Cisco kept Partial Commit and True Forward on software support because commit type is inherited from the software suite, so buyers can still avoid enterprise-wide coverage on the $100K TCV software side while hardware faces a $200K ACV Full Commit floor from July 26, 2026
Cisco's own FAQ says Partial Commit "will continue to be available for software support" and that there are currently no plans to extend True Up to software licenses or software support. That is not generosity: software support commit type is a derivative of the underlying software suite's commit type, so removing Partial Commit would have forced every Partial Commit software suite to Full Commit. The asymmetry gives you forward-only billing and no minimum purchase on the software side, and it decides how you split scope between the two portfolios at renewal.
Prepared by Redress Compliance · September 3, 2026 · Cisco advisory. Services EA and EA 3.0 renewal engagements, 2024 to 2026.
Executive summary
Cisco's carve-out is structural, not a concession: software support inherits the commit type of the underlying software suite, so killing Partial Commit on SW CX would have force-converted every Partial Commit software suite to Full Commit.
The EA 3.0 Buying Program Offer Description (updated December 12, 2025) states that all existing and subsequent Software or Cloud Services Suites purchased are enrolled in the Services Portfolio at the same commitment levels as the Underlying Suite, which is the mechanical reason the July 26.
2026 True Up change stopped at hardware.
The billing direction now differs by portfolio: hardware support growth is billed retroactively at the annual True Up milestone, software support growth is still billed forward-only from the milestone to end of term.
On a suite where consumption drifts 20 percent above commit in month three, True Forward charges roughly nine months of that overage while True Up charges twelve, and the gap compounds every year of a three-year or five-year term.
Partial Commit on software support buys flexibility at the cost of price protection: no minimum purchase, but growth is priced at then-current list minus your original fixed discount instead of a not-to-exceed rate.
If Cisco raises list on the relevant software or support SKU mid-term, Partial Commit absorbs the increase while Full Commit does not, so the choice is a bet on list movement over the remaining 24 to 48 months.
The two portfolios also carry different entry floors, and one of them can be sidestepped entirely: hardware support requires $200K minimum ACV from July 26, 2026, while software support and Professional Services require $100K TCV at platform level.
Cisco's own remedy list for buyers below the hardware floor includes "decrease discounts," which is the clearest possible signal that the threshold is a spend floor, not a technical requirement, and that software support scope should not be volunteered to help you reach it.
How commit type and true-up mechanics now differ between hardware and software support
From July 26, 2026, the Services EA stops being one program with one set of rules and becomes two programs sharing a signature page.
On the hardware support side (HW CX), Cisco has removed Partial Commit entirely, moved growth billing from True Forward to True Up, and imposed a $200,000 minimum ACV threshold for both new sales and renewals.
On the software support side (SW CX), Partial Commit survives, True Forward survives, and the entry requirement is a $100,000 TCV platform-level figure rather than an annual recurring floor.
The four variables that actually move money are commit type, growth billing direction, pricing protection, and entry threshold, and they now diverge on every one.
The practical consequence is that the same overage event produces a retroactive invoice on one portfolio and a forward-only charge on the other, which is the point we develop in True Up vs True Forward on Cisco Services EA hardware support.
| Variable | Hardware Support (HW CX) | Software Support (SW CX) | Software Licenses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commit types available | Full Commit only from July 26, 2026 | Full Commit or Partial Commit | Full Commit or Partial Commit |
| Growth billing model | True Up, retroactive to the annual milestone | True Forward, forward-only from milestone to term end | True Forward |
| Pricing protection | Not-to-exceed price set at original order | Full Commit: not-to-exceed. Partial: fixed discount off then-current list | Same construct as SW CX |
| Minimum entry | $200,000 ACV, ineligible below | $100,000 TCV platform-level | Covered by suite terms |
| Attach scope | Services must attach to all products in the purchased suite | No enterprise-wide attach obligation on Partial Commit | Partial Commit has no minimum purchase |
| Commit type freedom | None left to negotiate | Must match the underlying product suite | Sets the commit type everything else inherits |
The table shows the rules but hides the sequencing. Under the EA 3.0 Buying Program Offer Description (updated December 12, 2025), all existing and subsequent software or cloud services suites purchased are enrolled at the same commitment level as your underlying suite.
