Octopus Deploy Licensing & Purchasing F.A.Q.

Octopus Server edition is available as a 30 day free trial for any scenario, including production, commercial use. After the trial period ends you can keep your working configuration and upgrade to a paid license and continue deploying uninterrupted.

Octopus Cloud is an alternative that is hosted by us, and is also available as a 30 day trial. No credit card is needed to create an Octopus Cloud trial instance. You can convert the Cloud trial to a paid instance at any time during or after the trial period, and keep all of your instance configuration.

Please contact sales to trial the Enterprise edition.

All trials include full access to our customer success and technical support teams. If you get stuck during any part of your evaluation, please reach out to support

No. If you're using Octopus Server you'll be able to activate a new license key without reinstalling the software and without losing any data.

If you're using Octopus Cloud, once you convert your cloud instance to a paid plan your license will be updated automatically. You can convert or restore any cloud instance within 90 days of it being deactivated.

Yes, we offer a Community edition of Octopus for individuals making personal projects or open source software. It's free to self-host using Octopus Server, and we have a low-cost Cloud Community plan that is $10 per month.

See our Community documentation for more details on the various limits that apply to the Community edition.

The Octopus Server 10-Target license has been discontinued.  If you have five (5) or less deployment targets, the community license might work for your needs.  Please review our documentation for any additional limitations.  If you require more than 5 deployment targets you will be required to upgrade to an Octopus Server Professional license with the number of targets you need.

We price per target.  Targets are typically the virtual machines running Tentacle, Kubernetes Clusters, Azure web applications, and other deployment targets as specified in our documentation.

The number of targets is determined by counting all targets in all environments in your instance (or across instances for self-hosted customers). Targets that are disabled do not count toward your license limit.

We offer volume discounts when purchasing a license for 500 or more targets.  Please reach out to sales@octopus.com for more information.

We also offer discounts for customers who want to sign a multi-year contract.  The discount will be a percentage off the list price as it exists when you renew.

No, we do not offer any academic or non-profit discounts.

Octopus Cloud and Octopus Server have all the same functionality. Octopus Cloud is the same software as Octopus Server, except we host it for you.

Some configuration and diagnostic functions in Octopus Cloud differ from the Octopus Server that relate to providing Octopus as a service. These include disabling specific items related to the cloud server's provisioning and management.  For more information, please refer to our documentation.

Octopus Cloud is priced per target according to the average number of deployment targets for a billing cycle.  Targets are typically the virtual machines running Tentacle, Kubernetes Clusters, Azure web applications, and other deployment targets as specified in our documentation.

The number of targets is determined by counting all targets in all environments in your Octopus Cloud instance. Targets that are disabled do not count towards your license limit.

The table below shows our current pricing for Octopus Cloud.

*When on an annual plan. Cost increases to $15 / target USD when on a monthly plan.

**When on an annual plan. Cost increases to $180 / target USD when on a monthly plan.

Octopus Server is software you download and install yourself - a "self-hosted" solution. This allows you to run Octopus in your own data center or within your own Amazon or Azure cloud environment.

With Octopus Server, you manage the underlying virtual or physical server Octopus Deploy runs on. You also need a SQL Server database and disk storage for application packages. You are responsible for patching the operating system, installing Octopus updates, and security and backups.

Octopus Cloud is the easiest way to run Octopus Deploy. We host Octopus Deploy for you. We are responsible for monitoring, upgrades, maintenance, and all the other day-to-day tasks required to run Octopus Deploy.

For these reasons, we recommend Octopus Cloud. You should only self-host Octopus Deploy when you have specific security or privacy requirements. For example, you must integrate with an internal Active Directory domain. Or, you cannot store data on or connect to one of our three Azure regions.

Octopus Cloud runs within the Microsoft Azure cloud. When you create an Octopus Cloud instance, we provision a Linux container to run the Octopus Server in, along with all the other resources we need to provide Octopus as a service. This is deployed to one of our Kubernetes clusters. A fun fact: we use Octopus Deploy, with our multi-tenancy functionality, to deploy your Octopus Deploy instance.

Octopus Cloud begins as an unlimited trial that allows you to start using Octopus Deploy straight away for free. You can upgrade to a paid plan at any time during the 30 day free period, and you'll be asked to subscribe and provide payment details. You're billed each month on the same day of the month as the day you upgraded your plan.

Octopus Cloud is billed monthly based on the average number of deployment targets you have registered for the billing cycle. For example, you normally have 30 targets, but for five days in June, you have 100 targets due to unexpected traffic. You’ll pay $625 for June instead of the usual $450. We’ll periodically check the number of targets throughout the day, so the bill might not be $625 unless you had those 70 extra targets for exactly five days.

