Credit Lifecycle
The Credit Lifecycle illustrates how your credits are managed throughout your subscription from purchase and daily consumption to balance tracking and end-of-term forecasting. It helps you monitor credit usage, identify trends, and plan ahead to avoid unexpected credit exhaustion.
đ Note
Druva credits do not apply to the customers that are onboarded through the AWS Marketplace or Managed Service Partners. The Management Console does not display any credit-related information to these customers.
Stage 1: Purchase and Credit Allocation
Credits are purchased as part of your subscription agreement. The purchasing process involves two steps: sizing your storage needs and converting that size into a credit pool. Our Sales team works with you during setup to determine your initial credit needs based on your estimated data protection requirements.
Step 1: Sizing and capacity planning
Before contract execution, total credit requirements are calculated based on the following core parameters:
Total Source Data Volume: Total data volume of all targeted workload types (File Servers, Databases, VMs).
Deduplication Rate: Workload-specific deduplication ratios (for example, File Servers deduplicate differently than database backups).
Backup Frequency: Change-rate capture frequency across daily and intra-day backup cycles.
Retention Policies: Duration for which recovery points must be maintained in Druva Cloud storage (Cloud).
Step 2: Converting sizing to credits
Once your capacity is determined, it is converted into a total credit allocation for your entire contract term. These credits form a shared pool that is consumed daily as your backup data is stored in the Cloud.
Shared credit pool
At the start of your subscription, all purchased credits are added to a single shared credit pool. The available credit balance is displayed on the Account Details, Enterprise Workloads Dashboard, and Analytics pages. All protected workloads, backup sets, organizations, and departments consume credits from this common pool; credits are not assigned to individual servers or workloads.
Your available credits are displayed as the Credit Balance on the Consumption Insights tab. If you need additional capacity during your contract period, contact your Account Executive to purchase more credits. The newly purchased credits are added to your existing credit balance.
To help manage credit consumption across different teams or departments, administrators can optionally configure Credit Limits.
đ Notes
Mid-term credit purchases: If you purchase additional credits during your subscription term, the new credits are added directly to your existing shared credit pool. Druva automatically recalculates your expected credit consumption based on the updated total available credits.
Account type transitions:
Evaluation to Commercial: Any unused evaluation credits expire when the account is converted to a commercial subscription and are not carried forward.
Commercial Renewal: Eligible unused credits from an existing commercial subscription are carried forward to the renewed subscription according to your contract terms.
Stage 2: Daily Credit Draw-Down Cycle
Credits draw-down is the automated process that computes credit consumption based on post-deduplicated, compressed cloud footprint.
Daily Credits Consumed = ( Deduplicated TB Stored Today Ă 12 ) / 365 |
Because 1 credit equals 1 TB stored for a full month, multiplying by 12 and dividing by 365 converts daily storage into its fractional TB-month equivalent (approx. 1/365th of an annual TB cost per day).
Credit draw-down cycle
The consumption of credits follows a sequential, daily process, summarized by the following four key steps:
Backup execution: Scheduled backup jobs run to protect your diverse workloads, including servers, VMs, and databases, in accordance with your backup policy.
Global deduplication: Global deduplication ensures that backed-up data is deduplicated and compressed before storage, so only unique and changed data blocks are stored. This reduces overall storage consumption, and credit usage is calculated based on the deduplicated data actually stored in the cloud.
Credit draw-down: The deduplicated storage consumed is used to determine your credit consumption for that day. The calculated amount is then subtracted from your available credit balance.
Credit balance update: The credit balance is then updated on the Enterprise Workloads Dashboard and the Consumption Insights tab of the Analytics page. Your new credit balance is reflected, and all consumption projection dates are updated based on the new daily usage.
Draw-Down exclusions
Category | Behavior / Billing Rule |
In-Transit Data | Backups active during the 12:15 AM UTC cutoff are credited to the subsequent day's cycle once completed. |
Same-Day Deletions | Data ingested and purged prior to the 12:15 AM UTC calculation window is not charged. |
Restore Activity | Standard data restores do not consume daily storage credits. Archive restores are billed separately (1 credit/TB beyond daily allowance). |
Stage 3: Balance vs. Planned Baseline
The Consumption Insights tab tracks two primary lines to determine whether consumption is running according to plan:
Credit Balance (Solid Line): The actual remaining credit balance updated daily:
Credit Balance Today = Credit Balance Yesterday â Daily Credits Consumed
Credit Baseline (Dashed Line): The linear planned draw-down path derived from initial contract sizing (Total Credits Ă· Term Duration).
The following table helps you interpret your credit balance trend against the baseline and determine the appropriate action.
Graph Comparison Pattern | What does it mean | Recommended Action |
Balance Above Baseline | Credits are consuming slower than the planned pace. | Monitor trend. Evaluate if initial sizing was over-estimated. |
Balance On Baseline | Credits are consuming exactly at expected pace. | No administrative action required. |
Balance Below Baseline | Credits are consuming faster than the planned pace. | Investigate change rates, new workloads, or retention extensions. |
Balance Enters Negative Red | Credit pool is completely exhausted. | Account enters 6-month grace period; initiate top-up or renewal. |
Stage 4: Projection and Forecasting
Druva's predictive engine uses historical credit consumption trends to forecast your credit usage by the end of the contract term.
Credit usage forecasting requirements
Requires at least 1 week of usage history to generate a forecast.
Updates automatically every 24 hours with the daily credit balance refresh.
Projects your current credit usage trend to estimate consumption by the end of the contract term.
Credit usage forecast outcomes
Forecasted Outcome | System Signal | Recommended Action |
Deficit usage | Projected balance reaches zero before contract end date. | Engage Account Executive 90 days prior to projected expiry date to top up or adjust retention. |
Surplus usage | Projected balance remains positive after contract end date. | Review 80/20 rollover rules to optimize credit carryover. |
Next Steps Based on Your Credit Consumption Outcome
Your credit pool follows one of the following two paths: contract renewal at the end of your subscription term with unused credits eligible for carryover, or credit exhaustion before the term ends.
Contract Renewal (80/20 Rule)
If you renew your subscription, eligible unused credits may be carried forward in accordance with the 80/20 rule. You must consume at least 80% of your purchased credits during the subscription term.
Up to 20% of unused purchased credits can be carried forward to the next subscription term, subject to your contract.
Any unused credits above the 20% limit expire at the end of the term.
Credit Exhaustion
Credit exhaustion occurs when your available credit balance drops below zero. If your credit consumption reaches 110% of your available credits before renewal, your backup operations are temporarily suspended until you purchase additional credits or renew your subscription to restore a positive credit balance.
You can recover by:
Purchasing additional credits (credit top-up), or
Renewing your subscription with a new credit allocation.