Long before product-led growth became a buzzword, Atlassian offered free plans for nearly all of its productivity and developer tools. Now, that mostly means free access for up to 10 users and other limitations. For startups, this is a good way to get started with the company's tools, like Jira and Bitbucket, but you'll quickly reach the limits of what you can do with the free plan.
For early-stage companies that need more seats and access to more advanced features, Atlassian today launched its “Atlassian for Startups” program, which offers companies with less than $10 million in funding free access for up to 50 users for one year.
Products covered by this program include Jira, Confluence, Loom, Jira Product Discovery, Bitbucket, and Compass.
Very few companies switch from a productivity and issue tracking tool like Jira once they start using it, so this is clearly a way to bring growing startups into the Atlassian ecosystem and keep them on the platform as they grow.
Atlassian CMO Zeynep İnanoglu Özdemir, who joined the company in October last year, said that over the years, the company has seen startups thrive on its platform and grow into large, mature companies.
“This is clearly a win-win situation,” she told me. “I think the idea of taking the burden of job administration and project management away and scaling that whole process so companies can focus on innovation is great. […] So we wanted to support the startup community and make it easier for startups to get started.”
It's worth noting that while Atlassian got its start in the technology community, it also makes an effort to attract non-tech startups, particularly its project management product Jira and collaboration product Confluence. (It's also building on that foundation by acquiring asynchronous video messaging service Loom in 2023.) Ozdemir said he expects a lot of non-tech companies to apply to the Atlassian Startup Program.
Atlassian will also partner with several accelerators and their portfolio companies at launch, including AWS Activate, Accel, Blackbird and Menlo Ventures.