Confluence (Knowledge management and wiki)
Created by: Atlassian

Confluence prices per user with bundle leverage. The pricing story is the suite, not the standalone page.

TL;DR: Confluence runs Atlassian-style per-user tiered pricing with a generous-but-capped free tier and meaningful suite bundling. The free tier (up to 10 users) is a top-of-funnel catcher for the eventual Jira sale; paid tiers ascend through Standard, Premium, and Enterprise with feature gates calibrated for IT-led mid-market and enterprise procurement. The lesson for indie founders: per-user pricing only works when you have a buyer who already thinks in seats, and bundle leverage only works when you have a bundle.

What they sell: A team wiki and documentation platform sold standalone and as part of the Atlassian suite.
Who it's for: Engineering organisations, IT-led mid-market and enterprise teams, and Atlassian-suite customers needing tightly-integrated documentation.
Pricing model: Per-user tiered subscription with suite-bundle discounts
Payment frequency: Monthly or annual; annual discount applied at checkout. Suite-bundle discounts when bought with Jira and other Atlassian products.
Free trial behavior: Standard, Premium, and Enterprise plans offer 7-to-14-day trials with full feature access; free tier persists indefinitely at the 10-user cap.
Number of tiers: 4

Anchor pattern: Premium-anchored ladder with enterprise tail
Premium is the visual anchor on the pricing page — the most-feature-rich tier short of enterprise quote. The Premium tier signals 'serious teams pay roughly $11/user/month' which makes Standard read as the entry-level rather than the cheap option. Enterprise is the implicit ceiling that gives Premium social permission to feel reasonable.

Upgrade trigger: Hard caps and governance gates
Upgrade from Free is triggered hard at 11 users. Upgrade from Standard to Premium is triggered when governance, analytics, or compliance becomes a procurement requirement — typically IT-led. Upgrade from Premium to Enterprise is triggered by SSO, audit, and data residency requirements that mid-market teams cannot self-serve.

What's working:
Per-user tiered pricing maps cleanly to how IT-led mid-market buyers think about software cost.|Free tier at 10 users is generous enough to onboard small teams without being a long-term home.|Suite-bundle leverage lets Confluence compete on price within the Atlassian ecosystem in ways standalone wikis cannot match.|Enterprise tier sits behind a quote, preserving negotiation surface and signalling 'we serve real enterprises'.|Premium-anchor positioning makes Standard feel like the entry rather than the cheap option.

What to adapt:
If your buyer thinks in seats, per-user pricing is structurally easier to budget than per-anything-else.|A hard user cap (not a feature cap) on the free tier is the cleanest upgrade trigger when seats are the value unit.|Quote-pricing for enterprise is the right move when contracts need negotiation; transparent pricing is wrong for that buyer.

What to avoid:
Do not copy per-user pricing if your buyer is a single founder — they are not budgeting in seats.|Do not rely on bundle leverage you do not have; standalone products cannot mimic suite economics.|Do not gate enterprise behind a quote unless you have actual enterprise infrastructure to deliver.

Brunson lens:
Stack: Standard-Premium-Enterprise ladder with feature stacking calibrated for IT-led procurement.
Value ladder: Free wiki → Standard collaboration → Premium governance → Enterprise compliance.
Decoy/anchor: Premium is the anchor; Enterprise is the implicit ceiling that justifies it.
Payment mechanics: Per-user monthly or annual; annual discount; bundle leverage within Atlassian suite.

Pricing last verified: 2026-05-18