Manage subscription

Buy a subscription

You can buy a subscription for GitLab.com or GitLab Self-Managed.

For GitLab.com

Tier: Premium, Ultimate
Offering: GitLab.com

A GitLab.com subscription applies to a top-level group. Members of every subgroup and project in the group:

Can use the features of the subscription.
Consume seats in the subscription.

To subscribe to GitLab.com:

View the GitLab.com feature comparison and decide which tier you want.
Create a user account for yourself by using the sign up page.
Create a group. Your subscription tier applies to the top-level group, its subgroups, and projects.
Create additional users and add them to the group. The users in this group, its subgroups, and projects can use the features of your subscription tier, and they consume a seat in your subscription.
On the left sidebar, select Settings > Billing and choose a tier. You are taken to the Customers Portal.
Fill out the form to complete your purchase.

For GitLab Self-Managed

Tier: Premium, Ultimate
Offering: GitLab Self-Managed

To subscribe to GitLab for a GitLab Self-Managed instance:

Go to the Pricing page and select a self-managed plan. You are redirected to the Customers Portal to complete your purchase.
After purchase, an activation code is sent to the email address associated with the Customers Portal account. You must add this code to your GitLab instance.

If you're purchasing a subscription for an existing Free GitLab Self-Managed instance, ensure you're purchasing enough seats to cover your users.

View subscription

For GitLab.com

Tier: Premium, Ultimate
Offering: GitLab.com

Prerequisites:

You must have the Owner role for the group.

To see the status of your GitLab.com subscription:

On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
Select Settings > Billing.

The following information is displayed:

Field	Description
Seats in subscription	If this is a paid plan, represents the number of seats you've bought for this group.
Seats currently in use	Number of seats in use. Select See usage to see a list of the users using these seats.
Maximum seats used	Highest number of seats you've used.
Seats owed	Max seats used minus Seats in subscription.
Subscription start date	Date your subscription started.
Subscription end date	Date your current subscription ends.

For GitLab Self-Managed

Tier: Premium, Ultimate
Offering: GitLab Self-Managed

Prerequisites:

You must be an administrator.

You can view the status of your subscription:

On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin.
Select Subscription.

The Subscription page includes the following information:

Licensee
Plan
When it was uploaded, started, and when it expires
Number of users in subscription
Number of billable users
Maximum users
Number of users over subscription

Upgrade subscription tier

Tier: Premium, Ultimate
Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed

To upgrade your GitLab tier:

Sign in to the Customers Portal.
Select Upgrade plan on the relevant subscription card.
Confirm the active form of payment, or add a new form of payment.
Select the I accept the Privacy Statement and Terms of Service checkbox.
Select Upgrade subscription.

The following is emailed to you:

A payment receipt. You can also access this information in the Customers Portal under Invoices.
On GitLab Self-Managed, a new activation code for your license.

On GitLab Self-Managed, the new tier takes effect on the next subscription sync. You can also synchronize your subscription manually to upgrade right away.

Renew subscription

Tier: Premium, Ultimate
Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed

Before your subscription renewal date, you should review your account to check your current seat usage and billable users.

You can renew your subscription automatically or manually. You should renew your subscription manually if you want to either:

Renew for fewer seats.
Increase or decrease the quantities of products being renewed.
Remove add-on products no longer needed for the renewed subscription term.
Upgrade the subscription tier.

The renewal period start date is displayed on the group Billing page under Next subscription term start date.

Contact the:

Support team if you need help accessing the Customers Portal or changing the contact person who manages your subscription.
Sales team if you need help renewing your subscription.

Check when subscription expires

15 days before a subscription expires, a banner with the subscription expiry date displays for administrators in the GitLab user interface.

You cannot manually renew your subscription more than 15 days before the subscription expires. To check when you can renew:

Sign in to the Customers Portal.
Select Subscription actions ({ellipsis_v}), then select Renew subscription to view the date you can renew.

Renew automatically

Prerequisites:

For GitLab Self-Managed, you must synchronize subscription data and review your account at least two days before renewal to ensure your changes are synchronized.

When a subscription is set to auto-renew, it renews automatically at midnight UTC on the expiration date without a gap in available service. You receive email notifications before a subscription automatically renews.

