Atlassian Cloud migration in 2026. Size the user tier before you move.

Moving to Atlassian Cloud changes how you pay: on annual plans every user with product access counts toward a user tier, and the plan sets the rate. Clean the user list, size the tier and agree the credits before you migrate.

Why are companies migrating to Atlassian Cloud in 2026?

Most are moving because Atlassian has set an end of life date for Data Center, after which subscriptions expire and the products turn read only. Two purchase cutoffs before that date, shown in the table below, shorten the working window further.

Atlassian publishes its cloud migration path and timelines. For most teams we advise, the deadline forces the decision more than any Cloud feature does. Our Data Center end of life guide and other posts on the Redress blog cover the dates and exceptions in more detail.

What happens when support ends?

Security fixes stop. For regulated and security conscious buyers, that alone turns migration from an option into a scheduled project. Each Data Center version also has its own end of support date under Atlassian's end of life policy, so an older version can lose fixes well before 2029.

Why does the roadmap favor Cloud?

Atlassian directs new features to Cloud first, so staying on Data Center increasingly means running behind the product roadmap. Three factors usually set the date a team commits to.

• Risk. Unsupported software loses security fixes, which security teams and external auditors tend to flag at the next review.
• Roadmap. New capability lands on Cloud first, so the gap between the two platforms widens with each release.
• Timing. The cutoff dates set the schedule, and a site with many Marketplace apps needs months of testing (see Marketplace apps and end of life).

How does Atlassian Cloud pricing work compared with Data Center?

Cloud charges for every user with product access, in user tiers on annual plans or per user on monthly plans, and the plan (Standard, Premium or Enterprise) sets the rate. Data Center is also an annual subscription priced by user tier. What the migration changes is the count, because the Cloud tier is set by whoever you bring across.

How do user tiers set the price?

On an annual Cloud subscription you buy a user tier. In Atlassian's own example, a 500 user Confluence Cloud subscription covers any number of users up to 500 without changing the renewal price. You pay for the whole tier whether it is full or half empty, as the published cloud licensing terms explain.

• Counting. A user counts toward billing as soon as product access is granted, even if they never accept the invite or log in.
• Changes in the term. Tier upgrades are prorated to the end date. Atlassian gives no credit or refund for removing products early, and a new annual subscription can be refunded only within 30 days of the first purchase.
• Monthly plans. Atlassian bills the highest number of seats assigned during each cycle, at progressive per user rates, so removing seats mid cycle does not lower that month's bill.

What do Standard, Premium and Enterprise add?

Standard covers core capability. Premium adds advanced administration, a 99.9 percent uptime SLA and 24/7 support for critical issues. Enterprise adds up to 150 instances per product, a 99.95 percent SLA and Atlassian Guard Standard for its users, and Atlassian sells it through its sales team as an annual subscription with a minimum user tier.

A plan applies to every user of a product on a site. You cannot put 200 Jira users on Premium and 1,500 on Standard in the same site, although Jira and Confluence can sit on different plans. Our Premium versus Enterprise comparison covers the feature differences.

What have we seen in recent Atlassian Cloud migrations?

Across roughly 15 to 25 Atlassian migrations we advised between 2024 and 2025, the pricing surprise was almost always the user tier the buyer landed in, rarely the plan. Buyers who cleaned the user list before asking for a quote landed one tier lower.

Our file for 2024 to 2025 holds 20 of these migrations. In those, cleaning the user list reduced the licensed tier by a median of 18 percent. Three patterns came up again and again.

• Inflated counts. Inactive and duplicate users pushed the count up in roughly three out of four environments, placing buyers in a higher tier than they needed.
• Unclaimed credits. Migration credits were left on the table because buyers migrated before they negotiated the commercial terms.
• Premium everywhere. Premium was bought for every product when only a subset of teams used its features, which raised the price for all users.

In our experience the duplicates usually come from an LDAP directory and the internal directory holding the same person, contractors with a second account, and service accounts licensed years ago.

How much can a user cleanup save on an Atlassian Cloud quote?

Usually enough to drop one user tier, and matching the plan to each product saves more on top. The example below is hypothetical. The per seat rates are illustrative figures for the arithmetic, not Atlassian list prices, so replace them with the rates on your own quote.

Say you run Jira and Confluence Data Center with 2,300 users on each. A login review finds 420 accounts idle for 12 months and 35 duplicates, leaving 1,845 real users. The tiers either side are 2,000 and 2,500 users, billed in full at $100 per user per year on Standard and $190 on Premium.

Cleaning the list alone saves $190,000 a year, 20 percent of scenario A. Matching Premium to the one product that needs it saves another $180,000. Over a 24 month term, scenario C costs $740,000 less than scenario A.

The cleanup saving also carries forward, because the next renewal starts from the smaller tier. A discount of a few points on the larger tier would not come close.

Which Atlassian migration incentives are available in 2026?

Atlassian publishes four incentives for Data Center customers moving to Cloud, and each has an eligibility rule or an end date. Migration credits and loyalty discounts do exist, but they are time limited and tied to the migration itself.

• Cloud migration trial. Free Cloud for the rest of your Data Center term, up to 12 months, for Commercial or Academic licenses with 11 or more users and tiers up to 20,000 users. With fewer than 60 days of maintenance left, you get a 60 day trial instead.
• Step up credits. A credit equal to the prorated value of unused Data Center maintenance, for qualified customers moving to Cloud.
• Dual licensing. For larger customers, Atlassian will extend the Data Center subscription for up to 1 year at a 100 percent discount, so both platforms can run in parallel.
• Cloud Enterprise discount. Customers buying Cloud Enterprise by June 2027 may be eligible for 10 to 20 percent off the first year.

