Jira's free plan: what ten users get and what stays locked
The Jira free tier is a real product, not a trial. It has no time limit, it allows up to 10 users on one site, and it includes the board, backlog, timeline and calendar views that most small teams use every day. What it leaves out is less obvious from the pricing page: permissions, audit logs, most of the automation budget, and enough email notifications for a busy team.
Everything below was checked against Atlassian's pricing page and support documentation on October 8, 2026. Atlassian changes plan details from time to time, so treat the figures as a snapshot and confirm them on the Jira pricing page before deciding.
What the free tier includes
Atlassian lists the free plan as "free forever for 10 users". The core of Jira is all there:
- Unlimited goals, work items, spaces and forms
- Customizable workflows and custom fields
- Backlog, list, board, timeline, calendar and summary views
- Scrum and kanban boards, with agile reporting
- Apps and integrations from the Atlassian Marketplace, with some exceptions covered below
- iOS and Android apps
- Basic roadmaps, and dependency management within a single project
- 2 GB of file storage
- Support from the Atlassian Community
For a team of six developers running two-week sprints, this covers the daily work. The board, the backlog and sprint reports behave the same way they do on paid plans. The differences show up around the edges: who can see what, how much runs automatically, and how many notifications go out.
The limits that bite first
The numbers below are the ones that change how a team works. Atlassian publishes each of them; none is a guess.
| Limit | Free | Standard |
|---|---|---|
| Users per site | 10 | Up to 100,000 |
| Sites | 1 | 1 |
| File storage | 2 GB | 250 GB |
| Automation | 150 steps per subscription per month | 400 steps per user per month |
| Email notifications | 100 per day | Unlimited |
| User roles and permissions | Not customizable | Included |
| Audit logs | Not available | Included |
| Support | Community | Business hours, 9 am to 5 pm Monday to Friday in your time zone |
Automation: 150 steps for the whole site
This is the limit most teams underestimate. On the free tier, 150 automation steps are shared across the whole subscription each month. On Standard the allowance is 400 steps per user per month, so a 10 person team on Standard has 4,000. A single rule that runs on every transition, such as "when a work item moves to Done, comment on the parent", can use the free allowance within a couple of weeks on an active board. Once it is gone, the rules stop until the next month.
Email notifications: 100 a day
Atlassian's support article on free plans states that Jira can send at most 100 emails per day on the free plan, and that notifications pause until the following day once that number is reached. Ten people who each watch a few busy work items can hit that by early afternoon. The article also notes that after upgrading, it can take up to 30 days for the limit to be lifted, so a team that plans to upgrade because of notifications should not wait until the day it matters.
Storage: 2 GB
Two gigabytes is fine for text, links and small screenshots. It runs out quickly for teams that attach design files, recordings or large PDFs to work items.
What stays locked: permissions and security
The most important limit on the free tier is not a number. It is that permissions cannot be customized.
Atlassian's documentation is direct about this. On free Jira sites, you cannot assign space roles, configure work item security schemes, or restrict permissions using schemes. If a site has always been on the free plan, everyone with access to Jira is an admin for all Jira spaces.
In practice, that means:
- Every one of the 10 users can change workflows, delete work items and alter settings in every space.
- There is no way to give a contractor access to one space and keep them out of another.
- There is no work item level security, so a sensitive ticket cannot be hidden from part of the team.
- There are no audit logs to see who changed global permissions or other site settings.
For a single team of colleagues who trust each other, this is often acceptable. For an agency that wants to bring a client into one project, or a startup that works with outside contractors, it usually is not. The Standard plan lists "user roles and permissions" and "external collaboration" among the things it adds over Free.
Teams that downgrade from a paid plan to Free should also know this: existing permission schemes, space roles and work item security schemes are kept, but they become read only. Changing them requires upgrading again. Any anonymous access that had been granted is removed.
Other limits worth knowing before you commit
Several smaller points come up only after a team has been on the free tier for a while.
Some Marketplace apps do not work on Free. Atlassian lists apps that are incompatible or have reduced functionality on free plans, usually because they depend on permission features that Free cannot change. Examples on the list include Tempo Base, Deep Clone for Jira and Email This Issue. If a team relies on a specific app for time tracking or test management, check the list before migrating.
The site URL cannot be changed. If all Jira Cloud apps on a site are on the free plan, the site URL chosen at sign-up is permanent. Paid plans can request a change through Atlassian Support. Pick the site name carefully on day one.
Inactive free sites can be deactivated. Atlassian reserves the right to deactivate free Jira Cloud sites that are inactive. Activity is defined loosely, such as opening a dashboard or viewing a work item, and site admins receive warning emails first. A side project that nobody opens for months is the case to watch.