You do not choose your software support commit type in any meaningful sense. You choose the software suite's commit type, and support inherits it. Any negotiation that opens with "we want Partial Commit on SW CX" is aimed at the wrong line item.
That inheritance rule also explains the asymmetry in pricing protection. A Full Commit suite carries a not-to-exceed price for the suite term, so growth is capped at the number your partner set at original order.
A Partial Commit suite carries only a fixed discount percentage applied against then-current list at the True Forward transaction, which means Cisco's list price increases pass straight through to you on every incremental unit.
Buyers routinely read Partial Commit as the safe option because it removes the minimum purchase obligation. It does, and it also removes your ceiling.
The right question is not which commit type is friendlier but which risk you would rather carry: volume risk under Full Commit or list-price risk under Partial Commit. On a portfolio growing at 15% or more a year, the list-price exposure compounds faster than most models assume.
Why Cisco could not remove Partial Commit from software support even if it wanted to
Read the FAQ language carefully and the carve-out looks like a concession. It is not. It is a dependency Cisco could not unwind without collateral damage to its own funnel.
Because software support commit type follows the underlying suite, deleting Partial Commit from SW CX would have force-converted every Partial Commit software suite in the installed base to Full Commit.
That is not a services change, it is a licensing change applied to tens of thousands of customers who chose Partial Commit precisely to avoid enterprise-wide obligations.
Cisco has spent three years marketing that entry motion in its own words. The March 1, 2023 blog announcing EA 3.0 general availability described Partial Commit as the way to "test software without requiring an enterprise-wide commitment." That is the land phase of land and expand.
Remove it and the first-time buyer with two thousand seats of a new suite has to commit the whole estate on day one, which most will decline, and the expansion revenue that follows never starts. Hardware support has no equivalent story. Nobody pilots SmartNet coverage.
The install base is known, the attach is mechanical, and the growth curve is flat. Partial Commit on hardware bought Cisco nothing it could not get another way, which is exactly why it was expendable and why the removal landed on hardware first.
Treat the carve-out as structurally durable rather than a discretionary policy Cisco can revoke at the next program refresh. The FAQ says there are currently no plans to extend True Up to software licenses or software support, and the architecture supports that statement.
But durable is not permanent. If Cisco ever decouples services commit type from suite commit type in a future Offer Description, the protection evaporates overnight.
Get the inheritance language and the True Forward treatment for SW CX written into your enrollment terms, not left to the program guide in force at renewal.
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Get the white paper →The analysis: the asymmetry is a pricing-risk transfer, and you can choose which risk you hold
Cisco sells Full Commit and Partial Commit as tiers of maturity, as if Partial Commit is the trial version and Full Commit is what grown-up customers sign. That framing is wrong and it has cost buyers money for a decade. These are not tiers.
They are two opposite allocations of two different risks: price risk (what a unit costs when you add it in year three) and volume risk (how many units you are contractually obliged to carry whether or not you use them).
Full Commit gives you not-to-exceed pricing for the suite term, so Cisco absorbs list movement, and in exchange you accept a minimum purchase and enterprise-wide coverage where applicable, meaning you absorb the volume risk.
Partial Commit inverts it exactly: no minimum purchase, no enterprise-wide attach, but your growth prices at then-current list minus a fixed discount, so you absorb list movement while Cisco sheds it.
Once you see the two levers that way, the July 26, 2026 hardware change reads differently. Cisco did not simplify hardware support. It removed your ability to choose which risk you hold on that side of the portfolio.
Full Commit only, plus a $200,000 ACV floor, plus retroactive True Up billing, means you now hold volume risk on hardware in its most concentrated form: you attach broadly, you commit to a minimum annual value.
And any growth above the meter is billed backward to the milestone rather than forward from it.
Cisco holds price risk there, which is the cheaper of the two risks to hold when list is stable and your device estate is growing. That is a rational trade for Cisco and a poor one for most buyers with flat or declining hardware footprints.
