What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SQL Server?

We have two kinds of licenses for SQL Server: perpetual and subscription-based. We already have the perpetual license. The subscription-based license is renewed every year. The perpetual license was obtained previously, while the subscription-based license is a newer solution we've deployed. We have both perpetual and subscription-based licenses. Perpetual license lacks support.

On a scale from one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive, I rate the solution's pricing a seven out of ten.

SQL Server is generally more expensive than other solutions. I would rate the price of the enterprise version of SQL Server as a ten out of ten for being very expensive compared to the standard version. The enterprise version costs approximately 20 times more than the standard version.

The product is offered at a very high price, specifically for the enterprise segment, making it very difficult for our company to sell the product to our customers. In the enterprise segment, the tool has quite a bit of experience. For normal cases, the prices are okay. For development purposes, the tool is free. For medium-sized customers who don't need some enterprise features, the tool would be available for 200 USD per month. For the enterprise segment, the tool's cost can go up to 6,000 USD.

I rate the product’s pricing a six out of ten.

The SQL server is affordable. I rate the pricing a five out of ten.

We pay a yearly licensing fee.

SQL Server is an expensive solution. Their pricing structure and licensing options are not budget-friendly, so I believe it is an essential factor to consider when choosing the right product.

The SQL Server pricing model is based on CPU cores that your database server utilises.

When looking at the cost of licensing SQL Server the most important thing is to not buy more than you need. 

Whether you are in the cloud or on-premises you need to know if you can get by with the Standard Edition rather than the Enterprise Edition. 

When evaluating we found we only needed one Enterprise Edition for our Cluster Server because of reporting (SSRS) otherwise we could have used a two-node Cluster under Standard Edition. 

If the staying current is important then maybe hosting in the cloud where Microsoft keeps you on the latest version might be your best solution. As with all SQL Server decisions, the correct answer is: "It all depends"! 

We pay a license fee, it could always be cheaper.

This is a very cheap product.

It is annual.

We pay a monthly subscription fee.

Hi Miriam,
just for the data warehousing side. My advice for people wanting to use SQL Server for data warehousing is to consider manual partitioning on SE vs database supported partitioning on SE. SE lists for USD3,700 per core and EE lists for USD14,000 per core. The optimiser is "dumbed down" on SE so it does not resolve queries on partitions very well. (Partition pruning is not done properly). So if you implemented manual partitioning you are going to pay about USD10K per core less. On a 16 core machine that's USD160K or so depending on your deal with MSFT.

Basically, this means you can get a 16 core CPU running SQL Server SE for about USD50K purchase and cheaper by the month. It's worth the extra effort to do manual partitioning over buying EE. Just my 2 cents worth! 

The price of SQL Server is great. In my company, SQL Server is part of the Microsoft Suite, we don't have to pay for any additional license costs, it's quite cost-effective for us.

SQL Server SE is popular in Romania because of the price. It doesn't do everything but for the price, it's fine. The price for the Standard Edition is approximately $3,700 USD per core. Once you include technical support, SQL Server is cheaper than PostgreSQL and MySQL. It is relevant to consider that the query optimizer works differently between the Standard Edition and the Enterprise Edition. The Standard Edition is cheaper but the Enterprise Edition has better performance. This is something that Microsoft had confirmed when we switched from 2008EE to 2014SE. Another thing to consider is that some applications require a certain edition of the solution. Power BI Mobile, for example, will only run with the Enterprise Edition.

I can't speak to the pricing. I don't have any information on that. It's my understanding that we pay for licensing on a yearly basis.

Its licensing is yearly. There are no additional costs. There is only the subscription license.

Synapse is a bit costly. If I compare it with different databases, I think it's a reasonable price. If I'm talking about licensing of the Oracle, it seems that normal organizations have it and some smaller organizations can also afford it, which is a good thing.

Licensing fees increase depending on size and performance. If you want higher performance, you should go for a different course.

The price of the solution is fine.

