The Upcoming Pricing Changes for Atlassian Forge

Atlassian has announced significant changes to the pricing model for Forge, its cloud app development platform. Starting January 1, 2026, Forge will transition from being completely free to a usage-based pricing model. This new model introduces a generous free tier of usage each month, beyond which developers will incur charges based on their app’s consumption of Forge resources. Below we break down what’s changing, how it affects both free and paid apps, and what developers should do to prepare.

Key Changes at a Glance

• Forge Free Through 2025: Forge will remain free of charge until December 31, 2025. Developers can continue building and hosting Forge apps without fees for the rest of 2025.

• Usage-Based Pricing in 2026: Beginning January 1, 2026, Atlassian is introducing a consumption-based pricing model for Forge. Developers will get a substantial free monthly allocation of resources, and only pay if their app’s usage exceeds those free thresholds.

• Free Tier Allowances: Each Forge app will receive monthly free usage allowances (per calendar month) across key resource categories, including function runtime, data storage and transfer, and logging. If your app stays within these limits, you pay nothing.

• Charges for Excess Usage: If an app’s usage goes beyond the free tier in a given month, the developer will be billed for the overage (billed monthly in arrears). Charges will apply to specific capability classes (detailed below) at defined rates per unit of consumption.

• Final Pricing Confirmation: The pricing numbers released so far are estimates. Atlassian will finalize and communicate the exact pricing by mid-2025 (six months before the model takes effect), giving developers time to adjust. The free tier levels, however, are expected to remain “generous” to support most apps at no cost until they scale up significantly.

Forge Pricing Model Overview (Effective Jan 1, 2026)

In the new model, Forge’s costs will be tied directly to how much compute, storage, and logging your app uses on the platform. Atlassian’s goal is to align pricing with value and usage: small or infrequently used apps remain effectively free, while high-usage apps contribute proportional to the resources they consume. Importantly, Atlassian will not charge for features that don’t incur an underlying cost: for example, simply installing an app, declaring a Forge manifest, or using Forge’s remote (external) services will not generate Forge platform charges. Only the core hosted capabilities that consume Atlassian’s infrastructure are billed. The initial set of billable Forge capability categories includes:

• Compute Functions: Serverless function runtime (time your app code runs on Atlassian’s infrastructure).

• Storage: Forge Key-Value Store (KVS): Data storage and retrieval via Forge’s built-in database (including both the Key-Value Store and Custom Entities).

  • Data Written: Amount of data your app writes to storage.

  • Data Read: Amount of data your app reads from storage.

  • Data Stored: Total stored data size (at rest) that your app keeps in Forge storage.

• Logs: Volume of log output data written by your app (the size of all logs your app generates).

Free Tier Allowances and Rates: The table below summarizes the monthly free usage included for each category and the indicative pricing for usage beyond those limits. (Note: “per calendar month” means the usage counters reset each month. Atlassian may adjust these values when finalizing the pricing.)

Under this model, a Forge app can consume up to these amounts every month at no cost. This means many small-scale apps or those with light usage will continue to run free of charge. For example, if your app’s logs total 500 MB in a month and it stores only 1 GB of data, you wouldn’t pay anything since those are within the free tier. However, if your app’s usage exceeds the free tier (for instance, writing 2 GB of data to the KVS in one month), you would be charged for the portion above the threshold (in that case, ~1.9 GB of data writes over the free 0.1 GB, charged at the per-GB rate).

Implications for Free vs. Paid Apps

These pricing changes have different implications depending on whether you distribute your app for free or as a paid product:

• Free Apps / Internal Apps: If you develop a free Marketplace app (or an internal app for your own team) that becomes popular, you’ll want to keep an eye on usage. The generous free allowances mean that truly small or infrequently used apps won’t incur costs. But if your free app is heavily used across many sites or performs data-intensive operations, you as the developer would bear the platform costs once it exceeds the free tier. In practice, you may need to budget for these costs or consider limiting certain high-cost operations for free users. Atlas Bench can help analyze your app’s usage patterns to estimate if you’ll remain within the free tier. The key is that Forge itself doesn’t distinguish between a free or paid app: usage is usage. So a hobby or open-source app with huge adoption could rack up charges for its developer if it goes far past the free limits.

• Paid Apps / Commercial Apps: If you sell your app (e.g. via the Atlassian Marketplace), the new Forge costs should be factored into your business model. The free tier provides a buffer, but successful apps with many customers or heavy workloads will generate usage fees that eat into your revenue. As a vendor, you might need to adjust your pricing or subscription fees to ensure the Forge platform costs are covered. This could mean planning for a small percentage of revenue to go toward Forge infrastructure, similar to how one would account for cloud hosting costs. On a positive note, if you’re paying for Forge usage, Atlassian has indicated those apps will receive enhanced support and reliability guarantees (e.g. priority support, and upcoming financially-backed SLAs for uptime). This can help you provide a better service to your customers and minimize downtime, effectively treating the Forge fee as part of your cost of goods for a managed platform.

