Manhattan Associates licensing is the set of commercial constructs under which Manhattan Associates, an Atlanta-based supply chain and omnichannel commerce software company, supplies its products. Today almost everything it sells is the Manhattan Active family: cloud-native solutions for warehouse management, transportation management, order management, store operations and supply chain planning, all running on a shared platform called ActivePlatform.[2] Manhattan states that these solutions are hosted on Google Cloud in a multi-tenant model and offered as a subscription service.[4] That single sentence is the most important licensing fact on the public site: a Manhattan Active customer buys the right to use a hosted service for a term, not software that it installs, counts or upgrades.
For a software asset manager the practical consequence is that the usual on-premises toolkit (installed-instance counts, processor or core metrics, virtualisation rules, maintenance reinstatement) mostly does not apply to Manhattan Active. What matters is the order form: which solution families are ordered, at which edition, with which add-ons, for which term, and with what usage or capacity measure. Manhattan’s public pages explain the first three of those clearly and say very little about the last. This wiki therefore records what is published and flags what is not.
Editions
On 2026-09-22 Manhattan announced the commercial launch of Editions for Manhattan Active solutions. There are three: Essentials, Enterprise and Enterprise Premier, offered for ActiveWarehouse, ActiveTransportation, ActiveStore and ActiveOrder, all on ActivePlatform.[2] Manhattan describes Editions as a packaging and access model for the platform, and says the editions differ primarily in breadth, depth and configuration.[1] The announcement adds that Editions are not separate or simplified products, and that customers can move from Essentials to Enterprise or Enterprise Premier without re-implementation, retraining or data migration.[2]
Each of the four solution pages carries a capability matrix with three columns, one per edition, and rows marked Included or Add-On. These matrices are the closest thing to a public entitlement schedule. They show, for example, that ActiveWarehouse includes an embedded warehouse execution system and order streaming only in Enterprise Premier,[5] that ActiveTransportation adds parcel freight modes from Enterprise and ocean, air and rail only in Enterprise Premier,[6] that ActiveOrder includes lower-lifecycle environment support from Enterprise,[7] and that ActiveStore puts self-checkout and advanced selling in Enterprise Premier.[8] The full detail is in Manhattan Active editions and solution matrices.
Editions currently exist for four solution families only.[1] ActivePlanning, which covers demand forecasting, replenishment and allocation, is presented as usable on its own or unified later with the execution solutions, and no edition matrix is published for it.[9]
Metrics
Manhattan’s public pages do not name a charge metric such as user, site, device, order line or transaction volume. What they do publish is a set of scoping constructs that an order form is built from. The catalog records them as follows.
| Construct | What the public pages say | Catalog row |
|---|---|---|
| Edition per solution | Essentials, Enterprise or Enterprise Premier, selected for each solution | Metric |
| Solution family | ActiveWarehouse, ActiveTransportation, ActiveOrder, ActiveStore, ActivePlanning; families can be added over time | Metric |
| Locations, channels and business processes in scope | A factor in choosing an edition, not described as a billing meter | Metric |
| Add-on capability | Items marked Add-On in every edition | Metric |
| Lower lifecycle environment | Non-production environments, included or add-on depending on solution | Metric |
| Premier Support program size | Hours per year up to 3+ FTE | Metric |
Manhattan lists the number of locations, channels or business processes involved as one factor in choosing an edition.[1] That is guidance for the buyer. The pages reviewed do not say the number of locations is metered or billed, and a manager should not assume either way: the order form may express volume in a form the public site does not show.
Counting / floors
No floors, minimum commitments, overage rates or true-up mechanics are published. This is the main gap in public coverage. Manhattan’s pages describe elastic scaling and auto-repair of the platform and talk about capability rather than capacity,[3] so any contract measure sits in the order form. A practical review should therefore ask for three things from the order form: the unit of measure per solution, whether the unit is a ceiling or a forecast, and what happens when the customer exceeds it.
Virtualization & partitioning
Not applicable to the hosted solutions. Manhattan runs the infrastructure on Google Cloud and states that its cloud operations team hosts and manages the solutions around the clock,[4] and the editions announcement promises zero infrastructure for the customer to manage.[2] The only virtualisation question left is legacy: Manhattan SCALE is described as a Microsoft .NET, Windows Server and SQL Server portfolio that can run on-premises, which can pull Microsoft licences into the customer’s own estate.[13]
Cloud / BYOL
Manhattan Active is the cloud model. There is no bring-your-own-licence construct in the public material. The platform uses Google Cloud services including Google Kubernetes Engine, Cloud SQL, Pub/Sub, Interconnect and BigQuery.[4] Releases arrive every 90 days with no downtime,[3] so there are no version upgrades to license separately. Developer Hub documentation and tools such as Data Save and Data Stream are described as provided with the solution subscription,[15] although the edition matrices list Data Save and Data Stream as an Add-On. The two statements are in tension, and the contract should settle which applies.
AI capability is a second ambiguity. The solution matrices mark ActiveAgents and Agent Foundry as Add-On in every edition,[5] while the Agent Foundry page says Agent Foundry and ProActive are included with all Manhattan Active solutions.[16] Both statements are quoted in the catalog so that a reviewer can see them side by side.
Programs
- Evergreen innovation. All Manhattan Active solutions receive new features every 90 days, and the editions announcement describes continuous delivery and quarterly innovation as automatic.[2]
- Customer Support. Manhattan describes 24/7 major incident and product issue support, continuous monitoring of application and cloud infrastructure, and delivery of code updates.[10]
- Premier Support. A tailorable add-on service with program sizes from 1000 hours per year to 3+ FTE.[11]
- Services. Professional services, training, Continuous Workflow Validation and enterprise mobility hardware procurement are sold as services around the subscription. See Manhattan support, services and trust programs.
Legacy and naming
Manhattan’s history matters for contract reviews because older agreements use older names. The company’s timeline lists Manhattan SCOPE in 2007, Manhattan SCALE in 2009, and the launch of Manhattan Active Solutions, including Manhattan Active Omni, in 2017.[12] The current site presents the former Omni functions as ActiveOrder and ActiveStore. The public site does not publish legacy perpetual licence or maintenance terms, so on-premises estates need their original licence agreements. See Manhattan legacy products and naming.
Audits and compliance
The public material says nothing about licence audits, metering reports or verification rights. Because Manhattan hosts and operates the solutions itself, a reviewer should expect any usage reporting and dispute provisions to be in the order form and master agreement, not in customer-run tooling. On the assurance side, Manhattan lists ActivePlatform and ActiveSCALE as the Manhattan Active SaaS applications in scope for SOC 1, SOC 2 and SOC 3 audits.[17]
Out of scope
This article does not cover the Manhattan website terms beyond noting that the public Terms of Use govern www.manh.com and transfer no rights in site content to the visitor.[14] It does not cover third-party software that Manhattan resells or integrates, such as payment, tax, carrier or voice products, which carry their own licences. It does not cover Manhattan’s customer-specific discounts or any pricing.