Advanced planning is a Premium feature. Cross-team planning and dependency management across projects are listed under Premium. Free and Standard both get dependency management within a single project and a basic roadmap.
AI features start at Standard. Rovo search, chat and agents appear in the Standard plan's list of additions, not in Free.
What happens at user eleven
The free tier caps a site at 10 users. There is no paid add-on for an extra seat on the free plan, so the eleventh person means moving the site to Standard or a higher plan, which is billed per user. Atlassian prices are shown on the pricing page in local currency and for the team size you enter, so it is worth running the calculator with the real headcount rather than relying on a figure quoted in an article.
The jump also brings more than seats. Permissions, audit logs, unlimited email notifications, 250 GB of storage and a much larger automation allowance all arrive together. For many teams, the permission controls are a better reason to upgrade than the headcount, and that need often shows up well before the eleventh user.
Some teams try to stay under the cap by splitting into several free sites. Each site then has its own users, its own automation budget and its own settings, and work cannot be planned across them without extra tools. That approach tends to cost more time than the subscription it saves.
How the Jira free tier compares with other free tiers
A free tier is only generous or stingy relative to the alternatives. The table below sets Jira's limits next to two other widely used tools, using each vendor's own pricing page as checked on October 8, 2026.
| Jira Free | Asana Personal | ClickUp Free Forever | |
|---|---|---|---|
| People | Up to 10 users | 2 users | Unlimited free plan members |
| Storage | 2 GB | Unlimited, 100 MB max per file | 60 MB |
| Automation | 150 steps per month for the site | Not listed on the free plan | 5 active rules, 100 executions |
| Board view | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Timeline or Gantt | Timeline view | From Starter | Gantt view, 60 uses |
| First paid tier | Standard, per user | Starter, $10.99 per user per month billed annually | Unlimited, $7 per user per month billed yearly |
Read across the rows and the trade-offs are clear. Jira gives the most seats among the capped plans and a usable timeline, but the least automation and email headroom, and no permission control. Asana's free plan is built for one or two people rather than a team. ClickUp allows any number of members but caps storage and automation tightly.
None of these tools is the obvious winner on its free tier alone. The deciding factor is usually which limit the team will hit first. A team of eight developers who never attach files will hit Jira's automation cap before anything else. A design team will hit ClickUp's 60 MB within days. A three person team cannot fit on Asana's free plan at all.
Is the Jira free tier the right fit?
The free tier fits well when all of these are true:
- The team is 10 people or fewer and expected to stay that way for a while.
- Everyone on the site can safely be an admin for every space.
- The work is mainly software development, so scrum and kanban boards, sprints and agile reports are the core need.
- Automation needs are modest, roughly a few simple rules on a quiet board.
- Attachments are light.
It fits less well when any of these apply:
- Clients, contractors or other departments need access to one project but not others.
- The team relies on automation to move work forward.
- Non-developers make up much of the team and find Jira's workflow concepts heavy.
- Large files are part of the work.
For teams in the second group, the choice is between paying for Jira Standard and moving to a different tool whose free tier is sized differently. A useful way to compare is to list the three limits that matter most to the team, for example user count, permissions and automation, and check each candidate's free tier against those three. The side by side comparisons set out the free tiers of several board tools in one place, and the pricing page shows how one alternative counts people and boards.
What to change first
Before the team grows, check the automation usage figures in Jira settings to see how much of the 150 step allowance a normal month uses, and check whether notification emails are being paused. If either is close to the limit, or if anyone outside the core team needs access, plan the move now rather than at user eleven. For a team that wants permission roles and chat on a free tier, Pinateca is free for up to 5 people and 10 boards.
Q1. Is the Jira free tier really free forever?
Yes. Atlassian describes the free plan as free forever for up to 10 users, with no credit card required. It is not a time limited trial, although Atlassian reserves the right to deactivate free sites that are inactive.
Q2. Can I set permissions on the Jira free plan?
No. On a free Jira site you cannot assign space roles, configure work item security schemes or restrict permissions using schemes. On a site that has always been free, everyone with access to Jira is an admin for every space.
Q3. What happens when Jira sends more than 100 emails in a day?
On the free plan, notifications pause once 100 emails have gone out that day and resume the following day. Atlassian notes that after upgrading to a paid plan, it can take up to 30 days for the limit to be lifted.
Q4. How many automation runs do I get on Jira Free?
The free plan includes 150 automation steps per subscription per month, shared by everyone on the site. Standard includes 400 steps per user per month, Premium 750, and Enterprise 1,000.
Q5. Can I add an eleventh user to a free Jira site?
Not on the free plan. The cap is 10 users per site, so adding an eleventh means upgrading the site to Standard or above, which is billed per user.