Get help with FileMaker Licensing

SLA – site license agreement – if you are a small to medium organisation and use FileMaker extensively this is most definitely the most cost-effective way to license the products. You have to pay a license fee for every permanent member of staff but the amount that you pay per head is much less than a normal license – and that’s it – no other charges – you can deploy as many servers as you like and can use concurrent connections – all in the same price. The original pricing was based on the logic that 1/3 of your organisation uses FM a lot, 1/3 use it occasionally and 1/3 don’t use it at all. This is a perpetual license – once bought you own the indefinite right to use, but will only get updates if you pay the annual maintenance – which cost 20% of the purchase price.

VLA – volume license agreement – this is a perpetual license – once paid, you own the licenses, however, you will only get new versions if you pay the annual maintenance at 20% of purchase price.

AVLA – Annual volume license – Now the most popular and cost-effective way to buy licenses – it’s the lowest upfront cost because you pay one third of the full cost each year –  compare this to buying the license outright and then paying 20% maintenance to stay current an AVLA is cheaper for the first 6 years

ASLA – Annual Site license. This is the same terms as the SLA but you are only entitled to use the software so long as you pay the license fee. The cost of entry is lower as it is 33% of the full price – payable each year. Compared to buying a VLA and paying the annual maintenance at 20% this is cheaper for the first 6 years.

FLT – FileMaker licensing for teams – this was a licensing programme that was available for a short time – it allowed you buy one license per person and then it didn’t matter whether they needed to use FM Pro, FMGo or Web direct as the user was licensed for everything. The term was replaced by ‘user licensing’ when FM17 was released which is much the same except that you no longer pay for the server separately.

Concurrencies – Prior to the release of FM17, to be able to access a FileMaker solution located on a server using FileMaker Go or Web direct you needed to

Boxed product, finished goods – In the mists of time software was bought in a cardboard box with discs and a user manual. FileMaker still refers to single copies as though they were sold in this way and measures them in their sales reporting system under this term.

Bogo – Buy one get one free – this is a very cost effective way to buy for a very small organisation but you need to be aware that you can’t upgrade to future versions – you have to pay the full price again. It is also difficult to add a Server to your installation as it’s not part of the other licensing programmes.