On August 28, 2026, Atlassian announced Cloud list price updates affecting new purchases, renewals, and upgrades, effective October 13, 2026. On September 1, they announced something separate: usage-based pricing across five metered capabilities, with billing starting December 3, 2026.
Note: As an Atlassian Partner, Sketch offers free licensing services. If these pricing changes are putting you in a budgetary bind, please reach out, and we’ll see if we can help.
The price update reflects a year of real investment. Agents that complete work instead of just answering questions. The Teamwork Graph connecting context across every app your teams touch. Enterprise-grade security built into every layer. The platform you're renewing isn't the same platform you bought last year. All of Atlassian’s updates over the year can be viewed here.
The short version of both announcements
The first change raises what you pay per seat. The second adds a second thing you pay for. They are independent of each other, and you can be affected by both.
|
|
Change 1 |
Change 2 |
|
What |
List price increase across Cloud subscriptions |
Usage-based pricing on five metered capabilities |
|
Announced |
August 28, 2026 |
September 1, 2026 |
|
Takes effect |
October 13, 2026 |
December 3, 2026 (most meters) |
|
Who it hits |
Anyone renewing, upgrading, or buying new |
Anyone using Rovo, Automation, Assets, Bitbucket pipelines or packages, or CSM AI agents |
|
Can you avoid it? |
Possibly. Timing matters |
Partly. It’s configurable |
Change 1: Atlassian cloud pricing changes October 13
Effective October 13, 2026 PT, Atlassian is raising list prices across the Cloud portfolio.
Comparing Atlassian’s published current and future pricing tables, the increases work out to approximately:
|
Product |
Standard |
Premium |
Enterprise |
|
Jira |
+7–10% |
+7–10% |
+8% |
|
Confluence |
+7–10% |
+7–10% |
+8% |
|
Teamwork Collection |
+7–10% |
+7–10% |
+8% |
|
Service Collection / JSM |
+7.5% |
+7.5% |
+10% |
|
+5% |
+5% |
— |
|
|
Atlassian Guard |
+3% |
+5% |
— |
|
Bitbucket |
— |
+10% |
— |
Ranges appear where the increase varies by user tier.
How the timing actually works
This is the part worth reading twice, because it determines whether you pay the old price or the new one.
- Existing monthly subscriptions: any bill dated on or after October 13 uses new pricing.
- Existing annual subscriptions: any quote generated or modified on or after October 13 uses new pricing.
- Auto-renewing annual subscriptions: any bill on or after October 13 uses new pricing. Your card on file gets charged at the new rate.
- Open quotes created before October 13: honored at the old price until the quote’s stated expiration date.
- New purchases on or after October 13: new pricing.
- Tier upgrades or plan upgrades on or after October 13: new pricing. Upgrade before October 13 and you stay on existing pricing.
Two constraints on acting early:
- You can only renew early inside your 90-day renewal window. Atlassian or your partner sends a renewal quote 90 days before an annual subscription expires (unless you already have an open quote for another product on the same site). You cannot purchase a renewal outside that window. If your renewal is in March, the “lock in the old price now” is not available to you.
- Monthly customers have a different door. If you’re on a monthly plan, you can’t renew early, but you can request an annual quote any time before October 13 and get existing pricing. Payment has to land before that quote expires. Moving monthly to annual can also carry a discount depending on seat count.
Change 2: Usage-based pricing starts billing December 3
Your seat-based subscription doesn’t change. Usage-based pricing adds a consumption layer on top of it for five metered capabilities:
|
Meter |
What it counts |
|
Rovo credits |
Consumed when users interact with Chat, Agents, or pull insights from Teamwork Graph |
|
Automation steps |
Every trigger, action, condition, branch, or loop. A flow with 1 trigger, 1 condition, and 2 actions = 4 steps |
|
Assets objects |
Object records stored in your Assets schema — servers, contracts, vendors, customers |
|
Bitbucket meters |
Four sub-meters: Pipeline Build Minutes, Git LFS Storage, Packages Storage, Packages Network |
|
CSM AI agent resolutions |
Customer requests fully resolved by the CSM AI agent without human escalation |
Four mechanics that decide your bill
- Allowances are pooled at the org level, not per user or per app. All your subscriptions contribute to one shared pool per meter. Everyone draws from the same bucket. One team running heavy automation consumes allowance that another team was counting on.