Your bill may vary monthly as the number of targets increases or decreases on a monthly plan. To avoid surprises, you can limit the maximum number of targets by configuring a cap in your Octopus Account.

Yes, when you upgrade your trial instance to a paid plan you will have the option of paying monthly, or annually in advance. Annual plans charge $12 per target per month, whereas month to month plans is $15 per target per month.

For monthly subscriptions, we accept credit card (VISA, Mastercard, and American Express).

For annual subscriptions, we accept credit cards, wire transfers, or checks. We will issue you an invoice with payment instructions included.

Yes. If you have an existing self-hosted Octopus Server instance, and you want to switch to Octopus Cloud, you may want to migrate all of your existing projects, variables, history, and configuration from your self-hosted instance to your new Octopus Cloud instance. Any unused term on your Octopus Server license can be credited to your Octopus Cloud account. Please read our guide for migrating to Octopus Cloud.

You can cancel your Octopus Cloud subscription at any time. To do this, log in to your Octopus Account, select your instance, use the finance pane to see your plan. From here you can click "Cancel plan" to cancel any future automatic renewals of your subscription. Once you do this, when the current monthly period ends, your instance will automatically deactivate and you won't be billed any further.

After 90 days, if your instance remains left deactivated, all data will be automatically deleted.

We will give you the ability to retrieve a database backup of your Octopus Cloud instance before terminating your account. Contact us if you need assistance with this.

Paid cloud instances will stay online as long as the monthly renewal charge is successful. When a payment attempt fails we will make several further attempts, and email you on each attempt. After repeated failures we will stop attempting and your license will become invalid, causing your instance to be deactivated automatically after a couple of days.

After deactivation, we keep all data for 90 days before deleting anything. Within this period you can reactivate your instance in about 10 minutes with no data loss. When 90 days have passed the data will be deleted and be unrecoverable.

Yes, all cloud instances have storage limits and are subject to our Acceptable Usage Policy.

Community instances

Professional instances (including trials)

Enterprise instances (including trials)

Maximum File Storage

This includes the following data that we store for your instance:

• Artifacts
• Packages
• Task Logs

An external package repository may help keep things under your quota. We recommend Feedz or MyGet which integrate nicely with Octopus and have a wide range of plans that suit most needs.

Maximum Database Size

This limit applies to configuration data stored in the database, like project and deployment configuration or inline scripts. This includes any reference data we install as part of the product.

Maximum Resource Retention

To help with these new limits, free instances have release and package retention policies limited to 30 days. Paid instances will default to 30 days retention for new lifecycles/spaces but can be configured to any value.

For more information please refer to the Retention Policy documentation. Please note that this will apply to any custom lifecycle retention policies as well.

When a limit is reached

When any limit listed above is reached your instance is capped. New packages will no longer be uploaded to the internal feeds, deployments may be unable to complete and new configuration data may not be created until more space is made available.

To prevent hitting these limits we recommend configuring your retention policies appropriately based on your usage.

Reach out if you have specific requirements

We understand that this may cause issues for some scenarios, so if you have any questions, concerns or special requirements, we encourage you to reach out to us at support@octopus.com.

The Octopus Cloud platform fee pays for the following functionality:

• Hosting the instance with the appropriate resources
• 24x7 monitoring and alerting
• Automatic upgrades to the latest version of Octopus
• Regular maintenance is performed on the instance
• Automatic instance recovery with support staff to step in to manually restore
• Network security and DNS configuration for the Octopus Cloud instance
• Windows and Linux dynamic workers.
• Bandwidth and storage
• File and database backups
• Additional backend support and maintenance

That refers to the task cap configuration found in every Octopus Deploy instance.  It is how many concurrent deployments and runbook runs (and other jobs) the instance can perform at a time. 

Professional Cloud instances have a platform fee.  Customers on a Professional subscription pay a $3 per target per month platform fee.  We offer a 20% discount on the per-target price for customers who opt for an annual deal and stay on the default of five concurrent tasks.  Any customers on an annual subscription who want to increase the number of concurrent tasks will pay an additional fee.

Deployments and runbook runs are among Octopus Deploy's most computationally expensive tasks.  More concurrent deployments and runbooks means more resources the Octopus Instance requires from the Octopus Cloud platform.  That increase could come from some or all of these items:

• CPU / RAM on the Octopus Instance
• Database resources
• File storage
• Larger dynamic workers
• More frequent dynamic worker usage
• More bandwidth
• Additional back-end support and maintenance

Only if you increase the current number of concurrent tasks.  Otherwise, platform fees will be charged on the next renewal date.

