How to Minimize Jira Costs While Retaining Efficiency in Your Organization
Jira’s dynamic, agile solution is the go-to option for 81 percent of organizations performing Agile processes.
Indispensable features such as roadmaps, agile reporting, kanban, scrum, bug, and issue tracking allow agile project managers to plan and connect work transparently at scale.
But acquiring and running service licenses for Atlassian on-premise applications like Jira could run into thousands of dollars monthly. And worse, impact your investments in Data Center or Server, given recent price changes.
What if your company could slash up to 90 percent on Jira costs while retaining efficiency across the board? In this article, we’ll briefly discuss two ways to save costs on Jira.
1. Disable Inactive Users
You must track how many users are plugged to your Jira server or Data Center. Why? Jira Server and Data Center licensing costs depend on the number of users.
Since the number of users in an organization changes constantly, it’s difficult to forecast how many users will be using Jira in your organization a few months from now. However, to ensure you don’t drive your costs up by paying for inactive users, compare;
- The number of active users
- The number of user accounts you paid for
- The current user tier limit
If your number of user accounts is close to your current tier limit, you’ll have an imminent spike soon. Unlike self-hosted Atlassian applications, Data Center has different user tiers with fixed rates within each tier.
It is possible for customers with 750 and 1000 users to pay the same, but once they reach 1001 users, they will start paying more. Which means, if your user count surpasses certain thresholds, your license price will increase with an upgrade.
Depending on the Jira solution you’re using, you can do this in several ( but similar) ways;
- Extract and filter users who haven’t logged in for more than 30 days and revoke access to their tools.
- Filter users who haven’t logged in for more than 150 days and disable that instance user.
This process works great if you aren’t on a monthly plan. If not, disable inactive user accounts that haven’t been logged in for two weeks.
However, reducing the number of users will likely lower your bill, but only in the next billing cycle. Active users can still access the content left by those temporary users (you’ve deactivated).
Alternatively, use a third-party app like Manage Users for Jira to activate or deactivate users individually or in bulk.
Remember, third-party apps can also incur costs. To avoid overpaying for non-software purchases, you’ll need Etherdom’s dedicated SaaS expense card. The Etherdom card sets you up for success at renewal time, eliminating any surprises or guesswork.
By tracking software utilization, you identify areas with the highest usage and determine potential savings.
2. Migrate from Jira Server to Data Center
You’ll need a Server or Data Center license if you run your own Jira Software or Jira Service Management site. Depending on your Jira license, you may have access to different features and infrastructure options.
Atlassian Data Center offers all Jira Server features and many other enterprise-grade features, including zero downtime upgrades and deploying any architecture of your choice — making it a better deal.
But the Data Center license is arguably more expensive than the server license, so why should you bother?
The answer is simple: migrating to Data Center is business-critical.
The mid-long-term cost benefits of Data Center are well worth considering. With Atlassian Data Center, you can update your Atlassian system instantly without shutting down the server first. When you consider the additional expenses associated with after-hours and weekend updates, you’ll see why the cost justification is valid.
Additionally, the user tier pricing model allows you to limit the number of user accounts in the system, thus regulating your licensing budgets if you stick to the user imit.
Etherdom has a team of SaaS experts that can evaluate which license model is suitable for your organization. We can also detect overspending and burn in your SaaS stack across thousands of tools using deep-level data analysis.
Talk to a savings expert at Etherdom to optimize your SaaS spend for a competitive advantage.