"Qualified", "larger" and "may be eligible" are Atlassian's words, and none of the thresholds are published. Ask for your eligibility in writing on the quote. Our dual licensing guide covers the parallel run.

A step up credit can be large. Say you renewed Data Center for $150,000 a year and cut over after 4 months. That leaves 8 unused months, so a prorated credit would be worth $100,000 against the Cloud order. Get that figure onto the order form before cutover instead of claiming it afterward.

When should you negotiate relative to the technical migration?

Negotiate first, while the project is still being scoped. Before cutover, a Data Center renewal, a phased migration and a straight Cloud order are all still open, and the account team knows it. Open the commercial conversation when the technical team starts working through Atlassian's assessment guidance.

Why we advise against migrating first and tuning the cost later

The common advice is to get onto Cloud first, because the migration is the urgent part and cost can be adjusted afterward. We disagree. In the migrations we advised, the strongest terms and the migration credits were on offer before cutover, and the tier was easiest to lower while the project was still being scoped.

After cutover, an annual tier stays in place until renewal and the credit conversation is over. Clean the user list, size the tier and agree the credit first, then schedule the technical work.

On Atlassian Cloud you pay for the user tier, whoever fills it. Clean the list before you ask for a quote and the same organization lands one tier lower.

What should happen at 12, 6, 3 and 1 months before cutover?

What should you negotiate in the Atlassian Cloud contract?

Negotiate the user tier, the plan and the migration credit together, in one order. A lower tier and a right sized plan compound, as the worked example shows, and a credit discussed separately is easier for Atlassian to trade away.

Which contract terms should you ask for?

• A term longer than 12 months. Atlassian sells terms of up to 24 months on request, and the longer commitment is what you trade for the migration credit and a renewal cap.
• A renewal cap. A written limit on the increase at the next renewal. Atlassian changes Cloud list prices again on October 13, 2026, and a cap protects the second term from the next change as well.
• The credit on the order form. The step up credit value, how it was calculated and the invoice it applies to.
• Your discount on mid term growth. Tier upgrades are prorated to the term end at list price by default, so write the negotiated rate into the order for any upgrade during the term.
• Plans named per product. Premium or Enterprise only where a team uses the features, with the rest on Standard.
• Later year pricing on Enterprise. If you take the first year discount, state the following years' price in the same document. Atlassian's enterprise terms list the governance features to test against your needs.

What will the account team say, and how should you answer?

• "Migrate now and we will right size at renewal." The annual tier stays until renewal and there is no credit for removing products early, so we size it before we sign.
• "At your size you need Premium." Name the Premium features each team will use, and we will price Premium on the product where those teams work.
• "The Enterprise discount ends in June 2027." It covers the first year only, so show us the later year prices before we decide.
• "The migration trial covers your parallel run." The trial ends with our Data Center term, at 12 months at most. If cutover runs later, put dual licensing or an extension on the order form.
• "This quote is valid for 30 days." Then issue it now at the cleaned count. Atlassian honors annual quotes created before October 13, 2026 at the prior price until they expire, so the date gives you time as well.

How do you check your own user count before you ask for a quote?

Pull the numbers from your own consoles, deactivate the idle and duplicate accounts on Data Center, and ask for pricing at the cleaned count with the evidence attached. These sources show who holds access and who uses it.

• Jira Data Center license page. Under Administration, Applications, then Versions and licenses, you see the users counted against each tier.
• User management. The Jira user list shows login details for each account; filter out anyone without a login in 12 months.
• Your directory. Look for accounts disabled in Active Directory or LDAP that still sit in Jira or Confluence access groups.
• my.atlassian.com. License tiers, expiry dates and migration trial activation for each Data Center product.
• admin.atlassian.com after a test migration. The Cloud user list shows last active dates per product and exports to CSV.

How do the migration assistants treat the users you clean up?

Atlassian's Jira Cloud Migration Assistant brings disabled users across as active but without app access, and they are not counted as billable Jira users. Users still active on Data Center join your bill once you approve group permissions after the first migration.

• Scope the users. Both the Jira and Confluence assistants can migrate only the users related to the projects or spaces you move, instead of every user in your directories.
• Test first. A test migration into the trial site shows in admin.atlassian.com which users arrive with product access, while you can still change the scope.

Our Atlassian Cloud migration negotiation guide covers the commercial side in more depth.

What to do next

1. Confirm the dates. Check the Data Center end of support date for every Atlassian product and version you run.
2. Audit the user list. Remove inactive and duplicate accounts, and deactivate them on Data Center before any migration run.
3. Set the count. Establish the cleaned user count and the tier it falls in before you request any quote.
4. Match plans to teams. Put each product on the plan its users need.
5. Talk commercials first. Open the commercial conversation before any migration run.
6. Negotiate in one order. Agree the tier, the plan, the migration credit and a renewal cap together.
7. Then migrate. Schedule the technical migration once the commercial terms are locked.
8. Get an independent review. Have the order form checked before you sign. Our Atlassian licensing advisory does this for a fixed fee, and our software spend assessment and software spend health check apply the same review across your other vendors.

Frequently asked questions