Commercial License

Membership and Commercial Licensing

The Open Group licenses the use of our TOGAF®, ArchiMate®, IT4IT™, and Open FAIR™ standards for commercial purposes. Organizations that are obligated to obtain a commercial license for one of our standards include trainers, software tool providers, and consultants who benefit commercially from the use of the standards. 

There are two paths to obtaining a commercial license, which are described below. 

We have created a simple guide which will also help walk you through why and how to get a membership with a commercial license, or a commercial license without membership.

1)  Commercial License with Membership

The first way to obtain a commercial license is to first become a member of the Forum which produces the standard you are interested in. To do so, you will need to complete a membership form, which is available here. All members of the Forums listed below receive an entitlement to a commercial license for the relevant standard at no additional cost:

•    TOGAF® Standard (Architecture Forum)
•    ArchiMate® Specification (ArchiMate Forum)
•    IT4IT™ Reference Architecture (IT4IT Forum)
•    Open FAIR™ Body of Knowledge

The fees for membership are available here. Note, organizations that are members of multiple forums receive a 25% reduction in the cost of the additional Silver level forum membership. If you require three commercial licenses, it is most cost-effective to become Gold members. 

1. Obtaining membership with a commercial license is significantly more cost effective. For larger vendors, and for those who will require two or more licenses at some point, it is actually less expensive to obtain membership (with included commercial license) than it is to obtain the commercial license without first becoming members. 
2. Provides the ability to contribute to the development of future versions of the standard and related guidance
3. Can help position you and your organization as thought leaders, by associating you with the Open Group and with the relevant Forum 
4. Can assist with establishing credibility for your brand, as your organizations will be listed alongside of the impressive list of technology suppliers and end users who are members of The Open Group
5. Numerous opportunities to grow personally through leadership of the Forums and work groups
6. Ability to network with like-minded peers and other industry thought leaders through the regular Forum meetings and calls
7. Reduced fees for attendance at Open Group events

2)   Commercial License without Membership

Organizations are complete the relevant commercial license pages without obtaining membership. In this case, the organization will need to complete the license agreement, and remit the commercial license fee indicated in the table below (and note that these are required for each standard you are licensing):

Example:
Here is an example of a small training organization (under $25M in revenue) requiring licenses to two standards under both scenarios (member vs. non-member). As you can see, it is less expensive to become a member to obtain the commercial licenses. 

*The second membership fee is reduced by 25%, and the commercial licenses are provided as a benefit of membership.