Atlassian Increasing DC prices…again.

Hello there, Jira Guys and Gals. It’s been a minute – I’ve been dealing with some health stuff, and that’s limiting how much I can do. But again, you can still check me out on “The Jira Life” each week.

So, what’s so important that I’m back here – even though I’m not really up for it? Well, this morning Atlassian announced that they are going to be raising prices on DC. And even though I’m platform agnostic (use the best one for your situation), I find myself described as Data Center’s champion, so I figured I’d let you know. So, let’s dig into the what, when, and why of this thing.

What?

Atlassian announced this morning via email to customers that they will be raising prices in the new year. You can find a detailed breakdown of how much you will be paying after the increases go into effect on this page:

• Data Center Pricing tables

These increases only impact Jira, JSM, and Confluence, which are arguably Atlassian’s largest three DC products. The increase varies per tier, but the average for all tiers is around 23%. No joking, I copied their charts into Excel and worked everything out!

But that is not all. On top of increasing the prices of existing tiers, Atlassian is also adding a number of new tiers at the top end of the scale. For example, on Jira Software DC, previously, if you had more than 50,000 users, you could buy an Unlimited license, meaning you no longer had a maximum. Now, the unlimited tier starts at 150,000+, with new tiers added for every 10K between 50K and 150K. Confluence has a new matching highest tier of 150K+, whereas JSM has a new max tier of 20K+ agents.

Now, let’s be clear here. If you are an organization with 150K licensed users on a single instance, I would have considered federating onto multiple instances divided into logical business units a LONG time ago just to keep management of the instances somewhat sane. Trying to balance the needs of so many people when so many settings are still global and impact everyone will be challenging for any governance plan, no matter how well implemented. And there are other reasons I’d consider federating, which I’ll get into in a bit.

When?

This is straight forward. These new prices go into effect for your first renewal on or after Feb. 15, 2025. If you want to lock in your 2024 pricing, I’d wait to renew for as close to Feb 14th as possible, and get that license for as long as possible. I fully understand that not everyone has that luxury, but it is the optimal strategy for getting the most savings.

I’d also like to make a note of that date. Feb 15th is a rather auspicious day, as it’s fully one year after the Server EOL. I’m not saying that was intentional, or a secret message, I just find it odd to draw attention to that date in particular with this kind of news.

Another thing to note – depending on when you renew, some customers are getting as little as a month notice for this change. That’s precious little time to talk to upper management about these changes. If your budget is already locked in for the year, and THEN you get this news, well, that extra money has to come from somewhere. That is one reason I don’t like how Atlassian handles these things. It feels like a last minute thing each year for customers on what I’d argue aren’t trivial price increases. The current top-tier license for Jira Software is going up 36%, which sounds like a high but understandable number until you realize it’s USD 386,000. Even as expensive as housing is in the US, you can buy a home with that amount in most markets. In other words, 3-4 people’s jobs must be cut to make room for that increase. Not. Trivial.

Why?

So, again, I don’t work for Atlassian, so I can’t speak to the real why. Atlassian puts this in their FAQ, but then go on such a tangent that they never *really* answer. No, seriously, read for yourselves:

• Future Data Center Pricing FAQ

Now, again, I’m not Atlassian, I’m just a member of the community. That means anything I say for the rest of this section is my pure speculation. If I hear from Atlassian’s lawyers, I’ll know I’m getting close to the truth. You have been warned.

Much debate has been given within the Community about the fate of Data Center. My good friend and colleague Fun Man Andy loves to say DC is a “Dead man walking,” convinced the announcement for its EOL is always after the next conference. I disagree with him.

Atlassian has made no secret that they have large customers who they know will absolutely never be able to go to Atlassian Cloud. If it’s the customers I’m thinking about, they are not wrong. But if it’s the customers I’m thinking about, they also have very deep pockets. So I don’t think they’ll end support for DC. They’ll stop making new features, yes, and we’ve all seen that. (Anyone else remember the DC “Feature Complete” speech from Team ’24?)

No, rather than EOL it, they’ll keep raising prices gradually until organizations on DC instances “self-select” to go to Cloud or another platform while keeping support for orgs with deeper pockets and less tolerance to move. It’s rather gruesome analogy is the “Boiling Frog” process. The idea is that if you put a frog into an already boiling pot of water, it will jump out immediately. But if you put it in a room temperature pot of water, then slowly raise the temperature, they won’t notice until it’s too late. Beyond being cruel, it’s also not true, but it’s my best analogy. I think this is just another step in raising the heat.

What can I do?

Well, the most obvious thing you can do is take a look at your users. I’ve long recommend you revoke licenses from users who haven’t used their access in 6 months or more. I’ve seen some people do it shorter, some longer (12 months, 6 months, 1 month, and 2 weeks are all popular thresholds for this approach). The key here is to see if you can get down to a lower tier. Will it work, I don’t know. Sometimes it does, and sometimes you’ve already mined that ore vein dry.

Another approach you might consider is, as I mentioned above, locking in the 2024 pricing as close to Feb 14th as possible. To be clear, this isn’t fixing the issue, it’s just putting it off until later.

Ultimately, though, not much can be done. You can lessen the pain, but these price increases just keep coming. Your best bet is just to keep your license count as low as possible, and hope you’re on a tier that gets a 15% increase rather than a 25% or 30% increase.

I can’t even say going to Atlassian Cloud will shield you from increases, as they had their own round of them back in November. One thing I haven’t done in years though is to do a cost comparison to see what the difference is in pricing between Cloud and DC. Maybe I should do that here soon.

Final Thoughts

I’m reminded of two movie quotes as I consider the situation.

The first is from Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. “Dread it, run from it, destiny still arrives.”

The other is from Harvey Dent to Bruce Wayne. “You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

Should I be concerned both are from the villain?

So, I don’t know how active the blog will be for the next few months. While I do have writers now, it is still dependent on work from me. And well, over the past few months, I’ve been undergoing medical testing in preparation for an upcoming surgery.

So here are the facts. I was born with a genetic abnormality that led to the center wall of the bottom part of my heart becoming thicker than normal. It progressed, undiscovered, for my entire life until the point where it obstructed blood flow – otherwise known as Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy. (HOCM). The stress this is putting on my heart is also causing it to occasionally go into arrhythmia (specifically, Atrial Fibrillation). I’ve been hospitalized twice in the past few months for this last issue, so between the two, it’s time for a surgical solution. My surgery is scheduled for Feb 20th, but it is major surgery, so I won’t be able to do much for AT LEAST a few weeks afterward. No, seriously, my wife is already threatening to take away my laptop if I don’t behave…and my doctor would let her!

I am still looking forward to doing more here and with The Jira Life in 2025, but I’ll need to take a break first. This also means I’ll miss out on Team ’25 this year, and I’m already missing everyone for that.

I do appreciate everyone’s support and understanding here!

But as I always say, this is Rodney asking, “Have you updated your Jira issues today?”