The SPLA Model

The Service Provider License Agreement (SPLA) is the only license agreement that permits partners to provide applications and services built on the Microsoft platform for a monthly fee. Compared with other Microsoft volume licensing plans, it has several unique features.

Monthly billing. SPLA customers pay for hosted services and applications on a monthly basis, and service providers remit monthly payments to Microsoft only for the services that actually get used. As a result, customer costs can reflect actual use, which is advantageous for certain types of businesses: for example, companies with a seasonal business cycle can purchase services from an SPLA for a few months, avoiding the cost of permanent licenses that they will not use most of the time. End customers might pay the hoster on a different schedule from how the hoster pays Microsoft: for example, a customer may sign a multiyear agreement with a hoster, even though the hoster pays Microsoft on a monthly basis.

User or per-processor licensing. The SPLA gives hosters some flexibility in how they pay Microsoft, allowing them to develop systems that can keep their costs down and to charge customers lower prices if they meet particular usage requirements. Two kinds of subscription licenses are available to hosters—a monthly per-user subscription or a monthly per-processor charge. In some cases, notably Windows Server and SQL Server, hosters can mix these models during a given month and can change them from month to month. For example, in the case of a Windows Server with few users, the service provider may pay less by reporting the number of users that accessed the server, while for a more heavily used server the provider might remit payment based on processor use, which is a fixed monthly fee regardless of how many subscribers access the server.