JIRA 4 Licensing Changes FAQ

With the launch of JIRA 4 and GreenHopper 4, we are excited to introduce new licensing and pricing changes that we feel will benefit the majority of our customers. In short, every edition of JIRA and GreenHopper now provides full enterprise functionality along with user-based licensing and pricing starting at $10 for 10-users.

We have put together the following FAQ to try and answer questions you may have about the new licensing and pricing changes. We'll continue to update it in case we missed something.

If you have questions after reviewing the FAQ, don't hesitate to contact us and we'll do our best to get you sorted.

General

Why did Atlassian change licensing and pricing for JIRA and GreenHopper?

Atlassian periodically reviews its licensing and pricing to ensure that it's fair and competitive across all editions. We wanted to make every feature of JIRA and GreenHopper more accessible to smaller teams while ensuring we maintain a sustainable support model for our larger enterprise installations.

Now all licenses of JIRA and GreenHopper have full Enterprise functionality, meaning every license includes every available feature. No more Standard or Professional licenses.

As a result, we have implemented user-based licensing in JIRA 4 and GreenHopper 4 along with new pricing tiers starting at $10 for 10-users.

We believe this is great news, since most customers will experience a pricing decrease as a result of these licensing changes.

What's changed for JIRA?

We've eliminated the Standard and Professional license editions so that all JIRA users can take advantage of the higher level of flexibility and customization in JIRA Enterprise.
License tiers explicitly refer to the number of named active users in JIRA (e.g. 25-user, 50-users, etc)
We are introducing a 10-user JIRA Starter Licenses (instead of the old Personal licenses). All proceeds are going to Atlassian Foundation.

New user levels and pricing are listed below:

	Commercial	Academic
10 Users (Starter)	$10	N/A
25 Users	$1,200	$600
50 Users	$2,200	$1,100
100 Users	$4,000	$2,000
100+ Users	$8,000	$4,000

Learn more about corresponding effects on maintenance renewals, upgrades and discounting.

What's changed for JIRA Hosted and JIRA Studio?

Nothing. There are no changes at this time for JIRA Hosted or JIRA Studio, since they are already licensed on a per user basis.

Note: Existing JIRA Hosted customers will start to be migrated to JIRA 4 as quickly as possible. If you would like to be upgraded to JIRA 4, please file a ticket under the 'Enterprise Hosting' project. JIRA Studio customers will move to JIRA 4 when JIRA Studio 2 becomes available.

What's changed for GreenHopper?

We've eliminated the license editions from the install and hosted versions (e.g. Standard, Professional, and Enterprise)
License tiers explicitly refer to the number of named active users in JIRA (e.g. 25-user, 50-users, etc)
The number of users licensed to use GreenHopper must match the number of users licensed to user JIRA or JIRA Hosted (Learn more about how to upgrade GreenHopper with JIRA Hosted.
We are introducing a 10-user GreenHopper Starter Licenses (instead of the old Personal licenses). All proceeds are going to Atlassian Foundation.

New user levels and pricing are listed below:

	Commercial	Academic
10 Users (Starter)	$10	N/A
25 Users	$600	$300
50 Users	$1,100	$550
100 Users	$2,000	$1,000
100+ Users	$4,000	$2,000

Learn more about corresponding effects on maintenance renewals and upgrades.

Who do I contact with questions regarding these changes?

Please contact sales@atlassian.com with any questions you have about these changes.

Licensing

All JIRA 4 licensing changes below apply similarly to GreenHopper 4.

As an existing customer, how do I get JIRA 4?

If your JIRA license is under active maintenance, you can move to JIRA 4 at no additional cost.

To use JIRA 4, you must obtain a new user-based license key. You can select from any of the available user tiers (25, 50, 100, or unlimited users), and this license is valid for the remainder of your existing maintenance period.

Not sure how many users you'll need? Don't worry about it. While your JIRA 3.x license is still under active maintenance, you can nominate a different number of users and get a new License Key, again at no cost. However, once your existing maintenance runs out, you'll need to nominate a quantity of users and pay the associated Renewal price, which will 'lock-in' that number of licensed users. After that, you can always purchase license upgrades if you require more users.

Note: JIRA 3.x license keys will not work with JIRA 4.

What if I don't plan to move to JIRA 4 right away?

That's fine. You can continue to use JIRA 3.x with your current license, and even renew at the old prices. We'll continue providing support for JIRA 3.x as defined in the Atlassian Support End of Life Policy.

You can move to JIRA 4 at any time. Please note, however, that requesting a license key for JIRA 4 means that your future renewals will be for user-based licenses at the new prices rather than being an edition-based license (Standard, Professional, or Enterprise). So, if you want to look at JIRA 4 without changing your future renewal price, please obtain an Evaluation License.

How do I obtain a JIRA 4 license key?

Obtaining a new JIRA 4 license key is free and the key is valid for the remainder of your existing maintenance period.