Software support is untouched, and not out of goodwill. Because commit type on the Services Portfolio is inherited from the underlying software suite, stripping Partial Commit from software support would have force-converted every Partial Commit software suite to Full Commit.
That would break the entry motion Cisco has marketed since EA 3.0 launched: test software without an enterprise-wide commitment. So on the software side you still get the choice.
You can keep price risk (Partial, fixed discount off then-current list) and shed volume risk (no minimum, no forced attach), with overage billed forward-only under True Forward rather than retroactively.
The portfolio conclusion follows directly, and it is the one most account teams will resist: the correct commit position is rarely the same on both sides.
If Cisco has taken volume risk off the table for you on hardware, the last thing you should do is voluntarily take on more volume risk in software by converting suites to Full Commit for a discount that is quoted once and paid for over 36 months. Asymmetry is the point.
Symmetry exists because it is easier to quote, easier to model in the partner's configurator, and materially harder for you to unwind at renewal when your Cisco footprint has shifted.
Expect the pitch that "mixed commit types complicate your True Forward"; in practice they complicate the seller's paperwork, not your billing.
Note also that the two portfolios do not just differ in risk allocation, they differ in the timing of pain. Retroactive True Up on hardware turns every consumption surprise into a backdated invoice, which is why milestone date planning now matters more on hardware than anything you do at signature.
Forward-only True Forward on software means a mis-forecast costs you the remaining term, not the elapsed term, so a discovery in month fourteen of a thirty-six month suite is roughly a two-thirds exposure rather than a full one.
In our negotiation work, that timing difference alone is worth more than a two-point discount improvement on the same spend.
Finally, treat the Partial to Full conversion at a True Forward event as a dated option, not a decision you owe Cisco at signature.
Cisco's own program terms confirm that upgrading a Partial Commit suite to Full Commit at a True Forward event fixes the True Forward price for all future purchases of that suite.
That is genuinely valuable, but only after you know two things you cannot know on day one: your real consumption curve and how the relevant SKU list has actually moved. Exercising early destroys the optionality and hands Cisco the volume risk you were holding for free.
Hold Partial, watch the first two True Forward cycles, and convert only when the arithmetic, not the quarter-end calendar, says so.
Modeling the software support commitment: three structures and what each costs you
Three structures cover nearly every software support scenario we model on the buyer side.
The inputs that decide between them are small in number and easy to gather: expected consumption growth per year on the relevant suites, remaining term months at the point growth lands, and expected list movement on those specific SKUs over the term.
Run those three against each structure before you accept a partner-built quote, because the quote will default to whichever structure carries the most committed value.
| Structure | What you commit | Price mechanic on growth | Volume exposure | Fits when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. All Partial software plus software support | No minimum purchase, no enterprise-wide attach | Then-current list minus fixed discount, billed forward-only | Lowest: pay for what you consume, when you consume it | Growth uncertain, consolidation or divestiture likely, suites still in evaluation |
| 2. Full Commit on stable core suite, Partial on volatile suites | Minimum purchase on the core suite only | Not-to-exceed on the core, then-current list minus discount elsewhere | Mixed: bounded to the core suite footprint | A predictable base plus a growth tail you cannot forecast within 20% |
| 3. Full Commit everywhere | Enterprise-wide coverage where applicable, minimum ACV across suites | Not-to-exceed pricing for the suite term, plus multi-suite discounts | Highest: you carry the attach obligation across the estate | Aggressive growth, high confidence in list increases, hardware already committed |
The table hides the unlock that usually decides the answer.
One Full Commit suite in Networking Infrastructure, Applications Infrastructure, or Collaboration, combined with $100,000 in fully committed TCV, opens the Security and Services portfolios without requiring enterprise-wide commitment on those suites.
That is Structure 2, and it is why the middle option is not a compromise but usually the optimum: you buy the eligibility with one suite you were going to commit anyway, then hold everything volatile at Partial.
The mistake we see repeatedly is buyers reaching Structure 3 to chase multi-suite discounts, then discovering the enterprise-wide attach obligation applies to headcount or device counts they do not control.
