Veeam Universal License (VUL) is the primary license for Veeam Data Platform, the package that delivers Veeam Backup & Replication, Veeam ONE and Veeam Recovery Orchestrator. A VUL is a License Instance: a portable unit that any protected workload consumes at a fixed rate, whether the workload is a VM, a cloud VM, a physical server, a workstation, unstructured data or Microsoft Entra ID users.[1] Veeam also still names legacy per-CPU Socket licenses (no longer sold as new perpetual licenses), per-TB Capacity Packs, per-User offerings for SaaS backup, per-Node licensing for Veeam Kasten, and rental licenses for Veeam Cloud & Service Providers (VCSPs), which are paid monthly from reported usage.[1] The contract terms are in the End User Software Licensing Policy (v19, published June 2026), which is part of the Veeam EULA (last updated 2026-08-25).[1][2]
Editions
Veeam Data Platform comes in four VUL packages. Each package includes Veeam Backup & Replication for virtual hypervisors, hyperscaler clouds, physical servers, workstations and endpoints, unstructured data, enterprise applications and Entra ID, plus Veeam ONE.[1]
| Offering (Licensing Policy v19) | License types | License unit | Pack / limit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Veeam Data Platform Premium | Subscription, Perpetual, or Rental | License Instance | Packs of 10 | Adds Veeam Recovery Orchestrator |
| Veeam Data Platform Advanced | Subscription, Perpetual, or Rental | License Instance | Packs of 10 | Recovery Orchestrator available as an add-on |
| Veeam Data Platform Foundation | Subscription, Perpetual, or Rental | License Instance | Packs of 10 | |
| Veeam Data Platform Essentials | Subscription or Perpetual | License Instance | Packs of 5, maximum 50 | Small businesses only; cannot be merged to go above 50 |
| Capacity Pack (Premium / Advanced / Foundation / Essentials) | Subscription or Perpetual | TB | Essentials: 5 TB to 50 TB | Large NAS and object storage |
| Entra ID standalone | Subscription | User | Minimum 10 users | Premium / Advanced / Foundation tiers |
| Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365; Veeam Backup for Salesforce | Subscription (M365 also Rental) | User | Minimum 10 users | |
| Veeam Recovery Orchestrator | Subscription or Rental | Orchestrated Instance | Packs of 10 | Requires Veeam ONE |
| Veeam Kasten for Kubernetes | Subscription | Node | Per worker node | |
| Veeam Backup for AWS / Azure / Google Cloud | Subscription | License Instance | Packs of 10 VUL |
Package upgrades (Essentials, then Foundation, Advanced, Premium) are available for all VULs. Product edition upgrades are offered only for perpetual Socket licenses. Offering downgrades are offered only for perpetual licenses. All upgrades and downgrades require current Support and Maintenance.[1]
Legacy per-CPU Socket offerings. Veeam Data Platform Advanced, Foundation and Essentials are still named as Socket bundles “for VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V VM workloads only”. Perpetual Socket licenses “have ceased new sales”, and Veeam says it has prioritized VUL since 2019. The Essentials Socket bundle comes in packs of 2 Sockets, up to 6 Sockets. Veeam Management Pack for Microsoft System Center has a 10-Socket minimum.[1] Veeam gives perpetual Socket customers one free VUL per Socket, up to 6 VULs.[1]
Metrics
Seven catalog rows. The names below are the Veeam “license unit” names. See the rows for the definitions.
| Veeam name | Catalog row | Unit | Used by |
|---|---|---|---|
| License Instance | License Instance | Other | Veeam Data Platform VUL; Veeam Backup for AWS / Azure / Google Cloud |
| Socket | Socket | Socket | Legacy per-CPU Socket bundles; Management Pack |
| TB | TB | Other | Capacity Packs for unstructured data |
| User | User | User | Entra ID standalone, Microsoft 365, Salesforce |
| Orchestrated Instance | Orchestrated Instance | Other | Veeam Recovery Orchestrator |
| Node | Node | Other | Veeam Kasten for Kubernetes |
| Point Per Unit (PPU) | Point Per Unit (PPU) | Other | VCSP rental licenses |
For the general category these metrics belong to, see Subscription and consumption licensing. The Socket metric is a physical-host metric, like the ones compared in Processor and core licensing.
Counting / floors
The rules below come from Licensing Policy v19 (June 2026) unless stated otherwise.
