Updates to Forge Pricing: Effective January 2026

Atlassian’s Forge platform has empowered teams worldwide to tailor their Atlassian tools to exact needs through custom apps. Since its launch, over 5,000 Forge apps have been built and deployed in Atlassian’s secure cloud environment. This broad adoption and Forge’s enterprise-grade benefits have set the stage for its next evolution. Atlassian is now introducing a new pricing model for Forge, effective January 1, 2026, to ensure the platform’s long-term sustainability and continued innovation.

Importantly, the new Forge pricing is designed with a generous free tier to support experimentation. Atlassian expects that many Forge apps will remain completely free to run, with their usage fully covered by the free tier. For apps that do exceed the free allowances, Forge will shift to a pay-as-you-go model where developers only pay for what they use beyond the free limits. Below, we break down the key points of this pricing update and what Forge users and organizations need to know.

New Forge Pricing Model Highlights

• Free usage allowances: Every Forge app will receive free monthly usage quotas for various resources (compute, storage, etc.). These allowances reset each month, enabling most apps, particularly private or small-scale apps, to operate at no cost under typical usage. In fact, Atlassian anticipates the majority of privately built team apps will stay within the free tier and never incur charges.

• Pay-as-you-go beyond free tier: If an app’s usage exceeds the free tier limits, charges will apply only for the resources used above those thresholds. This consumption-based pricing applies to all Forge apps equally, whether your app is an internal tool or listed on the Atlassian Marketplace (even if offered for free there). Keep in mind that usage is measured across all environments (development, testing, and production), so development usage counts toward your app’s monthly totals as well.

• Compute usage (Forge Functions): Each app can consume up to 100,000 GB-seconds of compute time (the measure of function execution time multiplied by memory) for free per month. Beyond that, additional function compute will be billed at $0.000025 per GB-second of execution.

• Storage and data (Forge KVS): Forge’s key-value storage service includes 0.1 GB of data reads and 0.1 GB of data writes free per app each month. If your app reads more data than that, the excess is charged at $0.055 per GB read. Similarly, writes beyond the free 0.1 GB will cost $1.09 per GB written. (Note: Stored data at rest in Forge’s KVS will not incur any charge at launch; charges for data stored will be introduced later in 2026, giving developers time to optimize their storage usage.)

• Logging: Forge provides 1 GB of log output free for each app per month. Logs beyond this allotment will be charged at $1.005 per GB of log data written.

• Forge SQL (new database service): Atlassian is introducing Forge SQL, a managed database for Forge apps, and its usage will also follow a free-plus-paid model. Each app gets 1 hour of Forge SQL compute time and 100,000 database requests free per month, plus up to 1 GB of database storage free. Usage beyond those limits will be charged at $0.143 per hour of database compute, $1.929 per million SQL requests, and $0.561 per GB of data stored. This ensures that small-scale database usage is free, while heavier usage pays for the resources consumed.

Billing and Developer Spaces

With the new pricing, Atlassian will consolidate Forge usage billing through a concept called developer spaces. A developer space is essentially a billing account that can contain one or multiple Forge apps. All apps in a developer space roll up into a single monthly invoice for any usage that exceeds the free tier.

Each developer space will need to have a payment method on file (initially, Atlassian will support credit card payments). Invoices are generated monthly, in arrears (i.e. at the end of the month for that month’s usage), and the space admin will receive the invoice covering any billable usage across their apps. This means if you’re managing several Forge apps under your company, you won’t be juggling multiple bills; you’ll get one combined invoice for all usage above free limits in your space.

It will also be possible to have multiple developer spaces or to transfer apps between spaces if needed. For example, an Atlassian Solution Partner could build an app in their own space and later transfer it to a client’s developer space once the client assumes ownership. (Transfers between non-Marketplace spaces will be automated, whereas transferring an app between Marketplace vendor accounts, say, after an app acquisition, will require contacting Atlassian support to handle the move.) Note that an app can belong to only one developer space at a time, and apps with outstanding billing balances must settle those before they can be transferred to another space.

Tools for Tracking Usage and Costs

To help developers manage this new usage-based model, Atlassian is rolling out two new tools in the Forge Developer Console:

• Cost Dashboard: Within the Developer Console’s “Usage and costs” section, a cost dashboard provides transparent insight into your Forge app usage. It shows your app’s month-to-date resource usage (e.g. how much of the compute time or data transfer you’ve used so far) and a forecast of the expected costs for the current month based on that usage. Developers can drill down to see usage per app on this dashboard. Later in 2025, Atlassian plans to enhance it to display aggregated usage across your entire developer space, giving a complete view if you manage multiple apps.

