Ekahau SaaS licences: which package fits which role?

When Ekahau introduced its subscription licences on 1 July 2025, the rollout was deliberately small: the pilot programme initially ran in just four regions worldwide – China, India, Latin America and DACH. Germany, Austria and Switzerland were therefore in from the very start.

Anyone planning Wi-Fi here has been working with the new licensing model longer than most markets. Ekahau now clearly leads with the subscription: its current sales material puts the three SaaS packages first. The perpetual Ekahau AI Pro licence with Connect Subscription still sits alongside them as an option in that same material – more on that below.

For procurement, that shifts the question. It is no longer “buy or subscribe”, but: which of the three packages covers which role on the team? And that is exactly where it gets confusing, because two of the three packages are deliberately incomplete on their own.

Ekahau cuts its SaaS licences by role, not by feature count: who designs, who measures, who does both. That is logical – but it means a package that fits one role perfectly simply does not work for another.

• Ekahau Plan – for network designers, planners and architects who design and optimise professionally without measuring on site themselves.
• Ekahau Measure Pro – for field engineers and on-site IT staff who collect data and narrow down faults.
• Ekahau Software Suite – for anyone covering both roles, or working alone.

All three are available with a one-year or three-year term.

Ekahau Plan bundles the cloud-based design and optimisation tools: Ekahau AI Pro Online, Ekahau Optimizer, Ekahau Insights and the API integrations with access point manufacturers. That covers predictive designs simulating real-world conditions, plus ongoing optimisation based on existing data.

What matters is what is not included: Ekahau Plan comes with no measurement capability of its own. To work with real measurements rather than pure simulation, the package needs data from an Ekahau Sidekick or Sidekick 2 – collected by someone who holds a package that can measure.

Measure Pro is the field package. It includes the Ekahau Survey application, the Ekahau Analyzer application, cloud project sync and sharing, plus software and firmware updates. An Ekahau Sidekick is required for data collection – with the Sidekick 2 the full feature set is available.

That makes it a precise fit for field work: go there, measure, narrow it down, push the project to the cloud.

The Software Suite contains everything from Ekahau Plan and Ekahau Measure Pro in a single licence: AI Pro Online, Optimizer, Insights, Survey, Analyzer, cloud sync and the API integrations. A Sidekick is still required for data collection, and a Sidekick 2 for full functionality.

For anyone covering the whole Wi-Fi lifecycle themselves – design, validation, optimisation, troubleshooting – this is the direct route. And the cheaper one: in our price list the Suite sits around 20 per cent below the combined cost of Plan and Measure Pro bought separately.

The same applies to all three packages: one licence, one user. The Software Suite explicitly cannot be split across several people.

That sounds trivial, but it changes the maths: a team of one designer and three field engineers needs four licences, not one. Anyone coming from the older “one installation per machine” mindset routinely underestimates this – and only notices when two engineers try to work on the project at the same time.

Every package comes as a one-year or three-year licence. Across all three packages, the longer commitment is around ten per cent cheaper than three annual licences bought one after another.

So the decision is less about price than about planning: if the role on the team is fixed for the next three years, the longer term is the calmer route. If it is unclear whether the measurement capacity stays in-house, the annual licence can be the more flexible choice.

One prerequisite runs across all packages: the measurement capability depends on the Ekahau Sidekick. For full functionality Ekahau specifies the Sidekick 2. According to the manufacturer, the device uses four tri-band Wi-Fi radios that scan the full Wi-Fi spectrum in under two seconds, nine wideband antennas and an internal spectrum analyser delivering 50 sweeps per second from 2,400 to 7,125 MHz. That is the data foundation Survey, Analyzer and Optimizer work on in the first place.

If you are buying both together, our catalogue has the “Plus” variants: Measure Pro Plus and Software Suite Plus already include the Ekahau Sidekick 2. That removes the separate hardware purchase – and the discussion of whether the measurement hardware comes out of the capital or the operating budget.

Despite the clear focus on the subscription, the perpetual Ekahau AI Pro licence has not disappeared – we still stock it as a regular order item, along with the associated maintenance and Connect contracts. That is not a detail for nostalgics; it matters in two concrete cases:

• Environments without cloud access. A SaaS subscription grants the right to use the cloud-based applications for the contract term. Where cloud use is not possible for security or network reasons, the perpetual licence remains the right path.
• Capital budgets. If you procure via CapEx and need a long-term asset, a one-off amount works differently from a recurring charge.

For scale: the Software Suite costs roughly half per year of what the AI Pro perpetual licence costs once. Where the tipping point lies, though, depends on the maintenance contract the perpetual licence needs for updates and cloud features – that is best worked through in a concrete quotation, not off a list price. Holding both in parallel is possible, incidentally.

• You design and optimise but do not measure yourself → Ekahau Plan.
• You measure on site and a colleague with a Plan or AI Pro licence does the detailed analysis → Ekahau Measure Pro.
• You do both, or work alone → Ekahau Software Suite.
• You need software and measurement hardware together → the Plus variant with a Sidekick 2.
• You cannot use the cloud, or you procure via CapEx → the perpetual Ekahau AI Pro licence.

Unsure how many licences of which kind your team actually needs? That is exactly what we work through with you as an Ekahau Reseller Partner, before you procure.

This article was researched and written with AI assistance and reviewed by Ascend's certified engineers before publication. Feature, package and Sidekick details follow the Ekahau SaaS datasheet (as of June 2025); statements about price ratios refer to the list prices in the ASCEND shop as of September 2026. Last updated 2 September 2026.