- Allowances refresh monthly and don’t roll over. This holds even on annual plans — annual customers get a fresh monthly allowance, not a lump-sum yearly one. Unused capacity is gone at the end of each month.
- Check your extra usage setting: Allowances are calibrated against real usage patterns, and Atlassian expects most customers won't exceed them. Even so, take thirty seconds in Atlassian Administration to see how your organization is configured. Your extra usage setting decides what happens if you do go past an allowance: consumption either continues and gets billed at published rates, or that meter pauses until the allowance refreshes (disabling extra usage).
- Automation is metered per step. Every action, condition, branch, or loop counts individually. A flow with one trigger, one condition, and two actions is four steps. If you’ve built dense multi-branch automation, your measured consumption will look very different from what the number of flows suggests. Every plan carries a defined monthly Automation allowance.
Related reading:
Set up Jira to Confluence automation the smart way
Set up Jira work routing automation
What to do
If you have any questions or want a second set of eyes, our team of experts will help you review your licensing:
- Deactivate inactive users. Users who aren’t using the product still count toward your bill. On monthly plans this reduces your next bill directly. On annual it lowers what you renew at rather than what you’re paying now, which makes doing it well before your renewal date the point. If you haven’t audited this in a year, there’s almost certainly something there.
- Check where you sit in your pricing tier. Annual Cloud pricing is fixed-tier, not per-user. An org with 480 Jira Standard users bills at the 500-user tier. If you’re at 480, you have 20 seats of headroom you’ve already paid for. If you’re at 505, you’ve just crossed into the 600 tier, and the same logic applies in reverse when you deactivate users. Know which side of a tier boundary you’re on before your renewal, not after.
- Look at your extra usage settings. Atlassian Administration → Billing, or Insights → Platform usage. Decide deliberately whether you want extra usage on. Changes take effect immediately, and will be turned on by default. This is the single highest-value thing on this list.
- Baseline your consumption ASAP. The Platform usage dashboard shows up to 90 days of history plus forecasting, and you can export to CSV. Pull your Rovo, Automation, and Assets numbers now, while there’s no invoice attached. If your automation is step-heavy, this is where you’ll find out.
- Look at plan structure. With real numbers in hand, some structural options may or may not make sense: consolidating multiple Standard or Premium subscriptions of the same product into one Enterprise subscription; consolidating Jira, Confluence, Guard, and Loom onto Teamwork Collection if seat counts are similar; moving monthly to annual. Atlassian lists all of these as ways to reduce a bill, and higher tiers and Collections do carry larger allowances. Whether that math works for you depends entirely on step 4. Run the numbers before you run the change.
At Sketch, we help you get real results from Atlassian without paying enterprise prices. A big part of that is free Atlassian license management without surprises. There's a lot of detail that goes into these two changes coming this fall. If you have any questions or want a second set of eyes, we’ll help you review your licensing.
As always, it’s no charge. Just contact us and we’ll see what we can do.
Frequently asked questions
Are the October price increase and Atlassian usage-based pricing the same change?
No. They were announced separately, they take effect on different dates, and they bill differently. The October 13 change raises the list price of your seats. The December 3 change adds a consumption charge for five metered capabilities on top of your seats. You can be affected by one, both, or neither.
How much are Atlassian Cloud prices going up in 2026?
Comparing Atlassian's published current and future pricing tables, roughly 3 to 10 percent depending on product and plan. Jira, Confluence, and Teamwork Collection land around 7 to 10 percent on Standard and Premium and about 8 percent on Enterprise. Service Collection and JSM are about 7.5 percent on Standard and Premium and 10 percent on Enterprise. Jira Product Discovery is about 5 percent, Atlassian Guard 3 to 5 percent, and Bitbucket Premium about 10 percent. Ranges appear where the increase varies by user tier.
