At Royal Bank, which is a major IBM customer with mainframes and numerous IBM products, they have a specific agreement regarding pricing. The pricing structure for large enterprise customers differs significantly from individual purchases, similar to bulk purchasing versus individual retail pricing.
Senior Lead Analyst at a marketing services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Jan 3, 2025
Pricing is not within my department, but there is generally some talk. I do not want to comment, but it is said that the licensing cost for IBM's product is on the higher side. That's what I have been hearing, but I do not want to further comment on that.
Learn what your peers think about IBM WebSphere Application Server. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: January 2026.
The solution is quite expensive. Therefore, it is not suitable for small and medium businesses. The solution is more of an enterprise application. Large employers, such as those with a large customer base, TPS 100 to 200 plus, the banking sector, and the government sector, are better suited for this solution. If an organization has fewer than 200 employees, it would not be suitable for them to use IBM WebSphere Application Server for their application, whether it is for internal or online use. IBM WebSphere Application Servers should only be considered if the organization has a concurrent load of 15,000 or more.
Enterprise Technical Leader at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 5
Mar 2, 2022
It costs more than some of the others, but, you get what you pay for. Much like TWS, IBM, the way they price their products is known as sub-cap pricing. It can be very complicated and intimidating for people who don't understand the concepts. I would like to see IBM simplify its licensing models.
Yapı Kredi şirketinde Application Infrastructure Manager at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Nov 7, 2021
The solution is expensive. We have 80,000 PVU, as this is referred to by IBM. The licensing policy is based on the PVU base. The initial setup and purchase cost approximately $4 and $5 million. The yearly support cost accounts for around 20 percent of the licensing cost, which means that we tend to pay IBM an annual sum of $800,000, which is a huge amount.
Head, Operations at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Real User
Nov 19, 2020
We used to pay about $100,000-$120,000 US or somewhere around there. That was a bit cost-prohibitive for us to continue. You need to pay for both software licenses and software support, which was the IBM backline. There were two levels of support for software and software bots. We had hardware support, which was separate, and we had to proactively monitor service maintenance support as well.
Service Relationship Manager at a manufacturing company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
May 11, 2020
The product is very expensive because PVU has to be calculated on maximun virtual cores and there is no difference between production and non-production environments.
IBM WebSphere Application Server (WAS) is a middleware platform developed by IBM. It provides a range of services and tools to help organizations develop, deploy, and manage Java-based applications. WAS is part of IBM's WebSphere product family and provides a secure, scalable, and highly available platform for developing and running web-based applications. WAS provides a secure, scalable, and highly available platform, making it an attractive solution for organizations looking to develop and...
At Royal Bank, which is a major IBM customer with mainframes and numerous IBM products, they have a specific agreement regarding pricing. The pricing structure for large enterprise customers differs significantly from individual purchases, similar to bulk purchasing versus individual retail pricing.
In Korea, when you buy IBM iOS, the WebSphere base version is included with iOS. That means no additional cost.
Pricing is not within my department, but there is generally some talk. I do not want to comment, but it is said that the licensing cost for IBM's product is on the higher side. That's what I have been hearing, but I do not want to further comment on that.
The product is expensive. I rate the product’s pricing a seven out of ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive.
It's expensive. I'd rate the pricing nine out of ten, with one being inexpensive and ten being expensive.
The pricing is a little expensive. I would rate the pricing a four out of ten.
The solution is quite expensive. Therefore, it is not suitable for small and medium businesses. The solution is more of an enterprise application. Large employers, such as those with a large customer base, TPS 100 to 200 plus, the banking sector, and the government sector, are better suited for this solution. If an organization has fewer than 200 employees, it would not be suitable for them to use IBM WebSphere Application Server for their application, whether it is for internal or online use. IBM WebSphere Application Servers should only be considered if the organization has a concurrent load of 15,000 or more.
The licensing cost is 1,000 of euros for a 30-year table.
WebSphere Application Server is expensive, so it may not be a good option for small companies.
It costs more than some of the others, but, you get what you pay for. Much like TWS, IBM, the way they price their products is known as sub-cap pricing. It can be very complicated and intimidating for people who don't understand the concepts. I would like to see IBM simplify its licensing models.
When you purchase Maximo, you get WebSphere for free. Why would you pay more for WebLogic?
The solution is expensive. We have 80,000 PVU, as this is referred to by IBM. The licensing policy is based on the PVU base. The initial setup and purchase cost approximately $4 and $5 million. The yearly support cost accounts for around 20 percent of the licensing cost, which means that we tend to pay IBM an annual sum of $800,000, which is a huge amount.
The price of IBM WebSphere Application Server could be less expensive and there is an annual license required for this solution.
It is very expensive.
We used to pay about $100,000-$120,000 US or somewhere around there. That was a bit cost-prohibitive for us to continue. You need to pay for both software licenses and software support, which was the IBM backline. There were two levels of support for software and software bots. We had hardware support, which was separate, and we had to proactively monitor service maintenance support as well.
The product is very expensive because PVU has to be calculated on maximun virtual cores and there is no difference between production and non-production environments.
The price of this product is higher than that of competitors.
There aren't any additional costs besides for the standard licensing.
The solution is very expensive compared to an open-source stack.
I don't remember the price, but there were no additional costs.