Mari license usage tracking and cost optimization
Foundry's Mari is a premium seat in any texturing pipeline, and in show-based VFX and games studios it is easy to carry more seats than artists actively paint with. WhatPulse measures real, interactive Mari usage per artist and per machine on Windows and macOS, giving you the evidence to right-size floating pools and renewals.
$4 / computer / month · 14-day free trial · No credit card · EU data residency
What Mari typically costs
~279 EUR / ~689 USD per year
Mari individual subscription (annual)
Named single-user entitlement aimed at freelancers and small teams; the license is tied to one named user and cannot be shared.
~35 EUR / ~86 USD per month
Mari individual subscription (monthly)
Short-term named-user option; convenient for freelancer ramp but more expensive per month than an annual term if the work runs long.
roughly 1,200 USD and up per seat / year
Mari commercial seat (annual term)
Studio commercial seats can run node-locked or floating via Foundry RLM; confirm current list pricing and any volume terms with Foundry sales.
low-cost annual tier (verify current figure)
Mari Indie
Discounted tier for qualifying small or low-revenue creators with usage restrictions; not a substitute for commercial seats in a production pipeline.
pricing and flexibility differ
Floating vs node-locked
Floating seats share from an RLM pool across networked machines (one user per seat at a time); node-locked seats are pinned to one workstation. Floating costs more per seat but flexes across artists.
Figures are published reference points in EUR and USD and change with Foundry's price lists, region, currency and contract terms. Indie and non-commercial tiers carry eligibility and usage restrictions and are not interchangeable with commercial seats. Always confirm your exact entitlement and renewal quote with Foundry before making seat decisions.
What Mari licensing costs
Mari is licensed by Foundry as a term subscription, sold per named individual or as commercial seats that can run node-locked or floating from a Foundry RLM license server. List prices vary by tier, region and currency, so treat the figures below as published reference points and confirm your exact quote with Foundry. The point of this page is not the sticker price of one seat, it is how many seats your studio is actually paying for versus how many artists open Mari and paint on a given show.
Why organizations overspend on Mari
Mari overspend is rarely about the price of a single seat. It comes from how texturing seats are provisioned around show-based, project-driven staffing, where floating pools get sized for the busiest week of the busiest show and then quietly carry that headcount through quieter months.
Pools sized for project peak
Floating Mari pools are commonly sized to cover the peak crunch of a show. Once delivery passes, the same seat count rolls forward even though far fewer artists are painting day to day.
Texture artists are a subset of the pipeline
Only the look-dev and texturing specialists actually open Mari. When seats are bought against total artist headcount rather than the texturing subset, the pool is over-provisioned from day one.
Seats kept between shows
Studios hold seats between projects so the next show can ramp without procurement delay. That standby capacity is sensible, but without usage data nobody knows how much of it is genuinely needed versus simply never released.
Freelancer ramp leaves seats behind
Freelance texture artists come on for a show and roll off, but their named subscriptions or pool allocations are not always reclaimed, so you renew seats for people who left months ago.
Common Mari license waste patterns
Idle floating seats in the pool
The RLM server can show concurrency, but it does not tell you whether a checked-out seat is being actively painted or just held open in the background. WhatPulse measures interactive Mari time, so you can see how many pool seats are genuinely in use.
Named seats for departed freelancers
Individual Mari subscriptions assigned to freelancers who have rolled off keep renewing. Per-user activity over a 30, 60 or 90-day window makes inactive named seats obvious before the renewal date.
Standby seats carried between shows
Capacity held for the next project sits at near-zero usage for weeks. Usage windows show exactly how long seats stay dormant, turning a guess about standby into a measured decision.
Over-sized pool versus real concurrency
A pool sized for peak crunch rarely hits that peak again. Comparing measured peak interactive usage against the licensed pool size reveals the gap you are paying to keep.
Occasional users on full seats
Some artists touch Mari only for a few hours a sprint. Seeing low-usage individuals lets you decide whether they need a dedicated seat, a shared floating slot, or a short-term subscription instead.
How WhatPulse Professional helps with Mari
WhatPulse measures how much each person actually uses Mari, by application, user and computer, across your Windows and macOS workstations. It is usage evidence for human renewal and seat decisions, complementing the entitlement view from your Foundry RLM license server rather than replacing it.
- See who actively paints in Mari
- Active application time per user and per machine shows which texture artists genuinely use Mari and which seats sit unused, including who is drawing from a floating pool.
- Right-size the floating pool
- Measured peak and typical concurrent interactive usage tells you whether your RLM pool is sized for a crunch that has passed, so you can adjust before renewal.
- 30, 60 and 90-day usage windows
- Look at usage across show-aligned windows to separate true standby capacity from seats that are simply forgotten between projects.
- Filter by user, team and time
- Slice usage by texturing team, by show crew or by time period, then export the evidence to CSV or pull it via the REST Portal API for your renewal review.
- Privacy by design
- No screenshots, no keystroke content, no individual URLs. Employees can see their own data, EU data residency is available, and the client is visible to staff. It measures usage, not behavior.
- Fast, low-friction deployment
- Deploy across artist workstations via GPO, Intune or MDM at 4 USD per computer per month, with a 14-day trial and no card required to start.
