Cisco Access Manager Licensing and Ordering Guide

Core Capabilities and Benefits

Access Manager offers a powerful, scalable, and flexible way to ensure only authorized users and endpoints can access your resources. It enables IT teams to effortlessly enforce and monitor network access for users and endpoints based on user identity, endpoint identity, network context, and identity and security context from external integrations like Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD). Core capabilities include:

• Provides strong, seamless certificated based authentication without requiring user interaction, enabling granular access control and micro-segmentation via TrustSec based on verified endpoints and user identity.
• Supports organizations that prefer or require traditional credential-based authentication by integrating with Microsoft Entra ID while still enabling identity-driven micro-segmentation and policy enforcement.
• Allows organizations to extend identity-based access control to IoT, OT & other un-managed endpoints based on endpoint MAC addresses or endpoint groups, optionally using Identity Pre-Shared Key(iPSK) for wireless endpoints for added security maintaining network segmentation and reducing risk
• Provides flexible authorizations options from L2-L7 including Dynamic VLANs, ACLs, Group Policy & TrustSec based micro-segmentation

These capabilities deliver key customer benefits:

• Deploy identity-based access in minutes using your existing Meraki infrastructure without network changes or specialized training
• Secure every connection by authenticating managed/unmanaged users and endpoints using multiple methods across your environment
• Stop attackers from moving laterally with identity-based segmentation that isolates compromised assets and limits blast radius
• Meet zero-trust requirements faster with automated policy enforcement, granular access controls, and comprehensive audit trails
• Reduce costs and free IT teams by eliminating hardware infrastructure, maintenance cycles, and specialized staffing requirements
• One Meraki Dashboard to simplify endpoint monitoring & troubleshooting by unifying campus access, cloud security, and threat detection

Licensing Model 

Cisco Access Manager is offered as a single, comprehensive license called Cisco Access Manager Advantage. This license is separate from the Meraki cloud-managed Switch and/or Access Point Advantage licenses. This license includes the full suite of available features and capabilities. For the list of supported features in the license, please refer to the “Features and Benefits” section of the Cisco Access Manager Datasheet.

Note: While Access Manager licensing provides TrustSec (Adaptive Policy) SGT assignment to sessions, the policy enforcement is dependent on the network devices' feature licensing (MS or MR Advantage) and hardware capabilities.

Transition from Early Access to General Availability  

Customers who had signed up for Early Access before Access Manager General Availability (GA) on November 10th, 2025 have automatically received an extension, guaranteeing uninterrupted access until January 31, 2026. To continue using Access Manager after January 31st, 2026, please purchase Access Manager licenses or request a Meraki Free Trial by contacting your Sales Representative or reach out to the Sales Team.

• Co-term customers are eligible for Free Trial licenses.
• Subscription customers are not eligible for trial licenses at this time.

Claiming a free trial license or paid license will automatically transition you to the GA experience within 24 hours.

License Consumption: Measuring Concurrent Active Endpoints 

Access Manager licensing is consumed based on a single, intuitive metric: the number of unique concurrent active endpoint sessions on the network over a 24-hour period: every day from 00:00:00 - 23:59:59 UTC. An endpoint is defined as any unique MAC address—such as a laptop, smartphone, tablet, IoT sensor, or printer—that authenticates to the network via Access Manager. A session is active from the time when Access Manager receives a RADIUS Accounting Start until it receives an Accounting Stop for the session.

The license consumption count represents the peak number of concurrent active endpoints seen on the network over the 24-hour period. For example, a single user who connects a corporate laptop and a personal smartphone to the network simultaneously would consume two endpoint licenses.

This consumption model provides a fair and accurate representation of the value the service delivers. To ensure proper license sizing, organizations should estimate the total number of endpoints they expect to connect to the network. A common method for this calculation is: 

1. Employee Endpoints: Multiply the number of employees by the average number of endpoints each employee uses (e.g., 1,000 employees x 2 endpoints/employee = 2,000 licenses).
2. IoT and Headless Endpoints: Tally the total number of connected endpoints like cameras, printers, sensors, and other infrastructure components.
3. Buffer for Growth: Add a buffer (e.g., 10-15%) to account for future growth and unexpected spikes in usage.