Preparing for the Change: What Developers Should Do Now

With a year (and more) of lead time before billing begins, developers have an opportunity to prepare and ensure a smooth transition. Here are some recommended steps to take in the coming months:

• Monitor Your App’s Usage: Start tracking your Forge app’s resource consumption now. Atlassian’s Developer Console provides a Usage section where you can see metrics for function run-time, storage, and log output for each app. By monitoring these Forge usage metrics throughout 2025, you can identify whether your app is likely to stay within the free tier or exceed it. This data will help you forecast potential costs well before 2026.

• Optimize and Refine Your Code: Use this time to optimize your app’s efficiency. For example, you might reduce unnecessary log verbosity (to stay under the 1 GB free log quota) or clean up data storage usage (purge old or unused data) so that your storage stays within 5 GB. Efficient coding and data management can ensure you get the maximum value from the free tier and minimize overage costs.

• Plan Your Pricing Strategy (if Applicable): If you maintain a paid app, revisit your pricing model in light of the Forge usage fees. Calculate what your worst-case monthly Forge bill might be (for instance, if your app uses X GB-seconds of compute and stores Y GB of data for Z customers) and ensure your app’s price to customers can absorb that. You might decide to adjust pricing or introduce tiered plans for your app’s customers based on usage. Conversely, if you offer a free app, consider whether you may need to introduce a paid tier or sponsorship if your usage grows beyond free limits.

• Stay Informed on Atlassian Updates: Keep an eye out for Atlassian’s final pricing announcement around mid-2025. The exact rates might be adjusted based on testing and feedback. Atlassian will also likely provide more documentation, tools, and guidelines as the rollout nears. Make sure you’re subscribed to Atlassian developer community updates or Atlas Bench’s newsletter so you don’t miss any important news.

• Leverage Tools and Support: Take advantage of any tooling Atlassian provides for cost monitoring or optimization. For example, Atlassian may update the Forge CLI or APIs to help retrieve usage data programmatically. Atlas Bench, as an Atlassian Solution Partner, is also here to assist. We can help you run cost simulations for your apps and offer guidance on architectural choices (like when to use Forge’s own resources vs. external services) to control costs. Planning ahead with expert help can ensure you won’t be caught off guard by the new pricing.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• Will Forge still be free for my small app? Yes. If your Forge app has low usage (within the free tier limits each month), you won’t pay anything. The free tier is designed to cover the needs of many small or medium apps. For example, an app that only occasionally runs functions and stores minimal data will likely remain free to run on Forge. Only apps that regularly exceed the monthly free allowances will incur charges.

• What does a “GB-second” mean in Forge pricing? “GB-seconds” are how Atlassian measures compute usage. It’s the duration your function runs multiplied by the memory allocated. Forge functions currently use a fixed 0.5 GB memory. So, if your function runs for 2 seconds, that’s 1 GB-second (0.5 GB * 2 seconds). The free tier gives you 100,000 GB-seconds per month, which roughly equals 200,000 seconds of compute time at 0.5 GB memory. This is about 55 hours of continuous execution time in total, free each month.

• How can I monitor my app’s usage and estimate costs? You can track your app’s usage in real time through the Forge Developer Console (under the “Usage” section for your app). There, you’ll find statistics on your function execution time, data storage reads/writes, and log output. Use these metrics to estimate how close you are to the free tier. If, for instance, you see your app using about 50,000 GB-seconds of compute in a month, you’re at 50% of the free allowance. If it’s approaching or exceeding 100,000, you can project the potential cost by applying the per-GB-second rate (~$0.000025/GB-s for anything over). This helps you budget ahead of time.

• I offer a free app. Do I need to worry about getting charged? It depends on your app’s popularity and workload. If your free app has a small, limited user base or lightweight functionality, it will likely remain within the free tier and cost you nothing. However, if it becomes very popular or handles a lot of data (for example, an app installed across hundreds of Jira sites with heavy data processing), you could exceed the free limits and start incurring costs. In that case, you’ll be responsible for those costs as the developer. You might then consider options like introducing a paid plan for heavy-use customers, seeking sponsorship, or optimizing the app to reduce usage. Atlas Bench can help analyze at what point your free app might start accruing charges.

• Will Atlassian provide better support or SLAs once I start paying? Yes. Atlassian has stated that apps exceeding the free tier (i.e. those generating usage charges) will be eligible for enhanced support from the Atlassian Ecosystem team. In other words, if you’re effectively a “paid customer” of Forge via usage fees, you can expect a higher level of support for any platform issues. Additionally, Atlassian is planning to introduce financially-backed Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for Forge. These SLAs would guarantee certain uptime and performance standards; if Atlassian’s platform fails to meet those guarantees (for example, an outage impacting your app’s function execution), they intend to offer service credits to offset the costs you incurred during that time. This provides extra peace of mind that as you pay for Forge services, Atlassian will stand behind their reliability.

The upcoming Forge pricing changes mark an important evolution in Atlassian’s cloud app ecosystem. Forge’s free tier will continue to make the platform accessible to all developers, while the consumption-based pricing ensures it can scale sustainably for larger apps. Now is the time to review your Forge apps, understand their usage, and plan accordingly. By taking proactive steps, monitoring usage, optimizing code, and adjusting your app’s business model if needed, you can turn this change into an opportunity to improve your app’s efficiency and value proposition. Atlassian is giving ample notice and tools to help with the transition, and partners like Atlas Bench are ready to assist every step of the way.