Learn about billing preferences for licenses and subscriptions

11/14/2025 Contributors

Billing preferences allows you to determine how you handle payments and renewal behavior for your active licenses and subscriptions.
You can apply these preferences globally, so they affect all billing relationships, or at the individual subscription level when a specific contract requires its own configuration.

Marketplace subscriptions correspond to cloud marketplace contracts (AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud) where usage charges are through a hyperscaler account.
Direct licenses represent licenses purchased directly from NetApp, managed in NetApp Console through license keys, invoice recipients, and renewal options.

You can configure how your organization allocates and pays for services depending on your procurement model.

Permissions

Only users with the Account Admin or Billing Admin role can modify billing preferences. These roles ensure that only authorized users can change invoice contacts, cost centers, or renewal settings that affect the organization’s billing data.
Users with the Operator role can view existing preferences but do not have permission to edit them.

Billing preferences

Billing preferences ensure that usage charges and renewals are applied correctly. Configuring them properly reduces billing disputes and makes it easier to manage hybrid licensing models that combine NetApp-owned and marketplace-purchased capacity.

For example, global billing preferences can unify your invoice contact list so all services share a single billing administrator. You can also use cost center tags to align usage across departments or regions, and enable automatic renewal to prevent service interruptions.
New Cloud Volumes ONTAP (CVO) deployments automatically inherit the billing mode you define here, which keeps your organization’s chargeback model consistent as new systems are added.

Billing preferences are configured in the Licenses and subscriptions section of NetApp Console.

From there, you can:

Set billing preferences for your organization
Enable custom CVO configuration for advanced mapping
Edit or update marketplace subscription details

Fields

Billing fields store metadata about how each license or subscription is billed.
They describe who is billed, how renewals occur, and which account or cost center each service belongs to.

Marketplace fields

Marketplace fields describe contracts that originate from a cloud provider such as AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud.
These fields define how NetApp Console connects your subscriptions with the billing information stored in the provider’s marketplace.
They also control how renewals, regional assignments, and billing accounts are managed.

Marketplace provider — Identifies the cloud platform where billing is handled.
The provider determines the supported features, contract types, and renewal rules.
For example, AWS Marketplace subscriptions use account-based billing, while Azure may support both account and tenant-based models.
Billing account or subscription ID — Specifies the unique identifier for the account used to process charges.
This ensures that usage data is billed to the correct cloud billing profile.
Contract term — Defines the subscription duration and renewal settings.

Direct license fields

Direct license fields apply to NetApp-managed contracts purchased directly rather than through a cloud marketplace.
They define how NetApp invoices you, where the charges are sent, and what legal entity appears on the invoice.
These fields are critical for organizations using purchase orders or centralized corporate billing.

Keystone fields

Keystone fields apply to usage that falls under a NetApp Keystone subscription agreement.
They allow you to connect metered service usage to your Keystone billing profile, aligning subscription data with other capacity-based licensing models.

Agreement ID — A unique identifier for the Keystone contract.
It links the billing record in NetApp Console with your Keystone agreement and allows synchronization of usage reporting.
Service scope — Lists the services or capacity pools that fall under the Keystone agreement.
This field clarifies which workloads or deployments are included in the contract and ensures that only eligible resources are billed through Keystone.

Billing options and definitions

Billing options define how NetApp Console prioritizes and applies usage charges when multiple billing sources are connected.
They control which account is charged first and how billing switches between NetApp licenses and marketplace subscriptions when capacity limits are reached.

Terms and options

You can choose between billing modes depending on your organization’s procurement strategy:

NetApp licenses first — Prioritizes billing through active NetApp licenses.
When capacity from these licenses is exhausted, usage automatically rolls over to the linked marketplace subscription.
Marketplace subscriptions only — Directs all billing through marketplace contracts, bypassing NetApp licenses.
This is common for organizations that standardize procurement through cloud provider billing.
PAYGO (Pay-As-You-Go) — Bills only for actual usage.
Annual contract — Locks in a defined subscription term.
Auto-renew — Enables automatic continuation of licenses or marketplace contracts when they expire.
Disabling this option requires manual renewal to prevent service interruption.
Custom CVO configuration — Allows mapping multiple marketplace subscriptions to a single hyperscaler.
This might be useful when different business units or projects require distinct billing accounts within the same cloud environment.

Typical configuration paths

The following examples illustrate how different billing setups align with common cases:

Scenario	Recommended billing option
Your organization purchased NetApp capacity directly	NetApp licenses first
All usage is billed through marketplace contracts	Marketplace subscriptions only
You bill multiple projects under one cloud provider	Enable Custom CVO configuration
You want to revert to a simple single-source billing setup	Disable Custom CVO configuration

Scenario

Recommended billing option

Your organization purchased NetApp capacity directly

NetApp licenses first

All usage is billed through marketplace contracts

Marketplace subscriptions only

You bill multiple projects under one cloud provider

Enable Custom CVO configuration

You want to revert to a simple single-source billing setup

Disable Custom CVO configuration

For instance, consider an organization that combines both direct NetApp licenses and marketplace subscriptions.
A typical configuration would set NetApp licenses first as the default billing mode to use prepaid capacity before marketplace billing.
Then, under Custom CVO configuration, each hyperscaler (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) would be assigned its corresponding subscription ID.

After saving these settings, administrators can review the mappings under Licenses and subscriptions to verify that each service points to the correct account.
For additional validation, they can compare usage data in NetApp Console against cloud billing dashboards and adjust cost center tags or contacts as needed to maintain reporting consistency.