WhatPulse Professional measures which applications are used and for how long — it does not record screenshots, keystroke content, or individual URLs, and it does not manage licenses or entitlements directly. It gives you the usage evidence to make those decisions in your existing SAM, IAM, or procurement workflow. How we measure, not surveil →
A realistic Mari savings example
A mid-size VFX studio carries 30 commercial Mari seats in a Foundry RLM floating pool, sized to cover the texturing crunch on its biggest recent show. After delivery, the studio reviews 90 days of WhatPulse data and finds that peak concurrent interactive Mari usage never exceeded 19 seats, with a typical working day around 14. Six named individual subscriptions also turn up assigned to freelancers who rolled off two shows ago.
By dropping roughly 8 floating seats to match measured peak usage and reclaiming the 6 stale freelancer subscriptions at renewal, the studio cuts about 14 Mari seats. At roughly 1,200 USD per commercial seat per year, that is on the order of 17,000 USD a year recovered, with the data on hand to ramp the pool back up the moment the next show needs it.
Illustrative example for explanation only. Actual results depend on your seat count, usage, and contract terms.
Who benefits
IT managers
Get a clear, deployable view of Mari usage across artist workstations without standing up new license-server tooling, and reclaim seats with evidence instead of guesswork.
Software asset managers
Pair RLM entitlement and concurrency data with measured interactive usage to right-size pools and document seat decisions for audits and renewals.
VFX and studio pipeline managers
Understand how the texturing subset of the pipeline actually uses Mari per show, so seat planning follows real demand rather than peak-week fear.
Procurement
Walk into Foundry renewals with usage facts on seat counts and floating-pool size, strengthening the case for the right term and quantity.
Finance
Turn a recurring Mari subscription line into a measured cost tied to actual usage, and forecast renewal spend against show pipeline.
Operations leaders
See where texturing capacity sits idle between projects and set a repeatable, data-backed cadence for reviewing creative software seats.
What's different about Mari licensing
- Texture and look-dev artists are only a subset of a VFX or games pipeline, so Mari seats bought against total headcount are over-provisioned from the start.
- Floating pools sized for a single show's crunch week tend to roll that peak headcount forward indefinitely unless measured usage forces a review.
- Freelancer ramp on and off shows leaves named Mari subscriptions and pool allocations stranded long after the artist has left.
- WhatPulse measures interactive Mari usage to complement, not replace, Foundry RLM concurrency reporting, giving SAM teams two halves of the same picture.
- Show-based studios can keep usage windows aligned to project cycles to separate genuine standby capacity from forgotten seats.
Estimate the savings number first
Free, no-signup calculators to size the opportunity before you start a trial.
Single application
Unused License Savings
Model annual waste and payback for Mari.
Estimate savings →Specific renewal
Renewal Decision
Renew, right-size, downgrade, or drop? Get a recommendation.
Get a recommendation →Portfolio
Software License Cost
Add up your full software spend and find the biggest line items.
Calculate cost →Make your next Mari renewal a decision, not a guess.
Run WhatPulse Professional for 30 days, see who actually uses Mari, and walk into the renewal with usage evidence instead of estimates.
Frequently asked questions
- Foundry sells Mari as a term subscription. An individual named-user subscription lists around 279 EUR (roughly 689 USD) per year or about 35 EUR (roughly 86 USD) per month, while studio commercial seats run higher, in the region of 1,200 USD and up per seat per year. Indie and non-commercial tiers are cheaper with eligibility limits. Confirm current figures and currency with Foundry, as list prices change.
- A node-locked seat is pinned to one workstation and only usable there. A floating seat lives on a Foundry RLM license server and can be checked out by any networked workstation, but only one user at a time per seat. Floating costs more per seat but lets a pool flex across a rotating texturing crew, which is why studios often size pools for peak demand.
- WhatPulse does not change your Foundry contract directly. It gives you the usage evidence to make better seat decisions: who actively paints in Mari, how many floating seats are genuinely in use at peak, and which named seats are dormant. With that data you can right-size the pool and reclaim stale seats at renewal, which is where the savings come from.
- No. The RLM server manages entitlements and shows concurrency at the seat level. WhatPulse measures interactive Mari usage per user and per computer on the desktop. The two complement each other: RLM tells you what is checked out, WhatPulse tells you whether it is actually being painted with.
- WhatPulse measures active Mari application time on each workstation, so you can see who draws from the pool and how many artists paint concurrently across a window. Comparing measured peak concurrent usage to your licensed pool size reveals whether the pool is sized for a crunch that has already passed.
- No. WhatPulse is privacy by design: no screenshots, no keystroke content and no individual URLs. It records application usage time, not what artists create. Employees can see their own data, the client is visible on the machine, and EU data residency is available. It measures usage, not behavior.
- It runs on Windows and macOS and deploys across artist workstations via GPO, Intune or MDM. Pricing is 4 USD per computer per month, with a 14-day trial and no card required. Mari is a desktop application, so it is directly in scope for measurement.
- Yes. WhatPulse offers 30, 60 and 90-day usage windows, filtering by user, team and time, CSV exports and a REST Portal API, so you can build show-aligned reports and bring evidence to your Foundry renewal conversation.
