Atlassian licensing is the set of agreements, plans and meters under which Atlassian sells Jira, Confluence, Jira Service Management, Bitbucket, Atlassian Guard, Rovo and its other collaboration and developer products. Atlassian states that its licenses are based on named users, not concurrent users.[3] Products come in two deployment families. Cloud Products are hosted by Atlassian and sold in plans, and Software Products, today the Data Center editions, are installed by the customer. A single contract, the Atlassian Customer Agreement (ACA), applies to both, with Product-Specific Terms for some products and policies for support.[1] The version published at the time of writing is marked effective starting 1 October 2026.[1]
The ACA defines Scope of Use as the customer’s entitlements, which may be based on licenses, copies or instances, on entity or field of use, on the number and type of Users, on usage-based units, or on other billable units.[1] A license position for Atlassian therefore combines a count of named users or agents with any metered usage, per product and per instance.
Editions
Most cloud apps are sold in four plans: Free, Standard, Premium and Enterprise.[4]
| Plan | Main licensing features |
|---|---|
| Free | Up to 10 users of Jira and Confluence or 3 agents of Jira Service Management; monthly only; 2 GB storage; Community Support |
| Standard | Per-user pricing from one user; 250 GB storage; 9x5 Standard Support |
| Premium | Unlimited storage; 99.9% availability SLA; 24/7 Premium Support |
| Enterprise | Annual billing at organization level; Atlassian Guard Standard included; up to 150 app instances in one plan |
Sources: Atlassian Cloud Licensing and the Enterprise billing documentation.[4][11] Increasingly, Atlassian sells apps in collections. Service Collection contains Jira Service Management, Customer Service Management, Assets and Rovo, priced per agent, and its apps cannot be bought separately.[18] When a collection is bought, the included app subscriptions are covered by it and not billed separately.[20] See Atlassian Cloud plans and user tiers.
Data Center is the self-managed edition of Jira, Confluence, Bitbucket, Jira Service Management, Crowd and Bamboo. It is sold as annual subscriptions rather than perpetual licenses, priced by user tier except Bamboo, which is priced by agents.[5] The older Server products have been unsupported since 15 February 2024.[7]
Metrics
The catalog records Atlassian’s seat metrics under Atlassian’s names:
- User. A named person with access to a product, the seat unit for Jira, Confluence and most other apps.[3]
- Agent. The seat unit for Jira Service Management and Service Collection. Agents and service space administrators are licensed; customers who raise requests through the portal, email or widget are not.[19]
- Unique billable user (Guard Standard). Atlassian Guard is billed once per unique user across the organization, regardless of how many apps or sites the user can reach.[17] Guard Standard and the Guard Premium add-on are counted separately, and one authentication policy may be designated non-billable.[16]
Usage meters sit beside the seat metrics. Atlassian’s billing documentation describes hybrid pricing, in which each subscription contributes an allowance to an organization-wide pool and usage above the pool is charged as extra usage or covered by prepaid packs.[13] Rovo credits are included per user per month in paid Jira, Confluence and collection subscriptions, at amounts that rise with the plan.[15] The Usage-Based Offering Terms set the order in which allowance, packs and extra usage are consumed, and state that unused allowances and packs expire without refund.[14]
Counting / floors
- Who counts. Users count toward billing once they are granted product access, even if they never accept the invitation or log in, and stop counting only when removed.[10] Users created by Marketplace apps are not counted.[4]
- Monthly cloud. Maximum quantity billing was introduced in phases from 14 July 2025. The bill is based on the highest number of users in the billing period, and removing users gives no deduction, refund or credit.[9]
- Annual cloud and Enterprise. Annual subscriptions are priced by fixed user tiers. Each Enterprise bill has a tier that can be raised at any time but lowered only at renewal.[10][11]
- Data Center. Each product is licensed at a user tier, and the ACA permits up to one production instance of each Software Product on an Order unless the Order or Product-Specific Terms say otherwise.[1]
- Marketplace apps. An app is sold at the user tier of its host product and must match or exceed that tier, even if only some users need it.[8]
- Free plan limits. If a Free site exceeds its limit, Atlassian upgrades it to Standard after seven days unless the excess users are removed.[4]
If a customer exceeds its purchased Scope of Use, the ACA requires it to upgrade the subscription or pay for the increased Scope of Use.[1] Worked counting rules are in Atlassian Cloud and Data Center licensing meters.
