Harness Cloud is “Harness-managed infrastructure that can be used for various tasks in Harness such as builds, security tests and infrastructure provisioning”, and its use is metered in Cloud Credits.[1] Harness also offers Flex Pricing, a separate unit model, and invoices excess use of any module under the Subscription Terms. This article collects those usage-based mechanics.
Editions
Cloud Credits and limits are described by plan tier. The CI documentation names the tiers Free, Startup and Enterprise, while the pricing page names the plans Free, Essentials and Enterprise.[1][8] Flex Pricing uses the Free, Essentials and Enterprise names.[3] The table below uses the names as written in each source.
| Item | Free | Startup | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly credits | 2000 free credits[1] | Purchased[1] | Purchased[1] |
| Linux concurrent stages | 20[1] | 40[1] | 60[1] |
| Windows and macOS concurrent stages | 1 and 1[1] | 5 and 5[1] | 5 and 5[1] |
| CI Intelligence cache storage | 2 GB[1] | 5 GB[1] | 10 GB[1] |
| Network transfer from Harness Cloud | 1 GB[1] | 5 GB[1] | 10 GB[1] |
At the concurrency limit, new stages are queued. At the cache storage limit, Harness keeps saving new caches and evicts old ones.[1] Customers needing higher limits can ask Harness Support.[1] Catalog rows: Harness Cloud concurrency differs by plan tier and operating system and Harness Cloud cache storage and network transfer are capped by plan.
Metrics
Cloud Credit
A Cloud Credit “represents one minute of compute time consumed on Harness cloud infrastructure to execute pipeline stages or processes initiated by the customer”. It applies to modules that rely on Harness cloud resources, including CI, STO and IaCM, and depends on the operating system and the allocated CPU, memory and disk.[2] Execution on customer-owned infrastructure is excluded unless the agreement says otherwise.[2]
Credits are calculated by “multiplying the execution time (measured in minutes, rounded to the nearest minute) by the minute multiplier of the selected resource class”.[1] The rate table, effective 2026-09-01, includes the following.[1]
| Operating system | Resource classes (cores, memory) and multiplier |
|---|---|
| Linux AMD64 | xsmall (2, 7 GB) 1; small (4, 15 GB) 2; medium (8, 31 GB) 4; large (16, 62 GB) 8; xlarge (32, 124 GB) 16; xxlarge (64, 248 GB) 32; xxxlarge (96, 372 GB) 48 |
| Linux ARM64 | xsmall 1; small 2; medium 4; large 8; xlarge 16; xxlarge 32 |
| Windows AMD64 | small 4; medium 8; large 16; xlarge 32; xxlarge 64; xxxlarge 96 |
| macOS ARM64 (Apple M4) | medium (6 cores, 12 GB) 36 |
The page prices a multiplier of 1 at USD 0.005 per minute, so 1,000 minutes on a four-core Linux machine is 2,000 credits and 1,000 minutes on a six-core macOS machine is 36,000 credits.[1] The rows are Cloud Credit rate table lists minute multipliers per resource class, Credits equal execution minutes times the minute multiplier and A Cloud Credit is one minute of Harness cloud compute multiplied by resource class.
Harness Subscription Unit
A Harness Subscription Unit (HSU) “is a standardized unit for measuring usage across all Harness modules”, and the number consumed “varies by module, feature, and type of activity”.[3] Harness lists three tiers.[3]
| Tier | Price per HSU | Described as |
|---|---|---|
| Free | USD 0.00 | Trying out modules before committing usage |
| Essentials | USD 0.75 | Small to medium businesses |
| Enterprise | USD 1.25 | Large organizations with committed usage |
Discrete metrics such as pipeline executions, API calls and scan runs are summed across the billing period. Cumulative metrics such as active users, database instances or API endpoints can use lookback windows, free allowances, tiered pricing and different aggregation methods. All modules are billed on calendar-month boundaries regardless of the contract start date, with the first month prorated.[3] Flex Pricing “is currently in limited availability and is being rolled out gradually”.[3] Rows: Harness Subscription Unit, HSUs are a pool spent across modules, HSU prices are USD 0.00, 0.75 and 1.25 by tier and Flex Pricing is in limited availability.
Counting / floors
Free credits. Free plans “receive 2000 free credits every month”, and unused credits expire at the end of the month.[1] Free accounts under Flex Pricing also receive 1,000 free HSUs a month, which reset each calendar month.[3] The Subscriptions page confirms that for free accounts “the credit balance resets at the end of every calendar month”.[6] See Free plans receive 2000 credits a month that do not roll over.
