Some VMware customers reported increases of 800% to 1,500% after Broadcom’s licensing overhaul. The figures came from members of the Cloud Infrastructure Services Providers in Europe (CISPE), reported to the European Cloud Competition Observatory (ECCO). They are upper-end customer reports—not a Broadcom price list, an audited market average, or a bill that every enterprise received.
What the 1,500% figure actually means
A 1,500% increase means the new price is 16 times the old price. A $10,000 annual bill becoming $160,000 is a 1,500% increase; it is not 1,500 times the former bill. Similarly, an 800% increase is nine times the old price, and a 1,000% increase is 11 times.
ECCO’s report says CISPE members described increases ranging from 800% to 1,500%. CISPE represents cloud-infrastructure providers, so the complaints are particularly relevant to hosted VMware operators and service providers. The report is an industry-backed assessment alleging competition concerns, not a final European Commission or court finding.
Why VMware bills changed after Broadcom’s acquisition
Broadcom completed its VMware acquisition in 2023. In December 2023, VMware announced that it would stop selling perpetual licenses and stop renewing support and subscription services for perpetual offerings as the transition took effect. Existing contracts remained governed by their terms, but new purchases and many renewals moved toward subscription or term licensing.
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Broadcom also reduced a portfolio of more than 160 products to a smaller set centered on VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and VMware vSphere Foundation (VVF). Products affected by the restructuring included vSphere, vSAN, NSX, HCX, Site Recovery Manager, vCloud Suite and the Aria portfolio.
Broadcom’s announcement is at VMware by Broadcom: dramatically simplifies offer lineup and licensing model.
Perpetual licenses became a support-versus-entitlement decision
A customer can generally continue using a purchased perpetual license under the applicable license terms. That does not make support perpetual. Once support expires, the customer may lose normal technical assistance, upgrades, updates and access to official fixes. Running an older release can also create security, hardware-compatibility and compliance risks.
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Ars Technica reported cease-and-desist and audit communications involving specific perpetual-license users whose support had ended. Those reports do not establish that every perpetual-license holder is being sued or forced to stop operating.
Bundles changed the price of the feature a customer actually needs
A former customer might have bought only a narrow product or capability. A current bundle can include substantially more functionality, but the customer must judge whether those additions have operational value. The cost of obtaining one required feature can rise sharply even when the nominal bundle contains more total features.
Three-year terms and cash-flow pressure
Coverage of the ECCO findings described three-year minimum commitments and, in some cases, demands for payment up front. Contract length, payment timing and discounts vary by customer, geography, reseller and negotiation, so procurement teams should obtain the signed commercial schedule rather than rely on a headline term.
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See the reported contract details at TechRadar and The Register.
Per-core licensing can penalize dense hardware
Broadcom’s August 2025 VCF documentation licenses by physical core and sets a minimum of 16 cores per processor. Every core installed in the server must be licensed, including cores disabled in BIOS, subject to that minimum. A low-utilization host with many physical cores can therefore create a larger subscription requirement than its current VM workload suggests.
See the August 2025 VCF licensing document.
Who is most exposed?
- Cloud and hosted-service providers that previously used perpetual or consumption-based arrangements.
- Organizations with many physical cores but relatively low VM density.
- Customers using only a small part of the former VMware catalog.
- Large deployments approaching renewal without a realistic migration window.
- Businesses losing historical discounts or partner terms at renewal.
- Customers whose required capability is now sold inside a broader bundle.
Your result depends on the license type, renewal date, product mix, physical host and core count, contractual minimums, support requirements, bundle utilization and regional distribution arrangements.
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What Broadcom says
Broadcom presents the changes as portfolio simplification and subscription modernization. Its stated case is that recurring licensing funds continuous innovation and upgrades, while VCF provides a more integrated platform than a collection of separately purchased products. Broadcom also promotes portability between on-premises deployments and supported clouds and says the per-core model standardizes licensing for enterprise and cloud-provider deployments.
Broadcom explains its customer strategy in this mission statement and its VCF approach in this go-to-market FAQ.
Are ordinary enterprises really paying 1,500% more?
There is no evidence that every VMware customer received a 1,500% increase. The evidence is better separated into three levels:
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- 【Sturdy & Protective】 ：Made of sturdy metal, it can support up to 17.6 lbs (8kg) weight on top; With 2 rubber mats on the hook and anti-skid silicone pads on top & bottom, it can secure your laptop in place and maximum protect your device from scratches and sliding. Moreover, smooth edges will never hurt your hands.