The sum of these figures provides a way to estimate for the number of licenses required.

Compliance and Enforcement   

Access Manager licensing compliance ensures that organizations use Access Manager features within the limits of their purchased licenses. Compliance is currently tracked and enforced for co-termination licenses, with clear mechanisms in place for organizations that exceed their licensed capacity or whose licenses have expired. Compliance is not currently tracked and enforced for subscription licenses.

License Consumption Value For Compliance: Each organization’s license consumption value for compliance reporting is calculated daily as the “90th percentile of daily peak concurrent sessions seen in the last 10 days.”

90th Percentile Example:

Suppose over the last 10 days, your organization’s daily peak concurrent sessions were:
800, 850, 900, 950, 1000, 1050, 1100, 1150, 1200, and 1300.

To find the 90th percentile:

1. Sort these values (already sorted above).
2. The 90th percentile is the value below which 90% of the numbers fall.
3. For 10 values, this is the 9th value (since 90% of 10 is 9).
4. In this example, the 90th percentile is 1200.

So, your compliance is measured against 1200 sessions (not the highest, but a sustained high usage).

In Compliance:

If the calculated license consumption value (the 90th percentile as defined above) is less than or equal to the number of purchased licenses, the organization remains in compliance.

Out of Compliance & Enforcement:

An organization is considered out of compliance if:

• The “License Consumption Value For Compliance” exceeds the purchased license count.
• Has reached the co-termination date. Refer to Science Behind Licensing Co-termination for more information.

When either of these events occurs, the organization will fall out of compliance and will automatically enter a 30-day grace period and the license out of compliance & enforcement logic will apply as specified in Co-Term License Problem – Out of Compliance.

Option 1: A-la-carte Subscription  

The A-la-carte Subscription model is ideal for organizations that prefer an OPEX model and desire maximum flexibility in contract terms. It allows organizations to purchase licenses for specific term lengths (e.g., 1, 3, or 5 years). This model is hardware-agnostic, meaning the software license is not tied to any specific piece of hardware.

SKU Structure

Ordering is done using a single primary Product ID (PID). The quantity of endpoints and the desired term length are specified during the ordering process in the Cisco Commerce Workspace (CCW) to determine the final subscription entitlement.

Table 1: Access Manager A-la-carte Subscription SKU

Product ID (PID)	Description
LIC-ACCSMGR-A*	Cisco Access Manager Advantage Subscription License
PLIC-ACCSMGR-A**	Cisco Access Manager Advantage Subscription License

* LIC-ACCSMGR-A is orderable under MERAKI-SUB - Meraki Software Subscription & CISCO-NETWORK-SUB - Cisco Networking Subscription
** PLIC-ACCSMGR-A is orderable under CISCO-NETWORK-PSUB – Cisco Networking Subscription

Option 2: A-la-carte Co-termination Licensing   

The Co-termination model is designed specifically for existing Meraki customers who prefer to manage all their licenses under a single, unified expiration date. This greatly simplifies the renewal process, consolidating what could be dozens of separate renewal events into one predictable annual transaction.

When an Access Manager license is purchased for an organization using this model, its expiration date is automatically adjusted to align with the organization's existing co-term date. Refer to Meraki Co-Termination Licensing Overview for more details on how co-term licensing works.

SKU Structure

Licenses are purchased using specific PIDs for each fixed term length.