Read the $100,000 TCV platform requirement and the $200,000 hardware ACV floor together, as covered in our breakdown of the Services EA minimum thresholds, and model whether the discount delta actually exceeds the cost of the units you will carry unused.
In our experience it rarely does below roughly 15% forecast growth per year.
Traps that void the software support flexibility
The Partial Commit carve-out on software support is real, but it is conditional, and four structures quietly cancel it. The first is the Services-only EA.
If you buy from the Services Portfolio without an underlying software EA, there is no Suite or Add-On available as Partial Commit, because commit type is inherited from the Underlying Suite.
No software suite means no Partial Commit parent to inherit from, and the flexibility you thought you preserved never existed in that paper.
The second is the final-year timing quirk documented in the EA 3.0 FAQ: licenses added to Partial Commit suites in the final year are captured at the next quarterly True Forward event, except in the final quarter, where they roll into the next EA contract.
If you do not renew, you must purchase the minimum a-la-carte term for everything added after the last True Forward, which turns a deliberate non-renewal into a surprise standalone bill.
The third is the commit-type match rule from the March 2022 Program Guide: Service and Product Suite commit type must match. You cannot run a Full Commit software suite alongside Partial Commit software support, so a single Full Commit product decision cascades into the services layer.
The fourth is the one account teams propose most often at renewal: using software support scope to help clear the $200K hardware ACV floor.
In our engagement experience that math looks harmless on a slide and is permanent in contract, because scope pulled across to satisfy the hardware threshold sits inside a Full Commit structure with enterprise-wide coverage obligations.
Model the $200K hardware and $100K software thresholds separately, and refuse any construct that satisfies one floor with the other portfolio's scope.
What the documents and the renewal pattern actually show
The evidence base is narrow, dated, and mostly Cisco's own.
The Services EA Customer FAQ (2026) is the source for the Partial Commit carve-out, the statement that there are currently no plans to extend True Up to software licenses or software support, and the remedy list for missing the hardware floor.
The Enterprise Agreement Service Portfolio Guide carries the July 26, 2026 effective date and both thresholds. The EA 3.0 Buying Program Offer Description (updated December 12, 2025) is where inheritance of commit level from the Underlying Suite is written.
The EA 3.0 Program Guide, March 2022 and August 2025 editions, supplies the commit-type match rule and the priced Partial to Full upgrade at True Forward. The True Forward FAQ defines not-to-exceed versus fixed-discount pricing and forward-only overage billing.
Cisco Blogs (March 1, 2023) supplies the "test software without requiring an enterprise-wide commitment" framing. Everything in that list is a contractual or published Cisco statement.
Anything about how account teams behave, including the symmetry argument, is advisory observation from renewal work, not a Cisco commitment.
Applies to HW CX in Services EA for new sales and renewals from July 26, 2026; below-threshold buyers are ineligible.
SW CX and Professional Services stay at a total contract value test, with Partial Commit and True Forward intact.
The two numbers are not comparable and should never be modeled as if they were. $200K is annual and recurring; $100K is total across the term, so a five-year software support commitment can clear its threshold at roughly $20K per year while hardware demands ten times that annually.
Three patterns recur in renewal engagements: account teams argue for symmetry ("align both portfolios to Full Commit for simplicity"), software support scope gets quietly counted toward hardware threshold math in the proposal spreadsheet.
And "decrease discounts" appears as a remedy for missing the floor.
That last one is Cisco's own published language. Treat it as the tell that the floor is a pricing lever, and price your standalone SmartNet alternative before you respond.
- Percentile standing for your exact deal size and industry, from real closed transactions
- Scenario simulation before the call: test alternative terms and see the financial impact of each
- A negotiation playbook, talking points, and a two page executive brief on day one
Your first five moves
- Model the two portfolios separately before Cisco quotes them as one number, because hardware support now carries retroactive True Up billing against a $200K ACV Full Commit floor while software support stays forward-billed with no minimum purchase, and a blended quote hides which side is actually driving your cost.
- Set software support commit type from the software suite it inherits from, not from the hardware structure, since the EA 3.0 Offer Description enrolls software support at the same commitment level as the underlying suite: choose Partial where you expect volatile consumption and list price increases you would rather absorb at a fixed discount, choose Full only where a not-to-exceed price on a known volume genuinely beats that.
