Hi Community,
On September 1st, we announced that usage-based pricing is coming to Automation. Since then, many of you have shared your feedback and what you'd need to feel confident about managing your usage. We heard you, and here's what's changing:
- Runs that don't perform actions won't count toward your usage: Starting November 5, if a flow stops before any action runs, none of its steps count.
- More visibility into your automation usage is coming soon: Starting in December the Automation usage tab in each app will show you where steps are used: per step, flow run, and flow.
- Usage controls for users and agents are coming in 2027: Organization admins will get more control over how Automation steps are used across their organization.
Read on for details on each update and what it means for you.
Runs that don't perform actions won't count toward your usage
When we announced usage-based pricing, we said steps in every flow run would count toward your usage. Many of you told us this would change how you design your flows, so we’re changing course – runs that don’t perform actions won’t count toward your usage.
What this means for you: Nothing changes in how you build or run your flows. What changes is how we count your usage. From November 5, only steps in runs that perform actions will count. For example, if a flow runs whenever a work item's priority changes and notifies the on-call team when the priority is set to Critical, only steps in the runs that send that notification count toward your usage.
If you're an organization admin, you’ll be able to see the change in Atlassian Administration under Usage > Meters. Usage recorded before November 5 will remain unchanged.
Coming soon: More visibility and control into automation usage
You also told us you want a clearer view of where your usage comes from. By early December, you'll have new ways to understand step usage in each app’s Automation Usage tab (across Jira, Jira Service Management, and Confluence):
- Estimate usage before turning a flow on: Rolling out now, the flow builder shows how many steps a flow is likely to use. You can see the impact of a new or edited flow before it goes live, so you don't have to wait until it runs.
- Find your highest-usage flows: Each app's Automation Usage tab ranks flows by the number of steps used. You can view the current billing period or the last 30, 60, or 90 days. This shows which flows drive most of your usage, so you know where to look first. Each flow links straight to its audit log for a closer look.
- See where each run's steps go: The audit log will show how many steps each run used and how many each step in that run used.
- Analyze usage in a spreadsheet: Audit log CSV exports will include step counts. You can sort, filter, and share usage data with your team, or track trends over time.
This will make it easier to see which flows use the most steps and decide where to make changes. And in 2027, we'll introduce more ways for organization admins to manage and control how Automation steps are used across their organization. We'll share more details closer to launch.
A quick refresher on usage-based pricing
With usage-based pricing, you can keep automating as your needs grow without changing your plan.
- Usage is now measured in steps: Triggers, conditions, actions, branches, and loops each count as a step. Before, a 2-step flow and a 20-step flow each counted as one run. Now simpler flows use less of your allowance than complex ones, and you get clearer visibility into where your allowance is going.
- Your allowance is shared across apps: Your allowance covers all of the eligible Atlassian apps in your organization, so steps you don't use in one app are available in another.
- You stay in control: To keep your flows running without interruption if you go over your allowance, pay as you go is on by default. Organization and billing admins can set a pay-as-you-go limit or turn pay as you go off anytime in Atlassian Administration.
- Billing for usage beyond your allowance begins December 3, 2026: If you're on an Enterprise plan, it starts at your contract renewal on or after that date.
To learn more about what counts toward your usage, with examples, check out the support documentation.
We want to hear from you
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. It directly shaped these updates, and we want to keep hearing from you as we keep improving Automation.
FAQs
- What is a run that doesn't perform actions? It's a run where a flow is triggered but stops at a condition before any action runs. These runs show the status "No actions performed" in your audit log. For example, a flow triggers when a work item is updated, but stops because the work item doesn't match the condition.
- How will not counting runs that don’t perform actions affect my step usage? None of the steps in a run that doesn't perform actions will count, including the trigger and condition. If many of your flows end this way, you'll see fewer steps counted for the same activity.
- When will runs that don’t perform actions stop showing up in my usage data? Starting November 5, organization admins will see the change in usage trends in Atlassian Administration under Usage > Meters. Usage recorded before November 5 will remain unchanged.
- Does this change affect my Automation allowance? No. Your allowance stays the same when usage-based billing begins on December 3, 2026. As with all platform limits and packaging, Atlassian periodically evaluates allowances to align with product capabilities and platform usage. If allowances are adjusted in the future, we will provide advance notice before any changes take effect.
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