Reach out to sales@octopus.com.  We will generate a prorated invoice for the remainder of the annual subscription term.

The Octopus Cloud platform will allocate the appropriate amount of resources to ensure your instance can process the purchased number of concurrent tasks. 

If you previously self-hosted Octopus Deploy on Windows it isn’t a straight 1:1 match with Octopus Cloud.  The cloud platform runs on Kubernetes, Azure SQL, Azure File Storage, and uses Azure VMs (dynamic workers). 

One of the advantages of Octopus Cloud is you don’t need to worry about that anymore.  The Octopus Cloud Platform is responsible for determining the number of nodes, DTUs, CPU, and RAM allocated to every instance.  It will allocate the appropriate resources to your instance to support the number of purchased concurrent tasks.

If you are concerned with uptime, you can find our latest SLO in our documentation.

Please reach out to sales@octopus.com so we can better understand your use case. 

Octopus Server is a deployment option for Octopus Deploy that allows you to install Octopus Deploy on servers that you manage. Typically this is used to install Octopus Deploy in your own data center, or when you want more control over the security and privacy of your Octopus Deploy installation.

Octopus Server Community is available for 12 months from when you register. This period can be extended by 12 months at no cost at any time.

To extend your Server Community license, log in to your Octopus Account and renew your Community license. You can then update your Octopus Server with the extended license and your deployments will continue uninterrupted.

Octopus Server is priced per target according to the aggregate total of deployment targets you are allowed to register across all instances.  Targets are typically the virtual machines running Tentacle, Azure web applications, and other deployment targets as specified in our documentation.

The number of targets is determined by counting all targets in all environments in your Octopus Server instance. Targets that are disabled do not count towards your license limit.

The table below shows our current pricing for Octopus Server.

To get a quote or place an order, visit our pricing page.

If you have a scenario that involves bursting the number of targets for part of the year (e.g., over the holiday season or tax time), or you deploy to a large number of Azure Websites or other PaaS targets, please contact us for pricing more suited to your usage model.

It’s easy to add more targets to your license.  Targets are added to your license at a pro-rata rate.  For example, if your professional license expires in six months, and you want to add 10 targets, you’d be charged $720 (pro-rated rate of $72 * 10 targets).  You can use our upgrade and renew form below or contact us for a quote to place an upgrade.

Adding targets or moving from Professional to Enterprise, your license will NOT restart the license term.  

Octopus Server edition is licensed annually and includes technical support, bug fixes, enhancements and new features released during the license term. Octopus Deploy is not available on a perpetual basis. Please see below for what happens if your license expires.

You can renew your Octopus Server license using our Upgrade & Renewal Form:

At renewal time, your renewal price will be our then-current pricing for the applicable product, as shown on our website. Please note that our prices may change from time to time.

Before making a change that would affect the price of your next renewal, we will send your nominated technical and billing contact a notification with at least 90 days' notice. When this happens, you will have the option to renew your license under the old pricing for a set amount of time. For this reason, it's important to keep your technical and billing contact details current.

Octopus will show alerts to your Octopus Administrator users as the end of the license term approaches. Upon expiry of the license term, these alerts will be visible to all other users of your Octopus Deploy installation, in case the expiry alert wasn't seen by your Octopus Administrators.

After the expiry date, you will no longer be able to use Octopus Deploy to deploy releases of your software. You will, however, still be able to log in and use most other features of the software.

We will also send emails to your nominated billing and technical contacts around the renewal date. If for some reason you are unable to renew temporarily, we are happy to work with you and can grant an extension. Please contact us if this is the case.

The number of instances depends on the license edition you purchase.

These instances may be installed on the same virtual server or different servers. This allows you to, for example, set up a production Octopus Server, another isolated Octopus Server for a different part of your organization, plus one for testing.

An instance is the database used by the Octopus Deploy application. When an Octopus instance is created, a unique identifier is inserted into the database.

Your license key specifies the number of deployment targets you can have registered across ALL instances. For example, if you are licensed for 50 deployment targets, you may have 25 targets on one instance, 15 on another, with ten on another.

For new Octopus Server licenses, go to our pricing page, select the number of targets you plan to deploy to and click Buy Now. In the Payment method section, choose Quote. This will generate a no-obligation quote for you. The person you enter as the Billing contact will receive a PDF copy of the quote via email.