Instance consumption per workload type. “All protected workloads consume one (1) license” for these licensed objects:[1] Catalog: VUL License Instance consumption per workload type, proof VUL License Instance calculation table.
| Workload type | Licensed objects | VUL consumed |
|---|---|---|
| VM or Cloud VM | 1 | 1 |
| Server or Application Server | 1 | 1 |
| Workstation or endpoint | 3 | 1 |
| Unstructured Data | 500 GB | 1 |
| Identity – Entra ID | 10 users | 1 |
31-day protected-workload window. A workload counts only if it “had at least one restore point created by the software in the past 31 days in the form of a backup or native snapshot”.[1] Restore operations do not consume licenses.[1] Catalog: Protected workload: restore point in the past 31 days.
Pack sizes and the Essentials cap. Premium, Advanced and Foundation VULs come in packs of 10. Essentials comes in packs of 5 with a maximum of 50, cannot be merged with another license to go above that maximum, and needs an upgrade SKU to grow. Merged Essentials keys are “still restricted to 50 VULs and 50 TBs”.[1] Catalog: VUL pack sizes and Essentials 50-license maximum.
Capacity Packs. When a Capacity Pack is present, all unstructured data is protected by the capacity licenses and “VULs will no longer be used” for it. A TB is measured on raw protected source data (not deduplicated, not compressed), so the data change rate has no effect.[1] Catalog: Capacity Pack replaces VUL for all unstructured data.
Entra ID. All enabled member users must be licensed. Partial coverage is not allowed. Guest users do not need a license. The standalone offering has a 10-user minimum and requires active telemetry.[1] Catalog: Entra ID: all enabled member users, minimum 10.
Exceeding the license (software behaviour). The Veeam Backup & Replication 13 User Guide (page updated 2025-11-14) describes how far VUL usage can go over the licensed count. With license autoupdate enabled, you can exceed by up to 10% (or 10 instances, whichever is greater) with no warning. Between 10% and 20% you get a weekly warning. Beyond 20%, the extra workloads are not processed. With autoupdate disabled, the bands are 5% and 10%. Socket licenses cannot be exceeded, and neither can per-TB capacity for unstructured data.[3] The EULA says Veeam provides no Maintenance for overage use.[2] Catalog: VUL exceed thresholds (autoupdate on 10%/20%, off 5%/10%).
Grace periods (software behaviour). From the License Expiration page (updated 2026-07-22): Subscription 30 days; Rental 30 days; Evaluation and NFR 0 days. Perpetual Instance and Socket licenses have no grace period and show a notice 14 days before support expiry.[4] Under the Licensing Policy, when a VUL expires, all product functionality is disabled after the grace period. When Socket support expires, the only effect is that you cannot install later updates.[1] Catalog: Grace period after license expiration.
Source infrastructure and License Keys. If you use one License Key across several source infrastructures, you must use centralized license management (for example Veeam Backup Enterprise Manager). Sharing a source infrastructure between licenses with different terms is prohibited. The one exception is Foundation, Advanced and Premium VULs on a Subscription contract.[1] Licenses are non-transferable.[1][2] Catalog: One License Key per source infrastructure; centralized license management, Licenses are non-transferable.
Audit. Veeam may audit no more than once a year, unless it has reasonable grounds. You must provide the requested logs or infrastructure access within 30 days. If the audit finds a breach, you pay the cost of a third-party auditor.[2] Catalog: Audit: once per year, 30 days to provide logs or access.
Virtualization & partitioning
Socket counting. One Socket license covers each “occupied motherboard CPU socket as reported by the hypervisor API”. Only source hosts, where the protected VMs run, need licenses. Target hosts for replication and migration do not. Each node of a cluster must be licensed.[1] Catalog: Socket counting: occupied CPU sockets on source hosts.
Socket and VUL together. “When a Socket license is present, all VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V sockets will be protected with the Socket license”. You cannot protect some vSphere or Hyper-V VMs with Sockets and the rest with VUL. Other hypervisors (AHV, Oracle Linux KVM, Proxmox VE, Scale Computing HyperCore), cloud VMs, agents and unstructured data are covered by VUL. In a merged key, the Socket key sets the edition, support level and support ID.[1] Catalog: Socket licenses protect all vSphere and Hyper-V VMs when present.
Under VUL, a VM consumes one instance whatever the hypervisor. The Licensing Policy publishes no host-level partitioning rule for VUL. For a comparison with host-based metrics such as Broadcom’s per-Core model, see VMware vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation licensing and Virtualization and partitioning.
