The short answer
Data Center subscriptions expire and instances go read-only on March 28, 2029, with expansions and app purchases frozen from March 30, 2028 (Atlassian’s published schedule). Cloud is not cheaper per seat — we will not pretend otherwise. The money is in the pre-migration cleanup: Cloud is priced per user, so every inactive user and stale project you delete before migrating directly cuts the tier you land on — and every quarter of delay pushes you into the 2028 rush, when everyone else is buying the same help at once.
The deadline Atlassian published: three dates
This was never a discount story. It is a deadline story, in three dated steps straight from Atlassian’s published schedule:
- March 30, 2026 — new Data Center sales to new customers ended.
- March 30, 2028 — expansions and Marketplace app purchases freeze.
- March 28, 2029 — all Data Center subscriptions expire; instances go read-only.
There is no renewal that outruns the third date. The planning question is not whether to move, but whether you move while there is still slack to test, clean up, and fix what the test finds.
Jira Data Center vs Cloud pricing: what you actually pay
Data Center pricing stacks per-user tiers across Jira, Confluence, and JSM, plus Marketplace apps and Atlassian Guard. At list, Jira Data Center for 1,000 users rises to $100,000/yr in February 2026, and 2,000 users to $182,000 (ONES guide, citing Atlassian’s tables). Cloud does not rescue the per-seat maths: Jira Standard for 1,000 users is $73,500/yr from October 2026 on Atlassian’s official future-pricing tables — a different tier, before Confluence, JSM, apps, and Guard are stacked on top.
| Scenario | Annual maths | What changes |
|---|---|---|
| Jira Data Center, 1,000 users | $100,000/yr at list (Feb 2026) | A product with a published end date |
| Jira Data Center, 2,000 users | $182,000/yr at list | Same deadline, larger estate |
| Jira Standard Cloud, 1,000 users | $73,500/yr from Oct 2026 (Atlassian future pricing) | Different tier — per-user pricing means cleanup sets your bill |
| DC → Cloud licence saving | None to sell | The value is deadline compliance, retired DC infrastructure, and a cleaned landing tier |
List-price comparisons from the sources below, not a promise for any specific estate. Marketplace apps, Guard, and additional products move the real total in both directions.
The cleanup: the one saving you control
Because Cloud is priced per user, the cleanup is the one quantifiable saving in this whole move — it sets the tier you pay for from day one:
- Inactive users. Every dormant account you delete or archive before migration is a seat you stop paying for.
- Stale projects and dead spaces. Archive what nobody has touched, instead of paying to carry it into Cloud and maintain it there.
- Blockers, resolved early. Apps with no Cloud equivalent, ScriptRunner/Groovy customisations, and custom Confluence macros are the classic delays — find them in the audit, not during the cutover.
Price your landing tier twice: at today’s headcount, and at the cleaned headcount. The difference is the saving, and it is yours whether or not you hire anyone.
Confluence migration to Cloud — and the exit option
For most estates the destination is Atlassian Cloud: Jira, the Confluence migration to Cloud, and JSM move together, with the migration assistants Atlassian built for exactly this path. The move is unavoidable, so the service is doing it well and early instead of rushed in 2028.
Exiting Atlassian entirely is a real but narrow option. Plane ($6/user/mo Pro, self-hostable) and OpenProject (from €5.95/user/mo; Community edition free self-hosted) can cut the licence line to near zero for a single engineering org leaving Jira alone — while Linear, at $10/user/mo, is not cheaper per seat than Jira Standard. But JSM and Confluence content has no equivalent in those tools at all, and no sourced benchmark supports a clean percentage saving for the exit. Anyone quoting one is inventing it.
How the migration works: audit, cleanup, pilot, migration, verification
- Audit. Inventory users, projects, spaces, and apps; price your exact Cloud landing tier at today’s headcount — and at the cleaned headcount.
- Cleanup. Delete or archive inactive users and stale projects, and resolve the classic blockers: apps with no Cloud equivalent, ScriptRunner/Groovy customisations, and custom Confluence macros.
