How do I change an incorrect user count for products?

[Patrick Matthews]

Hello Atlassian Community,

I’m reaching out for help regarding an ongoing billing issue with my premium Confluence cloud instance that hasn't been resolved after multiple tickets and discussions with Atlassian support.

The Issue:

I currently have only two active users in my Confluence instance (User-A and User-B, for reference). However, my billing tab shows 22 users, affecting not only Confluence but also all 11 Marketplace apps I’m testing—each of which should be free for up to 10 users.

Here’s what I’ve uncovered so far, and I'm assuming it will sound strange:

1. Billing Team Response:
   The billing team shows that my Confluence user count "increased from 2 users on 05 Oct 2024, to 22 users on the same day"

   However, While it’s accurate that I added the second User-B for testing on October 5, there is no explanation for the additional 20 users. It's been difficult to get any response after their last message so I have no idea where these "ghost" users are coming from.

2. Admin Panel Breakdown:
   Here’s what my admin panel shows across different tabs:

   • Overview Tab: Lists 2 active users.
   • Directory Tab: Explicitly shows the two users (User-A and User-B).
   • Products Tab: Shows Confluence Premium with 22 users.
   • Security Tab: Shows only 2 users with access to products.
   • Billing Tab: Shows 22 users for Confluence and 22 users for each of the 11 apps.

3. Technical Support Confirmation:
   I’ve spoken to Atlassian technical support, and they confirmed that I only have two users set up and that I should only be billed for those two users. They believe the issue should be escalated to the Dev team for a count fix, but the billing team needs to verify and authorize the escalation.

What I Need Help With:

• Has anyone else encountered a similar issue with ghost users appearing and affecting billing?
• How can I escalate this issue more effectively? I’m caught between technical support (who confirm the 2-user setup) and billing, which continues with a generic insist on 22 users with no detailed explanation of the source of the extra users.  It looks like the response from billing could be generated by AI or some kind of automation.
  
  

Any advice or insights would be much appreciated. I’m hoping to resolve this before my next billing cycle, as this incorrect count is significantly inflating my charges.

Thank you in advance for your help!

[Kieren _SmolSoftware_]

Hi @Patrick Matthews 

You mention you've already spoken to Atlassian Support. I don't think there's anything we can suggest that would be more helpful than what they can do. If it's a bug, then their Billing team and Devs will need to look in to it.

If you only have confluence premium on your site, one thing you could try doing is:

1. Remove confluence product access from all the users on your org.

2. Give it 24 hours, then check the billing tab. See if it goes to 20 or down to 0.

3. If it's still above 0, go to the confluence product access page, and look at every group that is setup to give a confluence role (Admin, User, Guest, etc...). Ensure there are 0 users in those groups.

4. If you've done some sort of migration from cloud to cloud or server/dc to cloud, let us know. That could complicate things.

-Kieren

Co-Founder @ Admin Automations | Ex-Atlassian

[Patrick Matthews]

Hello Kieren - Thanks for your feedback. 

You are correct, in theory, the best support for this issue should be the Atlassian Support team.  I only brought this to the community group as this issue has been open for over a week now with many back and forth exchanges with Atlassian, but until now, they have refused to acknowledge this as an issue.  I was hoping to get some guidance from the community on a better way to approach an issue like this, as I expect that as a "premium" user, there would be better support for a bug of this magnitude.  I'm only experience a 10x discrepancy with two users in our test site, but what about my client who plans to roll this solution out to over 350 users?

All that said - last night we had a slight breakthrough with the Atlassian Billing team where they half acknowledge this may be a bug.  I will share the response from Billing and the support team who now have this in their hands.

Response to Kieren

1. In response to your questions, this is a greenfield Atlassian site (Confluence premium) only. I stood up this site so that I can test some Marketplace apps on Confluence, for a client.
   
   
2. I carried out #1 and #2 of your suggestions above and when I disabled the User-B, the "Billing" tab changed to reflect 21 users instead of 22 users.  I didn't change User-A, as that is me and I'm the primary Admin.  As stated earlier, there are only two accounts on this entire Atlassian site, User-A (me) and User-B (restricted users group)
   
   
   1. I know this sounds unlikely, but it appears to me that there is some broken logic in Atlassian's Billing, or perhaps there is some interference with one of the install Marketplace apps but I made sure that all the APPS that made our short list for testing are "Cloud Fortified" and have a minimum of 1,000 installs with favorable reviews.

[Patrick Matthews]

Last message from support team, last night.

Hello Patrick, 

I'm Osvaldo from support. I hope you are doing excellent!! I'll continue assisting you with this case.

I understand your bill says you have 22 users, but you have only invited two users. I'll share with you what I have found so far. 

Your cloud instance thestratiqgroup.atlassian.net indeed has only two invited users: User-A (you) and User-B.

However, when I look for your instance in one of our support tools, I see multiple App-generated users, for example, confluence-chats-integration @ connect.atlassina.com.

These "App users" could be generating the extra on your bill; however, before giving you a definitive answer, I need access to your instance to investigate better.

[Mikael Sandberg]

Do you have users that have been added with the Role Trusted or Site admin? If you do they will automatically get access to all products that you have, but they are not part of the user count when you look at the product tab.

[Patrick Matthews]

Thanks @Mikael Sandberg 

I only have two users setup on the instances.  User-A (myself) with full admin privs, and User-B for testing basic "user" permissions.  My problem is that billing shows that I have 22 users that I'm being billed for, when it should only be 2 premium users.