Atlassian Access subscription for SAML-based auth flows with Okta (iDP) and JIRA(SP)

Question

We are using Okta as an IDP to access Atlassian JIRA with SAML SSO.

As per email from Ijeoma Atlassian Product Advocate, stating

I have spoken to our Billing and Licensing specialists, and the Atlassian Access team about the situation with your organization account and subscription. Your evaluation of Atlassian Access ended on August 15th, 2018, but there is a grace period of 14 days after your evaluation expires, where SAML SSO with Okta will still function.

Could Atlassian Access team provide any clarification if Atlassian Access product is required  if we use Okta as an IDP to access Atlassian JIRA (SP) with SSO functionality?

Thanks

Dave Meyer · Answer

Hi @Jesse Johnson,

You can either purchase Access as a monthly or annual subscription. When I said "pay once" I meant that you only pay for each account once, regardless of the number of Atlassian products or sites a user has access to. Pricing is progressive and annual prices include a discount, there's a calculator at the bottom of the page here: https://www.atlassian.com/enterprise/cloud/access

Regards,

Dave

Jesse Johnson · Answer

You mentioned you pay once for each user, is this only a one time fee for Atlassian Access or is it monthly? It looks to be monthly from the Billing page. If that's the case, we're not excited about the cost.

Dave Meyer · Answer

Hi @Aleksey Shchukin,

That's correct. Atlassian Access is the successor to our Identity Manager Early Access Program and provides SAML SSO functionality across the entire Atlassian Cloud suite. It's separate from your Jira Cloud subscription – you pay once for each user in your organization and they are continuously secured by SAML SSO regardless of which Atlassian Cloud products or sites they access.

So to directly answer your question, Atlassian Access is required for all SAML SSO authentication to Jira Cloud instances, including Okta.

Regards,

Dave