Veeam license calculator

One Veeam Universal License (VUL) instance covers one protected VM or cloud VM, one server, three workstations, 500 GB of unstructured data, or ten Microsoft Entra ID users. A workload only counts once it has a restore point from the last 31 days, and restores never use a licence. Foundation, Advanced and Premium are sold in packs of 10; Essentials in packs of 5, up to 50.

A VM that is backed up and also replicated is counted once. A replica VM that is itself added to a backup job has its own restore points, so it counts as another instance. Veeam only states that replication target hosts don’t need licensing for socket licences, so the calculator counts replica or CDP target VMs that aren’t in any job as 0 and asks you to confirm.

Yes, if the share is added on its own: Veeam rounds each source down to the nearest 500 GB, so 499 GB or less uses nothing, and 1,490 GB uses 2. If you add a NAS at its root, all its shares are added together before rounding, so two shares of 490 GB and 600 GB use 2 instances rather than 1. If the same source is in several jobs, Veeam adds the jobs first.

No. Veeam licenses unstructured data on the raw, uncompressed size of the protected source, using the largest size in the last 30 days. How much the data changes, and how well it deduplicates, makes no difference.

The job or policy decides. A machine in a Workstation-type policy managed by Veeam Agent counts as a third of an instance; a job managed by the backup server can’t use the Workstation type, so any machine in one counts as a full server, even a PC. Unix machines and Linux on Power are always servers.

Veeam counts every enabled member user in the tenant, one instance per 10, and doesn’t allow partial coverage. Guest users and disabled users have been free since Veeam Backup & Replication 12.3.1. Entra ID can also be licensed per user on its own, with a minimum of 10 users.

Shared, resource and group mailboxes don’t use a licence if they have no Microsoft 365 licence assigned. Every user whose mailbox, OneDrive or personal site is backed up needs one, and so does every user with access to a backed-up Team or SharePoint site. External and guest users are free. Veeam Backup for Microsoft 365 is licensed per user, minimum 10, separately from VUL.

No. Veeam states that Data Platform licences can’t be used for Microsoft 365, Salesforce or Kasten, and vice versa. Microsoft 365 and Salesforce are licensed per user, and Kasten per Kubernetes worker node. Backups that Kasten exports into Veeam Backup & Replication don’t use VUL.

No. Cloud VMs and supported cloud databases and file systems each use one instance from the same VUL pool installed on the backup server. Azure SQL databases share their server’s licence, and resources with only manual snapshots are free. Veeam’s AWS and Azure plug-in pages say only subscription VUL is supported, so check before using perpetual licences for them.

Existing perpetual socket licences still work on a Windows backup server, where they protect all vSphere and Hyper-V VMs, including agents and plug-in application servers running inside those VMs, while VUL covers everything else. Essentials instance licences can’t be merged with them. They can’t be used with a Linux backup server or the Veeam Software Appliance. Veeam no longer sells new perpetual socket licences and publishes no fixed socket-to-VUL conversion ratio.

No. Community Edition covers 10 instances, but Veeam’s policy prohibits combining it with paid licences, or running several Community installs, to protect parts of the same infrastructure. It also can’t be used to provide services to third parties.