A subscription-based licensing model is typically associated with a recurring fee for continued access to a product or service. However, a company looking to pay for the actual consumption of cloud resources would benefit more from a pay-as-you-go model, where charges are incurred based on the extent of resources used, allowing for flexibility and operational expenditure (OPEX) savings. Other options, like socket-based or core-based, refer to specific licensing models tied to the physical hardware, which aren't directly linked to actual usage metrics.