Table 2: Access Manager Co-termination License SKUs

Product ID (PID)	Description	Term Length
LIC-ACCSMGR-A-1Y	Cisco Access Manager Advanced 1 YEAR Co Term License	1 Year
LIC-ACCSMGR-A-3Y	Cisco Access Manager Advanced 3 YEAR Co Term License	3 Years
LIC-ACCSMGR-A-5Y	Cisco Access Manager Advanced 5 YEAR Co Term License	5 Years
LIC-ACCSMGR-A-7Y	Cisco Access Manager Advanced 7 YEAR Co Term License	7 Years
LIC-ACCSMGR-A-10Y	Cisco Access Manager Advanced 10 YEAR Co Term License	10 Years

Option 3: Enterprise Agreement (EA)  

For large organizations, Cisco Access Manager is eligible for inclusion in a Cisco Enterprise Agreement. An EA is a comprehensive software-buying program that simplifies licensing, provides predictable budgeting, and offers unique value across a broad portfolio of Cisco technologies.

Key advantages include:

• Simplified Procurement: A single agreement covers the entire organization's needs for multiple Cisco software products.
• Predictable Costs: A fixed-cost structure provides budget certainty for the duration of the agreement.
• True-Forward Consumption: EAs include a "true-forward" model. If usage exceeds the purchased license count, service continues uninterrupted. At renewal, the license count is "trued-up" to reflect actual usage.

SKU Structure

EA SKUs are structured to support different billing frequencies, term lengths, and true-forward consumption.

Table 3: Access Manager Subscription Enterprise Agreement License SKUs

Product ID (PID)	Description	Billing Options
E3N-ACCSMGR-A**	Cisco Access Manager Advanced EA 3.0 LIC	Prepaid, Monthly, Quarterly, Annual

**The above PID is orderable under E3-N-NW – Meraki Network Infrastructure suite of the EA3-M EA

Table 4: Access Manager Co-Termination Enterprise Agreement License SKUs

Product ID (PID)	Description	Billing Options
E3N-ACCSMGR*	Cisco Access Manager Advanced Enterprise Agreement	Prepaid, Quarterly, Annual

*The above PID is orderable under E3-N-MRNI – Legacy Meraki Network Infrastructure suite of the EA3-M EA

Organizations interested in adding Access Manager to a new or existing Enterprise Agreement should contact their Cisco Account Manager for detailed information.

General Product Inquiries  

Q: Is Access Manager a cloud or on-premise solution?
A: Cisco Access Manager delivered as a pure Software as a Service(SaaS) within the Cisco Meraki Dashboard. The management dashboard, policy engine, and configuration are all hosted in the cloud, eliminating the need for any on-premises server hardware or software.

Q: How does Cisco Access Manager differ from traditional NAC?
A: Traditional access control overwhelms IT teams. Dedicated appliances, external servers and specialist skills make policy management a constant burden. Access Manager modernizes this approach with a cloud-native architecture that is simpler to deploy, centrally managed, and scales effortlessly. It focuses on intuitive policy creation and seamless user experience.

Licensing and Subscriptions

Q: What happens if I exceed my license count?
A: Refer to section 2.3 Compliance & Enforcement above.

Q: Can I switch between different purchasing models at renewal?
A: Yes. At the time of renewal, you can choose to switch your procurement model to best fit your organization's needs. Please work with your Cisco partner or account manager to facilitate this change.

Q: How does co-termination work when I add Cisco Access Manager licenses?
A: If you add Cisco Access Manager licenses to an existing co-terminating organization, the system automatically calculates the time remaining until your organization's single renewal date. The cost of the Cisco Access Manager licenses will be pro-rated to cover only that specific period, ensuring they expire on the same day as all your other co-terminated assets.

Ordering and Quoting

Q: Who can I contact to get a quote?
A: To receive a quote for Access Manager, please contact your Sales Representative or reach out to the Sales Team. They can provide detailed pricing based on your specific endpoint count and desired term length.

Q: What information do I need to provide to purchase Cisco Access Manager?
A: To generate a quote, you will need to provide the estimated number of endpoints you need to license (including employee and IoT endpoints) and your preferred purchasing model (A-la-carte Co-termination, Subscription or EA) and term length (e.g., 1, 3, 5 or 7 years).