Subscriptions purchased through the Customers Portal are set to auto-renew by default, but you can turn off automatic subscription renewal.

The number of user seats is adjusted to fit the number of billable users in your group or instance at the time of renewal, if that number is higher than the current subscription quantity.

Turn on or turn off automatic subscription renewal

You can use the Customers Portal to turn on or turn off automatic subscription renewal:

Sign in to the Customers Portal. You are taken to the Subscriptions & purchases page.
Check the subscription card:
- If the card displays Expires on DATE, your subscription is not set to automatically renew. To enable automatic renewal, in Subscription actions ({ellipsis_v}), select Turn on auto-renew.
- If the card displays Auto-renews on DATE, your subscription is set to automatically renew. To disable automatic renewal:
  1. In Subscription actions ({ellipsis_v}), select Cancel subscription.
  2. Select a reason for canceling.
  3. Optional: In Would you like to add anything?, enter any relevant information.
  4. Select Cancel subscription.

Renew manually

To manually renew your subscription:

Determine the number of users you need in the next subscription period.
Sign in to the Customers Portal.
Under your existing subscription, select Renew. This button does not display until 15 days before the subscription expires.
If renewing Premium or Ultimate products, in the Seats text box, enter the total number of user seats you need for the upcoming year.

Make sure this number is equal to, or greater than the number of billable users in the system at the time of renewal.
Optional. For GitLab Self-Managed, if the maximum number of users in your instance exceeded the number you were licensed for in the previous subscription term, the overage is due when you renew.

In the Users over license text box, enter the number of users over subscription for the user overage incurred.
Optional. If renewing add-on products, review and update the desired quantity. You can also remove products.
Optional. If upgrading the subscription tier, select the desired option.
Review your renewal details and select Renew subscription to complete the payment process.
For GitLab Self-Managed, on the Subscriptions & purchases page on the relevant subscription card, select Copy activation code to get a copy of the renewal term activation code, and add the activation code to your instance.

To add products to your subscription, contact the sales team.

Renew for fewer seats

Subscription renewals with fewer seats must have or exceed the current number of billable users.

Before you renew your subscription:

For GitLab.com, reduce the number of billable users if it exceeds the number of seats you want to renew for.
For GitLab Self-Managed, block inactive or unwanted users.

To manually renew your subscription for fewer seats, you can either:

Manually renew within 15 days of the subscription renewal date. Ensure that you specify the seat quantity when you renew.
Turn off automatic renewal of your subscription, and contact the sales team to renew it for the number of seats you want.

Renewal notifications

15 days before a subscription automatically renews, an email is sent with information about the renewal.

If your credit card is expired, the email tells you how to update it.
If you have any outstanding overages or your subscription is not able to automatically renew for any other reason, the email tells you to contact our Sales team or manually renew in the Customers Portal.
If there are no issues, the email specifies the:
- Names and quantity of the products being renewed.
- Total amount you owe. If your usage increases before renewal, this amount changes.

Manage renewal invoice

An invoice is generated for your renewal. To view or download this renewal invoice, go to the Customers Portal invoices page.

If your account has a saved credit card, the card is charged for the invoice amount.

If we are unable to process a payment or the auto-renewal fails for any other reason, you have 14 days to renew your subscription, after which your GitLab tier is downgraded.

Expired subscription

Subscriptions expire at the start of the expiration date, 00:00 server time.

For example, if a subscription is valid from January 1, 2024 until January 1, 2025:

It expires at 11:59:59 PM UTC December 31, 2024.
It is considered expired from 12:00:00 AM UTC January 1, 2025.
The grace period of 14 days starts at 12:00:00 AM UTC January 1, 2025 and ends at 11:59:59 PM UTC January 14, 2025.

For GitLab.com

Tier: Premium, Ultimate
Offering: GitLab.com

When your subscription expires, you can continue to use paid features of GitLab for 14 days. After 14 days, paid features are no longer available, but you can continue to use free features. To resume paid feature functionality, purchase a new subscription.

For GitLab Self-Managed

Tier: Premium, Ultimate
Offering: GitLab Self-Managed

When your license expires, after a 14 day grace period:

Your instance becomes read-only.
GitLab locks features, such as Git pushes and issue creation.
An expiration message is displayed to all instance administrators.