Cloud / BYOL
Cloud VMs (Amazon EC2, Azure VMs, Google Cloud VMs) are licensed objects and consume one VUL each. Veeam Backup for AWS, Azure and Google Cloud are sold as subscriptions in packs of 10 VUL.[1] If Veeam software comes pre-installed on a Veeam-published marketplace image, you may use it “only in VMs in the marketplace deployed from a Veeam-published image”.[1] Catalog: Veeam-published marketplace image: use only in VMs deployed from it. The retrieved documents do not publish any separate bring-your-own-license policy for specific clouds.
Programs
VUL subscription. A subscription gives you the right to the latest version for the purchased term, with support included for the whole term. The maximum prepaid subscription term is five years. Multiyear subscriptions are billed either upfront or annually.[1] Catalog: Veeam Universal License subscription.
Veeam Cloud & Service Provider (VCSP) rental. The EULA prohibits processing third-party data or offering commercial hosting “without purchasing a specific license to do so”.[2] VCSP rental licenses lift that restriction, but only if the provider reports license usage to Veeam every month.[8] Consumption is reported “by the third day of each month through the VCSP Pulse platform”, and the provider is billed by a Veeam Aggregator.[9] Each workload consumes rental points at a Point Per Unit (PPU) rate. For Veeam Data Platform (Foundation / Advanced / Premium), a VM, server or application uses 11 / 13 / 16 points, and a workstation uses 4 / 5 / 5. Reported usage is the high watermark.[5] Rental licenses have a 30-day grace period and can be exceeded by 20 workloads or 20%, whichever is greater.[6] Under one contract, a partner can issue new licenses for any workload type without placing a new order each time.[10] Catalog: Veeam Cloud & Service Provider (VCSP) rental licensing, No third-party data processing without a specific license, VCSP monthly usage reporting obligation, Rental exceed limit: 20 workloads or 20%, 30-day grace.
No Commit and Volume Rental Agreements. A No Commit agreement starts with a 75-day license, extended by 30 days each time usage is reported. A Volume Rental Agreement (VRA) gives longer terms in exchange for a monthly minimum commitment.[7] Catalog: Volume Rental Agreement (VRA).
Out of scope
- Veeam Data Cloud and other Veeam-hosted services: covered by separate agreements listed at veeam.com/legal, not by this Licensing Policy.[1]
- List prices and part numbers: the Licensing Policy publishes no SKU part numbers or list prices. The catalog SKU rows are offering names only.
- Veeam Kasten details: the Licensing Policy refers to separate Kasten pricing and license pages, which this page did not retrieve.
- SaaS rental (Veeam Data Cloud for VCSPs) and the PPU values for standalone products other than Veeam Data Platform and VMs.
- Free and Community Edition limits beyond the Licensing Policy definitions.
Catalog rows
- Metrics
- Rules
- VUL License Instance consumption per workload type
- Protected workload: restore point in the past 31 days
- VUL pack sizes and Essentials 50-license maximum
- Socket counting: occupied CPU sockets on source hosts
- Socket licenses protect all vSphere and Hyper-V VMs when present
- Capacity Pack replaces VUL for all unstructured data
- Entra ID: all enabled member users, minimum 10
- One License Key per source infrastructure; centralized license management
- Licenses are non-transferable
- No third-party data processing without a specific license
- VUL exceed thresholds (autoupdate on 10%/20%, off 5%/10%)
- Grace period after license expiration
- Rental exceed limit: 20 workloads or 20%, 30-day grace
- VCSP monthly usage reporting obligation
- Veeam-published marketplace image: use only in VMs deployed from it
- Audit: once per year, 30 days to provide logs or access
- Programs
- SKUs (offerings)
- Sources
- Veeam End User Software Licensing Policy (v19, June 2026)
- Veeam End User License Agreement
- Exceeding License Limit (Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide)
- License Expiration (Veeam Backup & Replication User Guide)
- Veeam Data Platform (Veeam Rental Licensing and Usage Reporting Reference Guide)
- Exceeding License Limit (Veeam Rental Licensing and Usage Reporting Reference Guide)
- Rental Agreements and Licensing Terms (Veeam Rental Licensing and Usage Reporting Reference Guide)
- Expanded Usage Rights (Veeam Rental Licensing and Usage Reporting Reference Guide)
- Pay-As-You-Go Pricing (Veeam Rental Licensing and Usage Reporting Reference Guide)
- Portable Licensing (Veeam Rental Licensing and Usage Reporting Reference Guide)