SQL Server 2025: licensing rules and tips for optimizing license purchases

From choosing the right licensing model to strategies for reducing costs and maximizing value

From choosing the right licensing model to Software Assurance — strategies to reduce costs and maximize benefits with SQL Server 2025.

SQL Server is Microsoft’s relational database management system, used worldwide to store, process, and analyze business data.

A new version is on the way—SQL Server 2025, currently in preview—with advanced features, from vector data types to deep Azure integration and native AI tools, suggesting rapid adoption in enterprise production environments.

To avoid being unprepared at the time of official release (General Availability), it is crucial to understand the licensing rules of the latest version and how they intertwine with those of previous releases.

Choosing the right edition 

As with previous versions, SQL Server 2025 also offers a range of editions designed to meet needs from small local development to complex enterprise environments.

Among the free options are the following:

• Express, a lightweight and free version ideal for small projects or embedded applications, with limitations on memory and functionality.

• Developer, historically, this free edition has always included all the features of the commercial Enterprise edition, but could only be used for development and testing, never in production. However, this created a problem: those developing for a Standard installation would end up testing features that wouldn’t be available in production.

To solve this inconsistency, SQL Server 2025 introduces two distinct Developer variants:

• Standard Developer Edition – exactly replicates the features of the commercial Standard edition, so developers working in this context will use the same features they’ll find in production.

• Enterprise Developer Edition – faithfully corresponds to the commercial Enterprise edition, offering a development and test environment fully aligned with high-end scenarios.

In this way, the generic “Developer” edition as we knew it until version 2022 is effectively split into two targeted editions, eliminating the risk of surprises or incompatibilities at release time. 

For those requiring full functionality or operating with mission-critical workloads, the commercial editions make up the core offering:

• Standard, which combines essential features with a contained economic profile, suitable for organizations with moderate performance requirements.

• Enterprise, the most comprehensive in terms of features: it includes advanced tools like integrated AI and end-to-end BI solutions, in addition to unlimited virtualization (when covered by Software Assurance).

If you want to explore the differences between version and edition, and understand how these concepts affect licensing, you can find all the details in our SQL Server licensing guide.

Choosing the licensing model 

Once you’ve identified the most suitable edition, the next step is to understand which licensing model applies. The basic rules remain those already seen with SQL Server 2022, maintaining the same licensing structure.

The choice of licensing model mainly depends on the deployment scenario and user access patterns. In SQL Server 2025, the available models are:

• Server + CAL – available only for the Standard edition. This requires purchasing a server license for each instance plus a CAL (Client Access License) for every user or device accessing the database, whether directly or indirectly. It’s a cost-effective model when the number of users is small and easily traceable, but attention must be paid to the multiplexing rule, which requires counting all users even if access is through intermediate systems.

• Per Core – obbligatorio per l’edizione Enterprise e disponibile come alternativa per la Standard. In questo caso non si contano gli utenti, ma si licenziano i core fisici o virtuali su cui gira SQL Server, con un minimo di 4 core per processore fisico o per macchina virtuale. Le licenze sono vendute in pacchetti da 2 core. Questo modello diventa particolarmente interessante quando gli utenti sono numerosi o impossibili da quantificare, come nel caso di applicazioni accessibili da internet.

   

Tips to optimize SQL Server 2025 licenses 

As mentioned earlier, SQL Server 2025 retains the same core licensing rules as the 2022 release. Let’s look at some tips for optimizing license costs.

1) Evaluating cost impact 

To choose the most suitable licensing model, it’s essential to evaluate its cost impact. 

In the case of SQL Server Standard Edition, the Server + CAL model generally becomes more expensive than Per Core when the number of users exceeds around 30, considering the minimum of 4 cores required per physical processor or virtual machine.

This threshold becomes clear with an example based on the official SQL Server 2022 pricing (as the new edition’s pricing is not yet available):

• Server + CAL: server license ≈ €850, CAL ≈ €198.

• Per core: 2-core pack ≈ €3,392.5, minimum 4 cores (2 packs) = €6,785.

Assuming 30 users:

• Server + CAL = €850 + (30 × €198) = €6,790

• Per core = €6,785

Result: at around 30 users, the two models break even. Beyond that threshold, Server + CAL becomes increasingly expensive, since each new user adds about €198, while with the per core model the cost remains fixed.

2) Evaluating virtualization rights with SA 

Beyond comparing models, it’s essential to consider virtualization rights, because with Software Assurance (SA) the cost dynamics change dramatically.

If you license all physical cores of a server with SQL Server Enterprise and have active SA, you get unlimited virtualization: you can run any number of SQL Server instances on virtual machines on the same host, without additional licensing costs for each VM.

Without SA, however, each virtual machine must be licensed separately based on the assigned virtual cores, with a significant economic impact in environments with many VMs. 

This benefit makes SA a strategic choice in consolidation and virtualized-cluster scenarios, because it:

• reduces the total number of licenses needed; 

• simplifies management; 

• offers flexibility in workload movement; 

• enables other significant benefits. 

The annual cost of Software Assurance (SA) typically represents about 25% of the license price, but the benefits it provides can result in significant savings and greater operational flexibility. Referring to the official SQL Server 2022 price list, we can quantify more precisely:

• For SQL Server Standard – per core, licensing the minimum 4 cores costs about €6,785. 25% of this is €1,696.25 per year in SA.

• For SQL Server Enterprise – per core, again with 4 cores, the license costs about €26,012, with annual SA of around €6,503.

In return for this cost, SA unlocks key benefits: unlimited virtualization in Enterprise, Azure Hybrid Benefit to reuse licenses in the cloud, license mobility to move them between hosts or to Azure without waiting 90 days, and version upgrades included.

We also discussed other optimization tips in another article, where we explored two often-overlooked areas. The first concerns licensable SQL components: installing only the truly necessary components (e.g., database engine, Analysis Services, or Reporting Services) on dedicated servers can reduce the number of cores that need to be licensed and thus lower costs.

The second relates to the specific rights in high availability and disaster recovery scenarios provided with SA, which allow passive instances to be maintained without additional licenses, provided they are used only for failover or periodic testing.

Conclusion 

SQL Server 2025 brings important technological innovations but confirms most of the known licensing rules. This means that those who prepare in advance can build an optimized licensing plan today.  

If during the planning phase you already know which licensing model to adopt and whether or not to opt for Software Assurance, you will reach the release date with a clear plan, a predictable budget, and the certainty of fully leveraging the economic and operational benefits of your investment.

At WEGG, we are experienced Microsoft licensing consultants (including SQL Server), so we can support you in calculating the exact SQL Server 2025 licensing requirements, selecting the most suitable model, and defining an optimization strategy to reduce costs and maximize benefits, both on-premises and in the cloud.