Can I lock in current Atlassian pricing before October 13?
Sometimes, and it depends on your renewal date. Atlassian honors open quotes created before October 13 at the old price until the quote's stated expiration date. But you can only purchase a renewal inside your 90-day renewal window, so if your annual term ends in March, locking in old pricing now is not available to you. Upgrading a user tier or a plan before October 13 does keep you on existing pricing.
I'm on a monthly Atlassian Cloud plan. What are my options?
Monthly customers cannot renew early, but you can request an annual quote any time before October 13 and receive existing pricing. Payment has to land before that quote expires, and the quote cannot be extended past November 11, 2026. Moving from monthly to annual can also carry a discount depending on seat count.
Does Atlassian usage-based pricing replace my subscription?
No. Your seats, your renewal process, and your subscription price all work the way they do today. Usage-based pricing sits on top as a separate consumption layer, and it only produces a charge if your organization goes past its included monthly allowance on a metered capability.
Which Atlassian capabilities are metered under usage-based pricing?
Five: Rovo credits, Automation steps, Assets objects, Bitbucket meters (Pipeline Build Minutes, Git LFS Storage, Packages Storage, Packages Network), and CSM AI agent resolutions.
Each meter carries its own allowance and is tracked and billed independently, so running out of Automation steps does not touch your Rovo credits. AI-powered steps inside an automation draw Rovo credits rather than Automation steps, so the same action isn't counted twice.
Will we get an Atlassian usage-based bill on December 3 we didn't agree to?
That depends on one setting, and it varies by organization. Go look at yours rather than assume. This is the single highest-value thing on the list, and it takes about thirty seconds.
The setting decides what happens when you pass an allowance: consumption either continues and is billed at published rates, or that meter pauses until the allowance refreshes. You'll find it in Atlassian Administration under Billing, or under Insights then Platform usage. Changes take effect immediately. Organization and billing admins are also notified at 80 and 100 percent of allowance, so you get warning either way, but the warning only helps if someone is watching for it.
What happens if we hit an Atlassian usage allowance and extra usage is off?
Only that meter pauses. Nothing is deleted, and every other meter keeps running.
Automation stops executing new steps, and events that fire while flows are stopped do not replay when the allowance refreshes. Rovo pauses billable interactions while free AI features like Search and summaries keep working. Assets stops object creation and updates, though existing objects stay accessible. Bitbucket pipelines stop until reset. CSM AI agent resolutions stop and new requests route to human agents.
Everything resumes when allowances refresh at the start of the next monthly period.
How do we find out how much our Atlassian Cloud usage costs today?
Atlassian Administration, then Insights, then Platform usage. The dashboard shows up to 90 days of history plus a forecast, and you can export to CSV. Do this before December 3, while there's no invoice attached to the number. If your automation is dense with conditions and branches, this is where you find out that your step count looks nothing like your flow count.
Does deactivating inactive Atlassian users actually lower the bill?
Yes, with different timing depending on your plan. On monthly it reduces your next bill directly. On annual it reduces what you renew at rather than what you're paying now, which is why the audit has to happen well before the renewal quote is generated. Check your tier boundary while you're in there: annual Cloud pricing is fixed-tier, so an org with 480 Jira Standard users bills at the 500-user tier, and trimming to 470 saves nothing until you cross a boundary.
Should we buy Atlassian usage packs now?
Not before you have your own consumption data. Monthly usage packs and committed packs are both listed as coming soon, and sizing either one without a 90-day baseline is guessing. Pull your usage export first, then decide whether extra usage at published rates, a pack, or a change in plan structure is the cheaper path. Higher tiers and Collections carry larger allowances, but whether that math works depends entirely on your actual numbers.
Sources:
Atlassian’s announcement regarding the annual price increase
Atlassian’s announcement regarding usage based billing
Atlassian