Programs
- Atlassian Customer Agreement and Product-Specific Terms. The general contract for all Products and Support and Advisory Services, with Product-Specific Terms for products such as Bitbucket Cloud, Jira Align, Loom, Opsgenie, Statuspage and Trello.[1][2]
- Cloud Enterprise. Organization-level annual plans that include Guard Standard.[11]
- Discount programs. Academic, Classroom, Open Source and Social Impact discounts apply fixed percentages to listed plans.[3]
- Developer licenses. Free Cloud Developer Bundle sites and Data Center developer licenses are for non-production use.[4][5]
- Atlassian Government Cloud. A standalone FedRAMP Moderate offering.[25]
- Atlassian Together. A former bundle, retired on 1 June 2024.[22]
Support and maintenance
Atlassian has no separate maintenance product. The ACA grants use of the Products “and related Support and Advisory Services” during the Subscription Term, and Support is subject to Atlassian’s policies.[1] Support level follows the plan: Community Support on Free, 9x5 Standard Support on Standard, and 24/7 Premium Support on Premium.[4] Priority Support has been included with Jira, Jira Service Management, Confluence and Crowd Data Center since 2 February 2021, and with Bitbucket and Bamboo Data Center from certain tiers.[5]
Unless an Order says otherwise, a Subscription Term renews automatically at Atlassian’s then current rates, for the same period if the prior term was under twelve months or for twelve months otherwise; either party may decline to renew by notice before the term ends.[1]
Audits and compliance
Section 5.2 of the ACA, License Verification, applies to Software Products. On Atlassian’s written request, the customer must promptly confirm in writing whether its use complies with its Scope of Use. Atlassian or its authorized agents may audit use no more than once every twelve months, with reasonable advance notice and reasonable efforts to minimize disruption. Excess use may be invoiced and is payable promptly after receipt of the invoice.[1]
For Cloud Products compliance is largely enforced by billing itself: user counts, tiers and usage meters are measured by Atlassian, and billing follows the highest count or the purchased tier.[9][10] Third-party Marketplace apps are licensed under their vendors’ own terms.[23] The general process is described in Software license audit.
Virtualization & partitioning
The ACA’s unit of partitioning for Data Center is the production instance: one per Software Product on an Order unless stated otherwise.[1] For Marketplace apps, a Data Center product running on multiple servers counts as one environment.[8] Atlassian’s published terms set no hypervisor, core or vCPU rules. In the cloud, Standard and Premium plans cover one instance of an app, and Enterprise allows up to 150.[11]
Cloud / BYOL
Atlassian publishes no general conversion of Data Center user-tier licenses into cloud subscriptions. Its end-of-life program instead offers migration arrangements, and existing Data Center and Cloud Enterprise licensing agreements are to be honoured.[6] Bitbucket is excluded from the Data Center end of life and continues under a Hybrid License model.[6] Atlassian Guard applies only to cloud; Atlassian directs Data Center customers to Crowd for user management and single sign-on.[24]
Recent licensing changes
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| 2021-02-02 | Server app sales ended[7] |
| 2024-02-15 | Server products no longer supported[7] |
| 2024-06-01 | Atlassian Together retired[22] |
| 2025-07-14 | Maximum quantity billing phased in for monthly cloud subscriptions[9] |
| 2026-02-17 | Data Center list prices for Jira, Confluence and Jira Service Management raised[21] |
| 2026-03-30 | Data Center no longer sold to new customers[6] |
| 2026-10-13 | New cloud list prices take effect for Jira, Confluence, Jira Service Management, collections, Guard and other apps[12] |
| 2028-03-30 | Last day for existing Data Center customers to buy new subscriptions, expansions and upgrades[6] |
| 2029-03-28 | Data Center end of life; subscriptions expire and instances become read-only[6] |
Atlassian’s acquisition of Loom, completed in 2023, is listed on the acquisitions page.
Guides
| Article | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Atlassian Cloud and Data Center licensing meters | User, agent and product-specific meters across cloud and Data Center; discount programs |
| Atlassian Cloud plans and user tiers | Free, Standard, Premium and Enterprise; maximum quantity billing; annual tiers; Rovo credits |
| Atlassian Data Center end of life and pricing | Data Center tiers, 2026 list prices, end-of-life timeline, support |
| Jira Service Management agent licensing | Agents, customers and collaborators; Service Collection; metered allowances |
| Atlassian Guard licensing | Guard Standard and Premium, unique billable users, non-billable policies |
| Atlassian Marketplace app licensing | Tier matching, Data Center environments, multi-instance billing, vendor terms |
Out of scope
- Pricing tables, which are covered in the plan and Data Center articles.
- Product-Specific Terms for Jira Align, Opsgenie, Statuspage, Trello and Loom beyond the summary above.
- Third-party Marketplace app terms, which each vendor sets.
- Data processing and AI terms, which do not define license metrics.