Pricing depends on the number of agents that you install. For example, you can create a consolidated environment that has five servers and run everything from there. So you just need five licenses. Else, you can distribute the agents to all of your application servers, and it can go up to a thousand. Also, it depends on how you use it.

We transitioned from a server license to per job license, and that saved us a lot money.

The contract is with the customer with whom we are working, so IBM is not directly involved in this. 

If you are running an IBM Mainframe, why would you want any other product as your z/OS based WLA "hub" ? 

To my knowledge, IWA is the only WLA product that will provide "parallel tracking" capability to assist in upgrading from one platform to IWA.

Research your needs versus the cost and scalability of the product.

There is a general perception that pricing and license costs are too high with the conventional model, like per CPU based prices.

However, IBM is trying to use the per job pricing in the cloud model.

Make your TWS infrastructure auditable by IBM (or to its partners) to be able to benefit from sub-capacity PVU licencing when your networks use a considerably amount of virtualization technology, but above all, when possible, move to cloud-provided TWS management services, to benefit from more modern ‘pay-per-use’ licensing models.

I heard it is very expensive compared to other job scheduling tools.

It can get costly, as expected; IBM uses a Processor Value Unit (PVU) licensing model, which can be cumbersome to maintain.

It is about one-third of the cost of a controller.

This would be one the expensive lines of product in IBM's portfolio, so initial costs can run high if someone is buying it for the first time. The licensing is IBM proprietary, and clients are not charged on the basis of underlying hardware configuration that hosts the installed application - CPU cores and manufacturer to be exact - which goes up as you add on to your processing capabilities.

Over a period, once you are a client, you may get better pricing quotes from your sales representative. Also, there are workload based flexible pricing options available for smaller setups which can always be considered and negotiated accordingly.

I have not dealt with pricing or licensing.

It is expensive.

For licensing, you should proceed with the monthly job executions. Earlier, it also used to have the PVU (Processor Value Unit) license model as well. I am not sure, if this is still there.

Get clarity from IBM and accordingly proceed, depending upon the requirement.

It is expensive, but reliable (in short, you GET what you pay for).

Talk to your IBM sales representative to see what they can offer you.

Consult with a third-party vendor to assist with price discounts.