- Pilot. Run a JCMA/CCMA test migration, sort SSO and Atlassian Guard, and produce a go/no-go report before any production data moves.
- Migration. Phased cutover, typically a weekend, once the pilot says go.
- Verification. Hypercare after cutover, then check the production tier you actually landed on against the audited cleaned baseline.
Partner guides put a small, clean instance (under 500 users) at roughly 2–4 months — 8–12 weeks for the cleanest — mid-size estates at 4–9 months, and enterprise estates at 9–18+ months. Start dates are the whole game: a 9-month estate that starts in 2028 finishes inside the freeze.
The honest risks
This service is bounded only for a small, clean, single instance. App-heavy, multi-instance, JSM-heavy, or data-residency-constrained estates are larger programmes, and we say so in the first meeting. Below roughly 250–500 Data Center users, Atlassian’s own migration assistants are largely self-serve and a paid migration is hard to justify. And the deadline cuts both ways: the closer the industry gets to March 2028, the more the rush — not the software — sets the price of help.
FAQ
When does Atlassian Data Center reach end of life?
On Atlassian’s published schedule: new Data Center sales to new customers ended March 30, 2026; expansions and Marketplace app purchases freeze March 30, 2028; and on March 28, 2029 all Data Center subscriptions expire and instances go read-only. Every Data Center customer has to migrate, exit, or freeze by that date.
Is Atlassian Cloud cheaper than Data Center?
Not as a like-for-like discount. Jira Data Center at 1,000 users is $100,000/yr at list (February 2026), while Jira Standard Cloud at 1,000 users is $73,500/yr from October 2026 — but those are different tiers, and the real bill stacks Confluence, Jira Service Management, Marketplace apps, and Atlassian Guard on top. Nobody honest sells the move as a licence saving. The saving you control is the pre-migration cleanup, because Cloud is priced per user and cleanup sets the tier you land on.
How long does a Data Center to Cloud migration take?
Partner guides put a small, clean instance (under 500 users) at roughly 2–4 months — 8–12 weeks for the cleanest — mid-size estates at 4–9 months, and enterprise estates at 9–18+ months. That is why the start date matters: a 9-month estate that starts in 2028 finishes inside the expansion freeze.
Can we stay on Data Center after March 2029?
Only as a frozen system. From March 30, 2028 you can no longer expand licences or buy Marketplace apps, and on March 28, 2029 the subscriptions themselves expire and instances go read-only. Staying put is not a strategy; it is a deadline you meet with a read-only Jira.
What should we clean up before migrating to Cloud?
Inactive users, stale projects, and dead Confluence spaces — because Cloud is priced per user, every one you delete before migrating directly cuts the tier you pay for from day one. Also resolve the classic blockers early: Marketplace apps with no Cloud equivalent, ScriptRunner and Groovy customisations, and custom Confluence macros.
When is a paid migration worth it?
Below roughly 250–500 Data Center users, Atlassian’s own migration assistants are largely self-serve and paid help is hard to justify. A fixed-scope service fits a small, clean, single instance. App-heavy, multi-instance, JSM-heavy, or data-residency-constrained estates are larger programmes, and any honest provider will say so in the first meeting.
Want your landing tier priced before the rush prices it for you?
Buy Me Compute’s Data Center Deadline service starts with a fixed-scope assessment and cleanup that prices your exact Cloud landing tier, then a test migration with a go/no-go report, then the phased cutover — sold against the calendar, not against panic.
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Sources and basis
Deadline dates from Atlassian’s published Data Center end-of-life schedule; Data Center list prices from the ONES guide citing Atlassian’s tables; Cloud pricing from Atlassian’s official future-pricing tables; exit-tool prices (Linear, Plane, OpenProject) and durations from Atlassian migration partner guides — all as summarised in Buy Me Compute’s 2026 giant-vendor migration research. Prices and schedules change — verify against Atlassian’s current tables before acting.