- 【Heat Dissipation】 ：The top of the laptop stand is designed with multiple ventilation holes. The open design offers greater ventilation and more airflow to cool your laptop during operation other than it just lays flat on the table.
- 【Portable & Foldable】：The foldable design allows you to easily slip it in your backpack. Ideal for people who travel for business a lot.
- 【Broad Compatibility】：Our desktop book stand is compatible with all laptops from 10-15.6 inches, such as MacBook Air/ Pro, Google Pixelbook, Dell XPS, HP, ASUS, Lenovo ThinkPad, Acer, Chromebook and Microsoft Surface, etc.Be your ideal companion in Home, Office & Outdoor.
- ECCO/CISPE range: members reported 800%–1,500% increases.
- Individual accounts: other coverage described increases such as 300%, three to six times, 1,050% or more in particular cases.
- Market surveys and advisers: these indicate that many organizations faced unexpectedly higher renewal costs, but they do not prove a universal 1,500% average.
Ars Technica reported Spinnaker hearing of roughly three- to six-times increases among organizations considering migration, with one reported case reaching 20 times. Those figures are attributed to Spinnaker, not independently verified market averages. See the report.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Legal and regulatory questions
ECCO and CISPE argue that contract changes, bundling, support restrictions and ecosystem dependence may raise competition concerns. The relevant legal question is whether a company with significant market power can use those mechanisms to disadvantage dependent customers or rivals. ECCO’s report is an allegation and assessment; it is not itself a legal judgment. Do not treat Broadcom as having been found to violate EU antitrust law without a final regulator or court decision.
Choosing between renewal, a freeze and migration
| Option | Best fit | Main risks |
|---|---|---|
| Renew VCF or VVF | VMware-specific features, strict support needs, limited migration time, or high value from the bundle | Lock-in, per-core exposure, unused features and uncertain future renewals |
| Keep perpetual licenses without support | Stable, isolated workloads and strong internal expertise | No normal vendor support or upgrades; security, compatibility and audit risks |
| Migrate to another platform | Unsustainable renewal economics, portable workloads and a funded migration window | Conversion, testing, retraining, redesign and parallel-operation costs |
| Use hosted VMware | Need to preserve VMware tooling while moving infrastructure to a cloud | Cloud consumption costs and continued Broadcom licensing exposure |
Alternatives worth evaluating
- Nutanix AHV: an integrated commercial hyperconverged platform; see AHV and buying options.
- Proxmox VE: open-source virtualization with optional paid support; see the product page and pricing.
- Microsoft Hyper-V, Azure Stack HCI or Azure Local: often logical for Microsoft-centric estates.
- Red Hat OpenShift Virtualization: useful where VMs and containers already share an OpenShift operating model; see Red Hat’s page.
- OpenStack or KVM: flexible at scale but engineering-intensive; see OpenStack.
Azure VMware Solution preserves VMware compatibility but is not automatically a licensing escape. Microsoft says new node purchases from November 1, 2025 no longer include a VCF license or subscription in the relevant model; customers may need portable VCF subscriptions purchased from Broadcom. Check Microsoft’s current licensing guidance.
A renewal checklist for procurement and finance
- Request the exact licensed physical-host and core count, including minimum-core calculations and disabled cores.
- Obtain a product-by-product and bundle breakdown, then mark which capabilities are actually used.
- Compare the old annual cost with the new annual subscription and three-year total.
- Record upfront payments, payment dates, renewal-increase language and contractual minimums.
- Confirm support, upgrade, portability, audit, termination and non-renewal rights in writing.
- Model hardware refreshes, host retirement and consolidation because each changes licensed physical capacity.
- Price migration discovery, VM conversion, backup and disaster recovery, monitoring, retraining, parallel running and cutover risk.
- Obtain an entitlement statement for existing perpetual licenses and document what happens when support expires.
The right comparison is total cost of ownership and operational risk, not a license quote alone. A platform with a lower subscription price can cost more after migration, new hardware, training and a temporary dual-running period.
Bottom line
Broadcom’s VMware restructuring has produced credible, documented reports of extreme increases for some customers, including CISPE members reporting up to 1,500%. That number is an upper-end complaint tied to particular contracts—especially cloud and infrastructure providers—not a universal VMware price increase. Before renewing, calculate the physical-core basis, bundle value, cash requirement and three-year exposure, then compare them with the fully loaded cost and risk of staying unsupported or migrating.
Quick Recap
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