Pega licence compliance is the mechanism built into Pega Platform to help a client show that its usage stays within the parameters of its licence. The documentation describes a Master License framework that applies to many customer installations and says the system includes facilities that can be enabled to monitor usage in several categories.[1] The facility is a measurement tool rather than a gate: it does not restrict use of the system or affect performance, and it does not act as a key or trigger that enables or disables features.[1] That design means a Pega deployment can run in excess of contract terms without any technical symptom, so the reports are the main evidence a software asset manager has.
Editions
The compliance facility is part of Pega Platform itself. The page applies to Pega Platform ‘26 and is also published for earlier releases, including Pega Platform 8.8, ‘25, ‘24.2, ‘24.1 and ‘23 in the version selector, and the page shows a last-updated date of 23 June 2021 even though it is presented for the current release.[1] In Pega Platform ‘26 the reports are reached from the Configure, System, License menu in Pega Infinity Studio, which the documentation says replaces App Studio and Dev Studio from that release.[1][2] Because the facility is a Pega Platform feature, it applies whether the application runs in Pega Cloud or in a client-managed environment, although the documentation describes it as evidence about a production Pega Platform system.[1]
Metrics
Named users
Use is classified by characteristics of authenticated requestors, in two broad groups. Human users who complete business operations using the system are Named users, and processing performed through service calls, plus processing by Web users, typically through Directed Web Access, is classified as Invocation users.[1] The Named user group is subdivided by default into regular, occasional and sporadic users.[1]
A regular user is, using the default definitions, logged in and using the system to accomplish work during at least four one-hour intervals for at least one day during the measurement period.[1] The documentation does not give numeric thresholds for occasional or sporadic users in the text retrieved. It stresses that these designations apply only to a specific period, so that a user may be a regular user in one month and an occasional user in other months.[1]
Rule developers
The documentation adds a special case. Anyone who can update rules and who logs on during the measurement period, determined by the Allow rule check out setting on the Security tab of the Operator ID form, or who has created, modified or deleted a rule during the period, may be counted as one regular user if the contract licence terms say so.[1] In a development environment the licence implications are therefore dependent on contract wording, and a client should check whether non-production use is counted.
Invocation users and invocations
An Invocation user covers service-based and Web processing. Invocations are divided into Web users, those who use Directed Web Access or access the platform only through services such as portlets, and system-based users. Each completed interaction or service request that performs processing work, as defined, counts as an invocation, and queries and read-only processing typically do not.[1]
The documentation shows how to influence the classification. For each Operator ID that supports an agent, process or external assignment, the License type on the Security tab can be set to Invocation.[3] For data pages that modify data only in the Pega Platform database, the Local save check box is selected, and for integration connectors that connect to an external system but do not modify its data, the Call is read-only check box is selected.[3] These settings exist to give an accurate account of the types of rules in the production application so the client can comply with the terms of its software agreement.[3] Since a misclassification changes the counts, who can edit these settings is a governance question.
Case Type licence categories
Each Case Type has a licence category that communicates its business use, and the system uses the categories to report usage of Case Types.[4] There are four:
| Category | When Pega’s documentation says to use it |
|---|---|
| Work Execution | The Case manages the processing and completion of work, including updating other transaction systems, such as a credit card dispute resolved in the software or employee onboarding into back-end systems[4] |
| Work Management | The Case routes and tracks work among people or systems for completion in other transaction systems, and customers can submit and update it over the web[4] |
| Work Dispatch | The Case uses the software solely to run an integration with external systems, with no users involved; each integration has a unique identifier[4] |
| Complex Work Execution | The work requires a custom extension for complex scenarios[4] |
The page advises selecting the licence before the application moves to production to avoid licensing implications and inconsistencies. It also states that the Case Type has a licence category but the default audit reports do not evaluate the classification, and refers the reader to the Pega Account Executive for how the classifications affect the licence agreement.[4] So the licence category is a declaration recorded in the application, and whether it drives pricing is a contract matter.
Counting / floors
The License daemon, a background process, logs statistics each hour, summarised at the start of each day and further summarised for a month, quarter or other period, with standard reports at each level.[1] Peak counts during a measurement period, typically a calendar month, are what the classifications affect.[1] Users are identified by Operator ID throughout the facility, and the License Compliance form lets an administrator add properties to each record for reporting.[1] The documentation tells administrators not to create or update the Data-Admin-License or Data-Admin-System instances except as advised by Pegasystems Global Client Support.[1]
For reconciliation, a practical approach is to export the monthly summaries for each production system, group Named users by their classification, count invocation processing separately and compare the peaks with the quantities and definitions on the order schedule. The public sources do not state any minimum quantity or purchase floor.
Virtualization & partitioning
In a clustered, multinode Pega Platform system the facility reports consolidated usage across all nodes, and the number of nodes or the power of each server node does not affect the data. Nodes can be added, removed, started or stopped with no effect on compliance.[1] The measure is therefore independent of processors, cores and virtual machines. This differs from vendors that count capacity: scaling a Pega deployment up for performance does not itself raise the reported figures.
Cloud / BYOL
The documentation does not distinguish the facility by deployment. Pega Cloud sandboxes are sized by users: a Standard Sandbox supports up to 15 regular developers, testers or users, and a Large Sandbox up to 45 regular developers and testers.[5] These are environment sizing limits, not licence metrics, but they use the word regular in the same way as the licence classification. Pega Infinity 26 introduces a resolved-case fee for AI usage that sits alongside these measures; see the AI pricing article.[6]
Programs
The compliance facility is the only programme in this article: the Master License framework and its reports. Pega’s documentation says reports from these facilities can provide evidence that usage remains within the parameters established in the licence.[1] The Pega licensing overview places this in the context of the cloud and support terms.
Out of scope
This article does not define any customer’s contractual metrics, count of cases, sessions or interaction volumes, or price. Terms such as sessions and interactions as licence metrics are not described in the public documentation retrieved, apart from the invocation definition above. Reports in older Pega releases may differ.