How much does VMware really cost after Broadcom (and how to cut the bill)
Why VMware bills have exploded since the Broadcom acquisition, how the new price is calculated, and three concrete ways to take back control of your budget.
If your VMware invoice made you jump at the last renewal, you’re not alone. Since Broadcom acquired VMware, the pricing model has been overhauled — and for most companies, the bill went up sharply. Here’s what changed, how the price is now calculated, and above all how to reduce the bill.
What changed with Broadcom
Three decisions transformed VMware’s economics:
- End of perpetual licenses. You no longer buy a license you own: you subscribe, and the bill comes back every year.
- Per-core billing. The price is based on the number of CPU cores, often with an imposed minimum per processor — even if your servers are lightly loaded.
- Forced bundles. Products sold separately before are now grouped into suites. You pay for components you may never use.
The combined result: a bill that, for many SMBs, has been multiplied by 2 to 5.
How the price is calculated, concretely
The new model is essentially: number of cores × price per core × subscription term, with a per-socket floor.
Take an illustrative example: an estate of three servers, each with two 16-core processors — 96 cores total. With per-core billing and a multi-year subscription, you quickly reach tens of thousands of dollars per year — where a perpetual license was once a one-time cost amortized over several years.
Multiply by the usual lifespan of an infrastructure (5 years) and the gap becomes considerable.
Three ways to take back control
1. Renegotiate and optimize
Before any renewal, audit what you actually use. Many companies pay for underused cores or unnecessary components. Consolidating workloads and negotiating can lower the bill — but you remain limited by the imposed model.
2. Reduce the number of cores
Since billing is per core, consolidating (fewer, better-sized servers) mechanically lowers the cost. Useful, but with a limit: you stay in the VMware ecosystem and its future increases.
3. Migrate to an open-source alternative
This is the most powerful lever. Moving to Proxmox VE, an open-source virtualization platform, commonly yields 70 to 90% savings on licenses. Proxmox offers high availability, live migration and built-in backup — with no per-core license.
Migration is simpler than you’d think, and can be done gradually. We detail the approach in our guide to leaving VMware for Proxmox.
The real math: beyond licenses
Comparing VMware and an alternative isn’t just about license price. Think total cost:
- Predictability. A subscription whose price can change at every renewal makes any three-year IT budget uncertain.
- Hidden fees. At hyperscalers, egress fees can weigh down the bill. At a sovereign host like Rēzau, egress is $0.
- Managed operations. Well-run infrastructure costs less in incidents and team time than a platform left to itself.
Frequently asked questions
By how much has the VMware bill increased? It varies, but a 2-to-5× multiplier is common for SMBs, due to per-core subscriptions and bundles.
Can you really save 70 to 90%? On licenses, yes, by migrating to Proxmox. Total cost then depends on hosting and management.
Does migration cost a lot in downtime? No: it’s done machine by machine, with downtime generally under a minute per VM, off-peak.
Want to quantify your savings? Explore our leaving VMware approach and our managed private cloud, or create your account to get a clear price, no surprises.