted service, so there is nothing to bring. Terraform Enterprise is self-managed and may run on premises or in a cloud environment of the customer’s choosing (see HashiCorp licensing). A HashiCorp licence also authenticates to the HashiCorp image registry. Passport Advantage customers instead use a separate access key for the IBM Entitled Registry.[7]
Licence expiry
Production licences for Terraform Enterprise do not terminate on their expiry date. Running instances keep operating, but a valid licence is needed to restart a deployment or install a new one (catalog rule).[7] An expired HashiCorp licence cannot authenticate to images.registry.hashicorp.com. Installations that pull from that registry then cannot reinstall, scale or upgrade.[7] The tfectl app license command shows the expiration date.[7]
Programs
Pay-as-you-go. Pay-as-you-go charges monthly for actual managed resource usage, calculated hourly.[1] Activating it requires organization owner permissions, an HCP account and a valid payment method. The new feature set is available and usage tracking starts immediately.[13] Pay-as-you-go customers can downgrade to the Free plan.[3]
HashiCorp Flex. Flex is committed-usage pricing with volume discounts through annual commitments.[1] Each HCP Terraform organization must be linked to the HCP organization that holds the Flex contract. The HCP admin who activates Flex manages the billing relationship.[6] New HashiCorp organizations get USD 500 in trial credits. These can temporarily activate an Essentials plan until the Flex balance is allocated.[6] Flex Multiyear balances can be used for up to three years and are drawn down by consumption.[9]
Contract plans. Organizations with enterprise agreements can agree custom contract plans with HashiCorp sales. These may include volume discounts, committed usage and bundled features.[1]
Support lifecycle. Terraform Enterprise v1.2 is the last LTS version, with LTS support ending November 2027. Versions released after April 2026 follow IBM’s Support Cycle-2.[11]
Out of scope
This article does not cover Terraform Community Edition (see HashiCorp Business Source License) or the licences of third-party Terraform providers. It also leaves out HCP Waypoint as a separate product, the HCP Terraform API rate limits, and contract-specific rates and discounts, which HashiCorp does not publish.