The pricing is pretty decent. It's less expensive than Oracle. While the solution started out really reasonable, it's gotten a little bit more pricey, as Microsoft keeps changing how they want to license it. Whether you're doing it in the cloud or on-premise change the costs involved. A lot of times it might be more cost-effective to do it in the cloud. Microsoft includes a lot of the licensing in the cloud.

We are on a monthly subscription and the price could improve. However, the price has worked out well in some deployments. The problem is you never know what kind of services have been installed and you have to be in touch with many people, such as which servers are active or which are not. I did face a couple of issues in terms of subscriptions and the pricing model. They have improved over time.

SQL Server is under a license from Microsoft.

We are a reseller of Microsoft. We also signed the SPLA agreement, which stands for Services Provider License Agreement. So we are able to use Microsoft products in our data center in order to provide cloud services to our customers.

In a standard package, you need to buy two core packs. If you need four core packs the price is around € 8,000. There are more options in the cloud where fees are around € 60 a month. The cost is scaled and if you're deploying in the cloud you need to buy a machine infrastructure as a service. We only sell the license across the cross solution provider (CSP) program. If you have less than 25 users, you can buy an SQL standard per server license where the cost is around €1,200 approximately.

The price of SQL Server could be better in the African market. The licensing model needs to be improved, it is confusing.

While the price of the solution is comparatively cheaper, people are paying to Microsoft in any event for other things that they're using. Although the licensing cost could be cheaper, this depends, as there is nobody who only uses the database with Microsoft. Every company has Windows, Office, Active Directory and all the security features of Microsoft. This means that, overall, when one buys these licenses together, he also gets the database. The focus is not on the price of the database, but what is actually being paid to Microsoft. The licensing price could be better, more user-friendly. Things should be moved from the enterprise to the standard edition.

The licensing cost varies widely, depending upon what methodology you employ. It could be very cheap, for example, it could be less than $2,000. Alternatively, it can go up to well over $100,000.

There is a license required for the use of SQL Server and we are on an annual subscription.

If you are looking for a small setup and do not want an open-source solution or invest too much money in your database then SQL Server is a very good choice.

The solution does come at a cost.

CPU Core-based Licensing & Windows Licensing costs are additional overheads compare to open source databases like MySQL and PostgreSQL. Managed SQL Server Database Service in Azure is lagging with many features like Linked Server, DB Mail. SQL Server deployment in the Cloud does not seem to be cost-effective with respect to the Licensing cost and average Life cycle of 5 years (I reiterate, this is in my opinion). If you take Postgre SQL and MySQL, they provide almost all the same features even though they are both open source databases.

The solution can get expensive. You do need to pay a licensing fee in order to use it. I can't speak to the exact costs. There are different subscription types and the subscription a company needs depends on the deployment they have in mind.

There is a license required for this solution.

There is a need to pay for the license for SQL Server. We have an enterprise license, which we consider to be fine.

The solution could be priced more competitively. We'd, of course, like it to be lower. Microsoft can sometimes be expensive. Each customer needs their own license.

There is a license required for this solution. One of the problems is for smaller businesses to purchases a license because it is expensive for a lot of them to afford.

We pay per second of usage, but there are different offerings of the license.

It comes with the bundle package that we have. We have Microsoft Volume Licensing, so we don't have to pay for it separately. It is a part of the package.

It is something we have been using for a lot of years. If we're paying, it should be reasonable.

Some of our clients purchase the license and others do not; they use Express SQL Server.

I believe the licensing to be on an annual basis. In 2019 we purchased a three year license.

Customers do have to pay to use the solution. They tend to pay on a yearly basis.

This is a very affordable solution, which is why it's used so widely in the market. I think one of the strongest points of SQL Server is the reasonable cost.

It's a bit expensive. The licensing is expensive.

Pricing is a bit on the higher side. It could be reduced.

I don't have any details on the licensing in terms of any details or costs. It's not an aspect of the solution I directly deal with.