To renew or upgrade your Octopus Server license, go to our Upgrade & Renewal Form, and enter the serial number from your license key or a previous order number. You will then be able to select your upgrade or renewal choice and have the option to generate a quote.

For Octopus Cloud on a monthly billing cycle, we don't issue quotes, as the price charged will vary from month to month.

For Octopus Cloud on an annual billing cycle, contact us for a quote.

For new Octopus Server licenses, go to our pricing page, select the number of targets you plan to deploy to and click Buy Now. You can pay immediately, or choose the Purchase Order option to have us generate an invoice with payment instructions.

To renew or upgrade your Octopus Server license, go to our Upgrade & Renewal Form, and enter the serial number from your license key or a previous order number. You will then be able to select your upgrade or renewal choice and have the option to place an order.

For Octopus Cloud on a monthly billing cycle, you will need to enter your billing details and payment method in your Octopus Account. You will receive an invoice each month after your nominated payment method is billed. You can also set a limit on the maximum number of targets to ensure there are no surprises.

For Octopus Cloud on an annual billing cycle, contact us for a quote. If you accept the quote, we'll send an invoice with payment instructions.

When you create a quote or order, there is a field to enter a Customer Reference. This value will appear on the quote or invoice PDF that we generate. You can use this field to put your own internal purchase order number.

If you are purchasing an Enterprise License, we will fill out your vendor/security forms and register in your procurement portal.  Please reach out to sales@octopus.com for help.

If you are purchasing a Professional license, we will NOT fill in custom vendor forms, security forms, supplier risk questionnaires or assessments, or register or submit invoices via procurement portals such as Coupa. These tasks take considerable time and effort to complete, which takes time away from being able to provide exceptional customer service to all customers equally.

You should be able to gather all the information you need for your form from the following links:

• Our Vendor Profile (PDF) has all the information that most vendor forms ask for
• Our Legal page contains links to various policies, tax residency information, and various ID numbers
• Our Security page has a lot of information on security and trust at Octopus

If you cannot purchase our software without us completing these forms for you, you may be able to purchase through a reseller instead.

For Enterprise Licenses, our payment terms are Net 30 day.

For Professional Licenses, our payment terms are strictly Net 0 day. If you have placed your order but find that you are waiting for your organization to make the payment, you can contact us and request a fully-functional temporary license key.

For Enterprise Licenses, we accept credit cards (VISA, Mastercard, and American Express), and these give you immediate access to your license key. We also accept wire transfer or check.  Payments via wire transfer can take a few days, and checks can take weeks to arrive in Australia. When these payments arrive, they need to be processed manually and matched to an order. If we cannot easily match your payment to an order, this can further delay the processing time. Please ensure you include the order ID in your payment to allow faster matching.

For Professional Licenses, we accept credit cards (VISA, Mastercard, and American Express), along with wire transfers.

We don't want your payment unless you are completely happy and offer a cooling-off period of 30 days.

If, within 30 days of your initial order, you contact us and request a refund for any reason (or no reason), we will refund your order in full.

For more details see the Octopus Customer Agreement.

Octopus Deploy is an Australian company and a resident of Australia for tax purposes.

We charge Australian GST on sales to customers in Australia.

European customers can supply a VAT number which we will include on the invoices we issue you. We do not collect VAT on our sales.

Customers in the United States may have sales tax applied at the checkout, based on the specified billing address. You may also need a copy of our W8-BEN-E form (use this in place of a W9), or one of our certificates of tax residency - you can find these on our legal page .

Yes, your license to use Octopus Server, and your terms of service for Octopus Cloud, are both governed by the Octopus Customer Agreement. This agreement is also shown to you when installing Octopus Server, when registering for Octopus Cloud, and when placing an order with us.

For Enterprise Licenses, license agreement modifications will be considered, but we reserve the right to reject any proposed changes.  

For Professional Licenses, we do not accept changes to our customer agreement on a per-customer basis.

Yes. You can reassign your license or Octopus Cloud subscription by changing the technical and billing contact details any time. You can do this via your Octopus Account.

Yes. If your company prefers to purchase through a distributor or reseller, we are happy to work with them. Resellers can contact us for information on joining our reseller program.

If you need to purchase through a reseller but don't have a relationship with one, contact us for suggestions.

Resellers, please see our reseller page for instructions on how to place orders.

If a reseller has a valid tax exemption for a jurisdiction in which we collect tax, then we may be able to remove the tax from applicable purchases. We will require a copy of the tax exemption certificate before we are able to make any exemptions.