Annualized Ownership Cost
A modeled five-year annualized total cost of ownership across Power8 through Power11: acquisition, hardware maintenance, and IBM i software combined into one per-year figure.
Annualized ownership cost spreads a system's full multi-year cost -- amortized hardware, ongoing hardware maintenance, and software licensing -- into a single per-year figure, so generations with very different up-front prices become directly comparable.
Scenario, not quote
The model below uses IBM's published hardware maintenance baseline of roughly 15% of purchase price per year, a representative mid-size P10-tier IBM i workload, and a 5-year hold. It illustrates relative cost shape across generations; it is not a quote for any specific configuration. See the dataset's assumptions for full detail.
Modeled for a representative mid-size single-partition IBM i workload landing in the P10 tier, amortizing hardware acquisition over a 5-year hold, adding IBM's published hardware maintenance baseline of approximately 15% of hardware purchase price per year (per IBM's Power Cost Estimator methodology, with IBM having raised maintenance pricing in 2024-2025), plus P10-tier IBM i subscription software. This is a scenario model to illustrate relative ownership cost shape across generations, not a quote for any specific configuration.
Modeling Assumptions
- 5-year hold period, hardware cost amortized straight-line
- Annual hardware maintenance at ~15% of acquisition price (IBM Power Cost Estimator baseline)
- IBM i P10-tier subscription software cost held constant across generations at the published per-core rate
- Acquisition price uses the entry-to-mid range midpoint from the Hardware Pricing dataset for each generation
- Excludes services/labor, storage expansion, and networking, which are workload-specific
Modeled 5-year annualized ownership cost by generation (representative mid-size P10 workload)
| Generation | Amortized Hardware ($/yr) | Maintenance ($/yr, ~15%) | IBM i P10 Software ($/yr) | Modeled Total ($/yr) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Power8 | ~$500 | ~$375 | ~$8,925/core (tier rate, more cores needed) | Highest effective total once extra core licensing is factored in, despite the lowest hardware line |
| Power9 | ~$1,700 | ~$1,275 | ~$8,925/core (tier rate, moderate core count) | Lowest modeled total in this scenario -- the current sweet spot for a defined, shorter runway |
| Power10 | ~$4,300 | ~$3,225 | ~$8,925/core (tier rate, fewer cores needed) | Close second; the gap to Power9 narrows further once RUL and support risk are weighed in, not just this year's cash cost |
| Power11 | ~$7,600 | ~$5,700 | ~$8,925/core (tier rate, fewest cores needed) | Highest modeled cash total -- newest hardware carries the highest amortized and maintenance load even with the best per-core software efficiency |
IBM i software cost is held at the same published per-core rate across rows to isolate the hardware and maintenance delta; in practice a newer generation needing fewer cores to clear the same tier lowers this line further than shown here. See IBM i Tier Economics for that effect in isolation.