TL;DR:
One of our clients was unknowingly burning over $8,000 every month on Jira Service Management licenses — mostly due to a single misconfiguration. Here’s what we found, how we fixed it, and how you can avoid the same mistake.
The Problem
A tech company with ~200 Jira users had been running their Atlassian stack for years. But no one truly owned it. Jira was managed ad hoc — sometimes by project managers, sometimes by the CTO, sometimes by the sysadmin. Each one added apps or changes to suit their immediate needs.
No architecture. No review. Just chaos.
What We Found
The cost?
Over $15,000/month in Atlassian bills — and growing.
When we stepped in, the first thing we did was audit their Jira Service Management setup.
The issue jumped out immediately:
Customers were being added as paid agents.
In Jira Service Management, agents are billed — but customers (those who submit tickets) are free. Due to lack of understanding, dozens of users who should’ve been free were added as agents, triggering unnecessary licensing costs.
The Fix
We:
- Audited the user roles and permissions
- Reassigned customers from paid agent roles to free customer roles
- Established guidelines for proper user management going forward
The Result
💸 Monthly bill dropped by over $5,000
📉 Total yearly savings: $60,000+
🧠 And now, a single Jira admin owns all changes — no more random installs or shadow IT.
Could You Be Making the Same Mistake?
If you’re not sure who’s managing your Jira stack — or if you’ve never done a license audit — you’re probably overspending too.
We offer a 30-minute free audit call to identify quick wins just like this.
👉 Book now and let’s see how much we can save you.