Purchased credits. Credits purchased on a paid plan “can be rolled over from one month to the next, but generally expire one year from purchase, unless specified otherwise” in an Order Form.[1] The Cloud Credits page in the account shows available credits, month-to-date use, the next expiry date and any overage, and it can break usage down by organization, project or resource class.[6] See Purchased credits roll over but generally expire one year after purchase.
Unused HSUs. HSUs are “typically part of an annual commitment” and unused units carry forward within the contract period.[3]
Code Repository. Because Code Repository is available to customers of the CI module, its limits follow the CI subscription. The Free plan allows 10 GB of storage (4 GB per repository) and 50 GB of monthly bandwidth, and paid plans 250 GB (10 GB per repository) and 250 GB.[7] Over the storage limit, Git pushes are blocked, and over the bandwidth limit, requests return HTTP 429.[7] See Code Repository storage and bandwidth.
Virtualization & partitioning
Cloud Credits scale with resource class and operating system, not with a licensed host. A larger machine multiplies the minutes consumed, and Windows and macOS classes use higher multipliers than Linux of the same size.[1] Self-hosted execution is outside the credit unit, as explained above.[2]
Cloud / BYOL
Customers can run pipelines on Harness Cloud or on their own infrastructure. Cloud Credits measure only the former, while a customer-owned build environment consumes no credits.[2] Self-managed Harness installations use licence keys instead; see Harness Open Source and editions.
Programs
- Flex Pricing. Pool of HSUs with usage alerts at 80%, 90% and 100% of the purchased amount, sent to Account Administrators.[3]
- Free plan monthly HSUs and cloud credits. 1,000 HSUs and 2000 credits a month.[1][3]
- Excess use and overage billing. Described below.[5]
Overage
Overage is handled by different documents with different mechanics.
- Harness Cloud. “Harness will allow you to continue using Harness Cloud even if you do not have enough credits in your account to cover your total execution time, but Harness will invoice you in arrears for all credits owed.” Harness “reserves the right to automatically suspend” Cloud executions if the customer does not “promptly pay for all credits utilized”.[1] To restore access, the customer must pay and buy enough credits for the rest of the licence term.[1] Invoices are due within 30 days.[1]
- Flex Pricing. Work continues when the HSU pool is exceeded, and extra usage “is billed at your plan’s per-HSU rate, invoiced monthly in arrears”.[3] In the worked example, 5,000 extra HSUs cost USD 6,250 on Enterprise at 1.25 and USD 3,750 on Essentials at 0.75.[3] The page also warns that overage HSUs are charged at a higher rate than contracted ones, although its example uses the plan rate.[3]
- DevOps Essentials. The usage terms of 2025-02-28 price overage at USD 0.58 per CD Deployment Event, USD 0.01 per Cloud Credit, USD 1.15 per Security Scan and USD 1.73 per IaCM Deployment Event, invoiced in arrears.[4] The CI rate table effective 2026-09-01 shows USD 0.005 for a multiplier of 1, so the figures should be checked against the Order Form.[1][4]
- All modules. The Subscription Terms say that if a customer exceeds License Units, it will be invoiced “at the then current License Unit rate(s)” and must enter a new Order Form, and that if no remedial action is taken within 30 days Harness may invoice the overage. Products and License Unit Definitions say excess use is billed at the end of the month in which it occurs.[2][5]
See Harness Cloud use continues without credits and is invoiced in arrears, Exceeding the HSU pool does not interrupt service and is billed monthly in arrears, DevOps Essentials overage is priced per unit and Cloud Credit price differs between the 2025 terms and the 2026 rate table.
Audits and compliance
Credit and HSU consumption are visible in the account Subscriptions page, and Harness notifies customers when credits run low.[1][3] The Subscription Terms allow Harness to ask for documentation of usage and to verify it with platform data.[5] Checks that licence managers perform include the credit expiry dates of each purchased block, whether Free-plan allowances are being used for production work, the resource classes selected in pipelines, and the overage rates in force under the Order Form.
Out of scope
- Credit prices under an Order Form, which Harness does not publish apart from the figures cited.
- Cloud marketplace purchase procedures, which have their own documentation pages.
- Costs on customers’ own cloud accounts when pipelines run on their infrastructure.