The short answer: Confluence is priced per user, per month, on the same four cloud plans Atlassian uses for Jira: Free, Standard, Premium and Enterprise. Free suits a small team that wants a shared wiki. Standard adds page permissions, more storage and support. Premium adds analytics, admin controls and stronger uptime commitments. Enterprise is sold by quote. Your real cost depends on how many people need to edit, whether you pay monthly or annually, and which Marketplace apps and other Atlassian products you add.
This guide explains how Confluence pricing works in 2026, what each plan is for, whether Confluence is free, how to budget for Jira and Confluence together, and a formula to estimate your own licence cost. We do not list prices, because they change and vary with user count and billing cycle. Check current pricing on Atlassian’s Confluence pricing page.
How much does Confluence cost?
A Confluence bill is mainly licences, with apps and add-ons on top. For a wiki that the whole company reads, the key question is who needs a licence at all.
| Cost line | What it pays for | Main driver | Recurring? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Confluence plan licence | Access on the Free, Standard, Premium or Enterprise plan | Licensed users and plan | Yes, monthly or annual |
| Marketplace apps | Diagrams, advanced tables, publishing workflows, translations, external sharing | Number of apps; most are priced on your Confluence user count | Yes |
| Other Atlassian products | Jira, Jira Service Management (for a help centre backed by Confluence articles) | Which teams need them | Yes |
| Security and identity add-ons | Organisation-wide SSO, user provisioning, audit, data controls | IT policy | Yes, where not included in your plan |
| Hosting (Data Center only) | Servers and infrastructure if you self-manage | Deployment choice | Yes |
| Content migration and upkeep | Moving pages from another wiki, structuring spaces, archiving old content | Volume of existing documentation | One-off plus ongoing time |
How Confluence pricing works in 2026
Per-user subscription
Confluence Cloud charges for each licensed user. On monthly billing you pay for the users on the site each month. On annual billing you buy a user tier for the year, and the per-user rate usually drops as the tier grows. Atlassian’s pricing page lets you enter a user count to see what each plan costs today.
Confluence plans by purpose
| Plan | Built for | What it typically adds | How it is bought |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Small teams starting a shared wiki | Unlimited spaces and pages, templates, basic editing and search; capped user count, limited storage, community support | Self-serve |
| Standard | Growing teams that need access control | Higher user limits, page and space permissions, more storage, business-hours support | Self-serve, monthly or annual |
| Premium | Companies where the wiki is business-critical | Analytics on page and space usage, advanced admin and permissions, automation, archiving, uptime commitment, stronger support | Self-serve or via sales |
| Enterprise | Large organisations with strict governance | Multiple sites under one account, enterprise security and compliance options, dedicated support | Annual, by quote |
Atlassian moves features between plans from time to time, especially AI features. Use the table to understand what each plan is for, then confirm the current feature list before you buy.
Cloud vs Data Center
Confluence Cloud is the default for new customers. Confluence Data Center is the self-managed edition for organisations that must host their own wiki. It is licensed annually by user tier, and you also pay for infrastructure, upgrades and the people who run it. Atlassian has been moving customers toward cloud, so ask about the Data Center roadmap before committing to it long term.
Is Confluence free?
Yes, for small teams. Confluence Free gives a limited number of users unlimited spaces and pages with templates and the standard editor. It works well for a startup or a single team’s documentation. The trade-offs are the user cap, limited permission controls (it is hard to keep a page private), smaller storage and community-only support. When you need restricted spaces for HR, finance or leadership, or more users than the cap, Standard is the next step.
If you are looking for a free wiki beyond the Free plan’s limits, the free Confluence alternatives list and our Notion alternatives guide cover other options.
Jira and Confluence pricing: budgeting for both
Many teams buy Confluence because they already use Jira. The two products integrate closely: Jira issues can be embedded in Confluence pages, and requirements written in Confluence can create Jira issues. But they are licensed separately, each with its own plan and user count.
- Different user counts are normal. Engineers may all need Jira, while Confluence may need everyone in the company, or only a subset. License each product for its own users.
- Plans can differ. Jira Premium with Confluence Standard is a common combination when cross-team planning matters more than wiki analytics.
- Ask about bundles. Atlassian has offered packaged combinations of its apps. Ask whether one would cost less than buying both separately at your user counts.
For Jira’s side of the bill, see our Jira pricing guide. For how the two tools divide the work, see Jira vs Confluence or the Confluence vs Jira comparison.
What drives Confluence costs up
Licensing readers who only read
The biggest avoidable cost in a company wiki is licensing people who only read a handful of pages. Before you set your user tier, split people into editors, regular readers and occasional readers. Ask Atlassian how guests, external collaborators and anonymous or public access are licensed on your plan, because the answer shapes the tier you need.