- Refuse to let software support scope be used to clear the hardware floor, because Cisco's own remedy list for customers below $200K ACV includes expanding scope, adding suites, upgrading tiers, and decreasing discounts, so insist the $200K hardware test and the $100K software TCV platform test are demonstrated on separate lines before you accept any consolidation argument.
- Calendar the final-quarter Partial Commit capture rule against your renewal date, since licenses added to Partial Commit suites in the final quarter roll into the next contract, and a non-renewal forces a-la-carte minimum term purchases; our renewal work consistently shows this is where unbudgeted spend appears, so run the check when you assess whether to renew before July 26, 2026.
- Hold the Partial to Full conversion as a priced option for a later True Forward event, because upgrading mid-term sets the not-to-exceed price for all future purchases in that suite, and you want that price fixed after volumes and list movement are known, not at signature.
Frequently asked questions
Does Cisco's July 26, 2026 True Up change affect software support?
No. Cisco's Enterprise Agreement Service Portfolio Guide states that True Up applies to Hardware Support for all new and renewed Services EA bookings starting July 26, 2026, while Software Support remains under the True Forward model.
The Services EA Customer FAQ adds that there are currently no plans to implement True Up for Software Licenses and Software Support in the EA. Treat that as a current-position statement, not a permanent guarantee, and ask for it in writing on your paper.
Why is Partial Commit still available for software support but not hardware support?
Because software support commit type is inherited, not chosen independently. The EA 3.0 Buying Program Offer Description says all existing and subsequent Software or Cloud Services Suites purchased are enrolled in the Services Portfolio at the same commitment levels as the Underlying Suite.
Removing Partial Commit from software support would therefore have forced every Partial Commit software suite to Full Commit, breaking the low-commitment entry motion Cisco markets as a way to test software without an enterprise-wide commitment.
What is the actual price difference between Full Commit and Partial Commit?
Full Commit suites carry not-to-exceed pricing for the suite term, so the maximum you pay is the price set at original order. Partial Commit suites and add-ons are priced at the then-current list price at the time of the True Forward transaction, minus the fixed discount set at original order.
Full Commit protects you against list increases but requires a minimum purchase and services attached to all products in the suite. Partial Commit has no minimum purchase but leaves you exposed to list movement over the remaining term.
Can I run Full Commit on hardware support and Partial Commit on software support?
Yes, subject to the rule that service and product suite commit type must match within each portfolio. Hardware support is now Full Commit only for new and renewed bookings from July 26, 2026, and your software support commit type follows your software suite.
So a mixed portfolio position is normal, and it is usually the right answer. Do not let an account team argue for symmetry across both portfolios simply because it simplifies the quote.
Does a Services-only EA preserve the Partial Commit option for software support?
No, and this is the most common trap. The EA 3.0 Buying Program Offer Description states that in a Services-only EA you may not purchase any Suite or Add-On as Partial Commit, and you must purchase Services for all Software and Cloud Services bought outside the EA Program.
The Partial Commit software support option only exists when there is an underlying software EA. If you are structuring services alone, model the loss of that flexibility before you sign.
What happens to Partial Commit software support licenses added in the final year?
Licenses added to Partial Commit suites in the final year are captured at the next quarterly True Forward event, except in the final quarter. Final-quarter additions are captured in the next EA contract.
If you do not renew, you must purchase the minimum a-la-carte term for licenses added after the last True Forward. Calendar your last True Forward event against your renewal decision date so a non-renewal does not trigger unbudgeted a-la-carte purchases.
Should I use software support scope to hit the $200K hardware ACV threshold?
Generally no. The $200K minimum ACV applies to Hardware Support in a Services EA, and Cisco's own remedy list for buyers below it includes expanding scope, buying more suites, upgrading support tier, adding Professional Services, or decreasing discounts.
Padding the deal with software support scope converts a flexible, forward-billed, no-minimum commitment into part of a floor you must sustain at renewal. Compare that cost against buying hardware support outside the EA, which Cisco confirms remains available.
