Exchange 2013 Packaging, Pricing, and Licensing

Exchange Server 2013 maintains the product’s existing licensing model but makes significant changes to pricing and use rights. Exchange 2013 is the latest version of Microsoft’s software for on-premises e-mail systems with integrated calendar, contact, and task management. The licensing changes will increase licensing costs for some organizations, particularly those enabling access to Exchange by mobile devices or using virtualization to deploy their Exchange server infrastructure.

Same Licensing Model

Like earlier versions, Exchange 2013 follows a server-Client Access License (CAL) licensing model: each server running Exchange components, called an instance, generally requires a server license, and each client accessing Exchange 2013 requires an Exchange 2013 CAL or pair of CALs.

Exchange Server 2013 server software is offered in the same two editions as before, Standard and Enterprise. For smaller organizations, Standard edition is sufficient, while large organizations will likely run a mix of Standard and Enterprise editions, with Enterprise deployed on servers that host large numbers of mailboxes. Prices for server licenses haven’t changed, and, as with prior versions, each license provides the right for a particular device to run a single instance of the software on the physical hardware or within a virtual machine (VM). (For license pricing, see the illustration “Exchange License Prices and SA Grants“.)