After your license has expired:

To resume functionality, activate a new subscription.
To keep using Free tier features only, remove the expired license.

Subscription data synchronization

Tier: Premium, Ultimate
Offering: GitLab Self-Managed

Prerequisites:

GitLab Enterprise Edition (EE).
Connection to the internet, and must not have an offline environment.
Activated your instance with an activation code.

Your subscription data is automatically synchronized once a day between your GitLab Self-Managed instance and GitLab.

At approximately 3:00 AM (UTC), this daily synchronization job sends subscription data to the Customers Portal. For this reason, updates and renewals might not apply immediately.

The data is sent securely through an encrypted HTTPS connection to customers.gitlab.com on port 443. If the job fails, it retries up to 12 times over approximately 17 hours.

After you have set up automatic data synchronization, the following processes are also automated.

Quarterly subscription reconciliation.
Subscription renewals.
Subscription updates, such as adding more seats or upgrading a GitLab tier.

Manually synchronize subscription data

You can also manually synchronize subscription data at any time.

On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin.
Select Subscription.
In the Subscription details section, select Sync ({retry}).

A synchronization job is then queued. When the job finishes, the subscription details are updated.

Subscription data

Version history

Unique instance ID introduced in GitLab 18.1.

The daily synchronization job sends the following information to the Customers Portal:

Date
Timestamp
License key, with the following encrypted within the key:
- Company name
- Licensee name
- Licensee email
Historical maximum user count
Billable users count
GitLab version
Hostname
Instance ID
Unique instance ID

Additionally, we also send add-on metrics such as:

Add-on type
Purchased seats
Assigned seats

Example of a license sync request:

{
  "gitlab_version": "14.1.0-pre",
  "timestamp": "2021-06-14T12:00:09Z",
  "date": "2021-06-14",
  "license_key": "XXX",
  "max_historical_user_count": 75,
  "billable_users_count": 75,
  "hostname": "gitlab.example.com",
  "instance_id": "9367590b-82ad-48cb-9da7-938134c29088",
  "unique_instance_id": "a98bab6e-73e3-5689-a487-1e7b89a56901",
  "add_on_metrics": [
    {
      "add_on_type": "duo_enterprise",
      "purchased_seats": 100,
      "assigned_seats": 50
    }
  ]
}

Link subscription to a group

Tier: Premium, Ultimate
Offering: GitLab.com

To change the group linked to a GitLab.com subscription:

Sign in to the Customers Portal with a linked GitLab.com account.
Do one of the following:
- If the subscription is not linked to a group, select Link subscription to a group.
- If the subscription is already linked to a group, select Subscription actions ({ellipsis_v}) > Change linked group.
Select the desired group from the New Namespace dropdown list. For a group to appear here, you must have the Owner role for that group.
If the total number of users in your group exceeds the number of seats in your subscription, you are prompted to pay for the additional users. Subscription charges are calculated based on the total number of users in a group, including its subgroups and nested projects.

If you purchased your subscription through an authorized reseller, you are unable to pay for additional users. You can either:
- Remove additional users, so that no overage is detected.
- Contact the partner to purchase additional seats now or at the end of your subscription term.
Select Confirm changes.

Only one namespace can be linked to a subscription.

For a demo, see Linking GitLab Subscription to the Namespace.

Transfer restrictions

You can change the linked namespace, however this is not supported for all subscription types.

You cannot transfer:

An expired or trial subscription.
A subscription with compute minutes which is already linked to a namespace.
A subscription with a Premium or Ultimate plan to a namespace which already has a Premium or Ultimate plan.
A subscription with a GitLab Duo add-on to a namespace which already has a subscriptions with a GitLab Duo add-on.

Enterprise Agile Planning

Tier: Ultimate
Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated

GitLab Enterprise Agile Planning is an add-on that helps bring non-technical users into the same DevSecOps platform where engineers build, test, secure, and deploy code. The add-on enables cross-team collaboration between developers and non-developers without having to purchase full GitLab licenses for non-engineering team members. With Enterprise Agile Planning seats, non-engineering team members can participate in planning workflows, measure software delivery velocity and impact with Value Stream Analytics, and use executive dashboards to drive organizational visibility.

To purchase additional Enterprise Agile Planning seats, contact your GitLab sales representative for more information.