It's as easy as 1-2-3:

Login to your my.atlassian.com account
From your existing JIRA 3.x license, click the "update your license key" link.
Select your number of active users and click the "update my license" button.

Then, simply copy your new JIRA 4 license key and paste it into the JIRA 4 installation screen. Refer to the JIRA Installation and Upgrade Guide for more details.

While your JIRA 3.x license is still under active maintenance, you can nominate a different number of users and get a new License Key, again at no additional cost.

Note: Once you obtain a JIRA 4 license key, you must renew your maintenance in accordance with the new user-based pricing (see below). At the time your current maintenance runs out, you'll need to nominate a quantity of users and pay the associated Renewal price from that date forward.

If you want to trial the capabilities of JIRA 4 in a non-production system, we recommend using an Evaluation License.

How do I know how many active users I have in JIRA?

An active user is defined by having the "JIRA Users" global permission (to login).

Using JIRA 4.x:
We display active user information in the User Browser. (Click Administration -> User Browser).

Using JIRA 3.x:
Unfortunately, active users can be a little trickier to identify in older versions of JIRA (since we didn't need to track them back then). Our recommendation, as with any upgrade, is that you upgrade JIRA in a staging environment. Then follow the instructions above.

Alternatively, you need to determine all of the users in any group that has "JIRA Users" permission. We have provided detailed instructions to help you find the Active User Count of your JIRA instance.

What if my number of active users changes?

If you are still within your JIRA 3.x maintenance period, you can obtain a user-based license key for any number of users for the remainder of your existing maintenance period. Think of it as our little gift to you for having kept your license maintenance up-to-date!

However, once your existing maintenance period ends, you'll need to pay the Renewal price associated with your nominated number of Users, which will 'lock-in' that quantity of licensed users. After that, you can always purchase license upgrades if you require more users.

How do I disable inactive users?

Login to JIRA as an Administrator and click on Administration.
On the left hand side under Global Settings, click on Global Permissions
Check which groups have the "JIRA Users" permission. This is normally the jira-users group.
Click on the View Users link next to any group in the "JIRA Users" permission row. This will show all the users that have the permissions to use JIRA ie: login
Locate the account you wish to disable and in the operations columns click the groups link.
Remove the account from the jira-users group.

Can I use a JIRA 4 license key with JIRA 3.x?

No. You will need to obtain a JIRA 3.x license key from my.atlassian.com. This is available at no additional cost to JIRA 4 license holders (except for Starter licenses).

Who do I contact with questions regarding these licensing changes?

Please contact sales@atlassian.com with any questions you have about these licensing changes.

Pricing

As an evaluator, is my quote with edition-based pricing still valid?

We will still honour existing JIRA and GreenHopper quotes. If you purchase from the JIRA 3.13 quote, we will issue you a JIRA 3.x "edition-based" license. You can use this with JIRA 3.x or, if you wish to move to JIRA 4, you can obtain a JIRA 4 license as per the instructions above.

However, we recommend that you study the new JIRA 4 pricing, because it may be cheaper than the Quote you already have! To change to the new pricing, just create a new Quote, or contact us and we'll adjust it for you.

As a customer using JIRA 3.x, what changes when it's time for me to renew my maintenance?

If you chose to stay on JIRA 3.x, you can still renew your old edition-based license (Standard, Professional, or Enterprise) at the same renewal rate until October 6, 2011.

	Commercial	Academic
Standard	$600	$300
Professional	$1200	$600
Enterprise	$2,400	$1,200

If you decide to renew your JIRA 3.x maintenance beyond the Atlassian Support End of Life Policy (July 21, 2011), you will continue to have access to software updates with limited access to technical support for upgrade assistance only.

You can upgrade to JIRA 4 at any time while your JIRA 3.x license is still under active maintenance, and you can nominate a different number of users and get a new license key, at no additional cost.

As a customer using JIRA 4, what changes when it's time for me to renew my maintenance?

While your JIRA 3.x license is under active maintenance, you can upgrade to JIRA 4 at any time. You may also nominate a different number of users during this period, at no additional cost.

	Commercial	Academic
10 Users (Starter)	$10	N/A
25 Users	$600	$300
50 Users	$1,100	$550
100 Users	$2,000	$1,000
100+ Users	$4,000	$2,000

What if my license maintenance has expired?

You will need to renew your license in order to have full access to JIRA 4, future upgrades and Atlassian's Legendary Support. You'll have the choice to renew your license under the old JIRA 3.x edition-based pricing, or switch to the new JIRA 4 user-based pricing. Renewal prices are based upon the number of users you nominate.

Please note that renewals are back-dated to when your license expired, so it's always a good idea to keep your maintenance up-to-date.

Keep in mind, you can always trial the capabilities of JIRA 4 in a non-production system by using an Evaluation License.

Who do I contact with questions on the pricing change?

Please contact sales@atlassian.com with any questions you have about these pricing changes.