It is expensive, especially when you have open-source products that are just about as functional and they're free. They might want to consider re-evaluating their pricing. We purchased it in retail. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of 9,000. There is just the standard licensing fee. If they migrate this product the way they're trying to do everything else, eventually, it is going to be subscription-based, which is going to suck, but that's the way the industry is going, so it is what it is.

SQL pricing is slightly high compared to where it was before. That said, compared to other products like Oracle, they are still cheap. It's not overly expensive in comparison to others. The final price you can expect all depends on your requirements. A standard version of SQL is always cheaper than an enterprise. If you're going to go on a cluster, it's particularly expensive. However, when it comes to the value and what is provided, that is also important. It all depends on what you need. I cannot just blindly say that it's expensive or cheap as it all depends on your requirement. Comparatively, SQL is cheaper than other products like Oracle. Oracle is really expensive compared to SQL.

The cost isn't overly expensive. It's very reasonable. Our customers are happy with the price. It's in a good range.

The price of the solution could be reduced, it is expensive.

The cost is high and because it's an expensive product, we are in the process of moving towards open-source solutions.

The enterprise version of the solution needs to be priced more competitively. We have a couple of models. We lease through Azure monthly, which is for the Standard version. We have had to purchase the Enterprise version to the tune of a few hundred thousand dollars, which is just ridiculous. On top of that, there aren't really any other knock-on costs.

With recent releases, the Standard Edition (cheaper) SKU has some of the earlier version Enterprise features. SQL Express has some limitations. The Azure Platform as a Service option remains relatively expensive, at least in South Africa, compared to on-premises, but it is worth exploring.

The solution doesn't cost as much as Oracle. Oracle is more expensive. That's always been the complaint with Oracle. They're very good, however, they're the most expensive out there and that's how they're losing business right now. Their big jump in the cloud happened way too late in the game, and everybody just jumped on the cloud due to high costs. If you were to compare pricing, SQL Server is much cheaper.

You do need to pay for licensing in order to use the solution. It is a little bit expensive, however, it's not the most expensive option on the market. It's cheaper than the competition, however, as I mentioned, it's still pretty pricey.

The solution certainly comes at a cost, however, for me, it's an acceptable cost. I find it acceptable due to the fact that it would be free if I use MySQL on-premise, however, then it would be hard to hire people to maintain it. It's a give and take. That said, the license cost is very very high. I'm afraid if I use it on a larger scale it will cost a lot.

Cost is a major derivative for any organization. It has a reasonable cost value, and its cloud support is also better than others. Comparatively, Oracle can do the same things or is even better in certain areas, but it is expensive. The cost along with the support are the plus factors for SQL Server.

While there are costs involved in using the product, I'm not a part of the billing or payments team. I can't speak to how much the solution costs or how much our organization pays. I do not know if it's monthly or yearly and how long our contract is for, if we have one.

The solution is very affordable. It can be used free of charge. There are payment packages for SQL based on dollars for any level of additions. They offer enterprise, express, and production additions that are available as well as community additions and student additions, which are completely free.

The licensing is reasonable. It's not too expensive. We are charged on a yearly basis, however, I don't know the exact amount we are charged. I'm not a part of the billing and payments department.

The price could be cheaper.

This is an expensive product, especially when you need two servers, or for enterprise solutions. We pay approximately $12,000 USD per month for both the server and the license.

We didn't have any licensing costs for SQL Server.

Pricing is reasonable for small organizations, but the scaling increases the price. For larger organizations that would be using enterprise solutions, it contains some hidden costs.

SQL Server is a cost-effective solution for a small database.

I, unfortunately, do not handle licensing, so I don't know what the costs are for the product.

I'm not the person that deals with billing and payments, so I don't know what the cost of the solution is, or if it is monthly or yearly billing.

It is expensive, but you get what you pay for. Since we are a cloud-based company, there is AWS pricing on top of the SQL Server pricing. The Enterprise Edition can typically sell from around $1000 dollars a month, which is not cheap. Then, there is an additional one-time Windows cost, based on the code, which can go anywhere from $30,000 to $40,000 for the license.

It's good.

Migration local database into cloud

The setup cost is high, but it will return every penny.