Under Broadcom, VMware is licensed by physical core, but two minimums decide the number you actually pay for. Understanding how the 16-core-per-CPU floor and the short-lived 72-core order minimum work is the difference between a fair renewal and a bill padded with cores your hardware does not contain. This page unpacks both, then hands you a live figure for your own estate.
| VMs | Hosts | VMware VCF / yr | Proxmox VE / yr | 3-yr saving |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 50 | 3× | £50,304 | £2,820 | £142,452 |
| 100 | 4× | £67,072 | £3,760 | £189,936 |
| 250 | 8× | £134,144 | £7,520 | £379,872 |
| 500 | 15× | £251,520 | £14,100 | £712,260 |
All figures are indicative estimates for planning only and subject to change; licence prices vary by reseller and deal size, and any monthly finance figure is subject to credit approval — not a quotation.
Where the numbers 16 and 72 come from
Broadcom counts every populated socket and rounds it up to a floor. The standing rule is 16 physical cores per CPU: a processor with fewer than 16 cores is still billed as 16. On top of that, an April 2025 change briefly imposed a 72-core minimum on each licence order — roughly two well-populated hosts' worth — regardless of how small the estate was. After heavy customer backlash it was rolled back later in 2025, leaving the per-CPU floor as the binding minimum most buyers now hit.
How the floor inflates a small-cluster bill
The pain lands on lean, low-core-count hosts. A pair of eight or ten-core CPUs carries perhaps twenty physical cores, yet the 16-per-CPU floor bills it as thirty-two — and any residual order minimum can push a two or three-host cluster higher still. You pay a subscription on cores that physically do not exist and run nothing. Edge sites, ROBO racks and small production clusters feel this most, because the gap between real cores and licensed cores is proportionally largest there.
How to see your own wasted-core figure
Generic percentages help nobody at renewal. Enter your host count, sockets and cores per CPU into the calculator on this page and it works out your licensed-core total, the physical cores you actually own, and the difference — the wasted cores you are funding. It then shows the annual cost of that gap and what the same workload looks like on Proxmox, Nutanix, Azure Local or XCP-ng, so you can weigh a renewal against an exit with real, UK-priced numbers rather than guesswork.
FAQs
Is the VMware 72-core minimum still in force in 2026?
The 72-core-per-order minimum was introduced by Broadcom in April 2025 and reversed later that year after significant pushback. In 2026 the binding rule for most buyers is the 16-core-per-CPU floor. Some quotes and renewals may still show minimum-order behaviour, so always confirm exactly what your own channel quote applies.
What does the 16-core-per-CPU minimum actually mean?
Every physical processor in a licensed host is billed as at least 16 cores. A CPU with 8 or 10 physical cores still counts as 16 for subscription purposes. You multiply that floor by the number of populated sockets on each host, then total it across the cluster — so lower-core chips are penalised most.
What are wasted cores and how do I reduce them?
Wasted cores are the gap between the cores you are billed for and the cores your hardware physically has, created by the per-CPU floor. You cut them by using higher-core CPUs, consolidating onto fewer well-populated hosts, or moving the workload to a platform that is not core-licensed. The calculator above quantifies the gap for your estate.