Marketplace apps
Confluence sites often add diagramming, table, publishing and translation apps. Cloud apps are usually priced on the total Confluence user count, not on how many people use the app. A diagram app used by twenty architects on a company-wide wiki can be billed for every user.
Storage, archiving and content sprawl
Storage limits differ by plan. Large attachments, video and years of old pages push teams toward higher tiers. Archiving and page analytics help keep content under control, but those tools sit on higher plans, so weigh the cost of the upgrade against the time spent cleaning up by hand.
Security, compliance and AI
SSO enforcement, automated provisioning and audit logs may be included in higher plans or sold through an Atlassian security add-on (Atlassian Guard). AI features for summarising pages and drafting content have moved between plans and may carry usage limits. Check both before comparing quotes.
How to estimate your Confluence cost
Use this formula with the current per-user prices from Atlassian:
Annual Confluence cost = (licensed users x per-user plan price x 12) + Marketplace apps (priced on the same user count) + security add-ons + migration and admin time
Illustrative inputs (not prices) for a company wiki:
- Company size: 180 people.
- Regular editors and readers who need a licence: 150.
- Occasional readers served another way (for example, a public help centre or exported policies): 30.
- Apps: one diagram app and one table app, both billed on 150 users.
- Plan: Standard, with Premium priced as an alternative for analytics and archiving.
Run the numbers for both plans. If the difference is less than the cost of the admin time Premium saves you, Premium may be worth it.
Questions to ask before you buy Confluence
- What is the per-user price for our user count on monthly and annual billing?
- How are guests, external partners and public pages licensed on each plan?
- Which plan includes the page permissions, analytics and archiving we need?
- Are our Marketplace apps priced on the whole user count?
- Is SSO and user provisioning included, or a separate add-on?
- Which AI features are included, and are there usage limits?
- Is a bundle with Jira or Jira Service Management cheaper for us?
- Do we qualify for nonprofit or academic pricing?
How to choose a Confluence plan
- Free: a small team’s shared documentation where everyone can see everything.
- Standard: most growing companies; you get permissions, more storage and support.
- Premium: when the wiki is critical to operations and you need analytics, archiving, automation and an uptime commitment.
- Enterprise: multiple sites, strict compliance or data governance needs across a large organisation.
If Confluence’s per-user model does not suit a company-wide wiki, compare it with other options in the knowledge base software category, the enterprise wiki software category, our guide on how to choose enterprise wiki software and the Confluence alternatives page. To make the case for a wiki internally, see how to measure the ROI of a knowledge base.
How does Confluence pricing compare with Notion and other wikis?
| Tool | Pricing model | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| Confluence | Free plan, per-user Standard and Premium, Enterprise by quote | Teams already on Jira; structured documentation at scale |
| Notion | Free plan, per-member paid tiers, enterprise by quote; AI may be priced separately | Flexible docs plus lightweight databases |
| Microsoft SharePoint | Included with many Microsoft 365 business and enterprise subscriptions | Organisations standardised on Microsoft 365 |
| Dedicated knowledge base tools | Usually per editor, sometimes with unlimited readers | Customer-facing help centres and internal support content |
See reviews on the Confluence profile, pricing details on the Confluence pricing page, and the wider collaboration software category. For project tools that pair with a wiki, see the best project management software.
Frequently asked questions about Confluence pricing
How is Confluence priced?
Per licensed user, per month, on four cloud plans: Free, Standard, Premium and Enterprise. You can pay monthly for your current users or annually for a user tier. Enterprise is sold by quote.
Is Confluence free?
For small teams, yes. The Free plan gives a limited number of users unlimited spaces and pages. Larger teams, or teams that need restricted spaces and support, need Standard or above.
Is Confluence included with Jira?
No. Jira and Confluence are separate subscriptions, each licensed per user. They integrate closely, and Atlassian has offered bundles at times, so ask whether buying them together is cheaper for your user counts.
What is the difference between Confluence Standard and Premium?
Standard gives you permissions, more storage and support. Premium adds tools for running a wiki at scale: usage analytics, advanced admin, automation, archiving and a stronger uptime commitment. Check the current plan comparison, because features move.
How much does Confluence Enterprise cost?
Enterprise has no public list price. It is sold annually by quote, based on user count, number of sites and the security and support terms you need.
Can I pay for Confluence monthly?
Yes. Monthly billing charges for the users you have each month and can be cancelled. Annual billing locks in a user tier and is usually cheaper per user.
How do I reduce my Confluence licence cost?
License editors and regular readers only, check how guests and public pages are licensed, remove unused Marketplace apps, and review your user tier before each annual renewal. Nonprofit and academic programmes may also apply.
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