• Cost Estimator: In addition to tracking live usage, Atlassian has introduced a cost estimator tool to help plan ahead. This estimator lets you input hypothetical usage levels for a prospective app (for instance, X number of function invocations, Y GB of data storage, Z number of user requests, etc.) and then calculates an estimated monthly cost for that usage. It’s a handy way to predict charges before you build or launch a Forge app, so you can design with cost in mind or inform your users about potential operating costs.

In the near future, Atlassian will also introduce alerts for Forge usage. Developer space admins will be able to receive notifications when an app is approaching its free tier limits. These alerts will help you proactively manage usage so there are no surprises on your bill if an app’s activity suddenly spikes.

Forge Support and SLAs

One big advantage of Forge becoming a paid platform is the introduction of stronger support guarantees for those who rely on it. Forge developers who start incurring charges (i.e. usage beyond the free tier) will gain access to 1:1 support from Atlassian via the ECOHELP service desk. You can expect dedicated assistance for any Forge-related issues, which is a step up from community support now that Forge is entering the realm of paid services.

For organizations running large-scale Forge apps, Atlassian is also planning enhanced support tiers. High-usage customers may qualify for faster response times and a higher level of support (with shorter initial response SLOs, Service Level Objectives). Details about these premium support offerings will be shared closer to the launch of the paid model, but the goal is clear: mission-critical apps built on Forge will get timely support when it matters most.

Furthermore, Atlassian is finalizing Service Level Agreements (SLAs) for Forge’s key services. These SLAs will likely commit to a target uptime for crucial Forge functions such as Compute (function execution), KVS (storage), and Forge SQL (database). In the event that Atlassian falls short of these uptime guarantees and it impacts your apps, paying Forge users will be able to request credits that get applied to their next bill. This shows Atlassian’s commitment to reliability now that teams will be paying for the platform’s resources.

Timeline for Forge Pricing Rollout

The transition to this new pricing model will be phased in over the coming months to give developers time to adapt. Here’s the expected timeline and next steps leading up to the January 2026 go-live:

• Now (Announcement, mid 2025): Atlassian has officially announced the Forge pricing details (as outlined above) and launched the Cost Dashboard and Cost Estimator tools. Forge developers can start reviewing their current usage in the dashboard and play with the estimator to understand potential future costs.

• Early Q4 2025: The concept of developer spaces will go live in the Forge Developer Console. Developers and organizations will be able to create new developer spaces, view which space an app belongs to, and assign their apps to different spaces as needed. This is the preparatory step for billing consolidation.

• Late 2025 (Q4 2025, Early Access Program): Atlassian will run a closed Early Access Program for billing. During this period, developer space admins in the EAP will start seeing mock invoices in the console that show what their charges would be, but at a 100% discount. These “trial run” invoices for a few billing cycles let developers familiarize themselves with the format and process of Forge billing before real charges kick in. In this stage, space admins will also be able to add payment methods to their spaces in preparation for launch.

• January 1, 2026 (Launch): Forge’s metered billing officially begins. From this date forward, all Forge app usage will count toward the free tier limits and any excess will accrue billable charges. Developers should ensure a valid payment method is attached to their developer space by this point to avoid any service disruption once charges start.

• February 2026 (First billing cycle): The first actual invoices will be issued in early February 2026, covering the usage in January. These invoices will reflect the new charges for each developer space, and the payment method on file will be auto-charged. Going forward, Forge will operate with monthly billing cycles, and invoices will be generated each month for the prior month’s usage beyond the free allowances.

Wrapping Up

For Atlassian, introducing pricing for Forge is a pivotal step to ensure the platform’s longevity and to fund continual improvements. Forge has provided developers with a powerful, secure way to extend Atlassian products, and these changes aim to keep that going strong. The free tier remains extremely generous, so for many Forge apps it will be business as usual (with no cost). For those who do scale up, the new model ensures you only pay in proportion to the value and resources you actually use, backed by better support and reliability commitments from Atlassian.

As this transition unfolds, Atlassian is actively supporting the developer community with tools (like the usage dashboard and estimator) and will be on hand to answer questions through their partner and customer success teams. It’s a great time to evaluate your Forge apps, take advantage of the free tier for innovation, and plan for the future with the transparency now available around usage and costs.