doc/subscriptions/gitlab_flex.md
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GitLab Flex is a purchasing model that provides a single annual dollar commitment that covers all GitLab capabilities. You can adjust your seat allocation and GitLab Credits month-to-month, without additional contracts or amendments.
With GitLab Flex, you commit to an annual dollar amount based on your projected GitLab spend. This commitment creates an annual balance that you draw down from as you consume seats and credits for credit-based capabilities, priced according to the GitLab Rate Card.
GitLab Flex is also available for offline environments.
[!note] GitLab Flex subscriptions are governed by their own billing terms for seats and usage. The standard add-on user and overage user billing processes described in the GitLab Subscription Agreement do not apply to Flex purchases. If any Flex terms conflict with the GitLab Subscription Agreement, Flex terms take precedence for your purchase. Standard billing terms continue to apply to non-Flex subscriptions.
| GitLab.com | GitLab Self-Managed | GitLab Dedicated | Offline environments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Metering | Credit usage is tracked and debited daily. | Credit usage is synced to GitLab servers daily. | Credit usage is tracked by GitLab. | Credit usage is tracked locally and reported twice a year. |
| Provisioning | Is instant, changes apply within minutes. | Requires cloud licensing enabled on your instance. | Requires coordination with your GitLab account team. | GitLab generates and delivers license files. |
| Billing | Reservations debit at month start. Per-use and overage debit as consumed. | Reservations debit at month start. Per-use and overage debit as consumed. | Reservations debit at month start. Per-use and overage debit as consumed. <sup>1</sup> | Reservations debit at month start. Actual usage is reconciled twice a year through true-up. |
| Overage handling | Auto-billed monthly to the payment method on file, or otherwise invoiced in accordance with your applicable payment terms. | Auto-billed monthly to the payment method on file, or otherwise invoiced in accordance with your applicable payment terms. | Auto-billed monthly to the payment method on file, or otherwise invoiced in accordance with your applicable payment terms. | Invoiced twice a year based on reported usage. |
Footnotes:
GitLab Flex operates on a monthly drawdown cycle based on calendar month.
Beginning of the month
During the month
End of the month
At the beginning of the next month, a new reservation debits and the drawdown cycle repeats with a new monthly allocation.
Tiered volume discounts are automatically applied based on your total Flex annual commitment amount. The volume discount does not reduce your commitment value, the reserved credits are debited from your Flex balance at this discounted rate. The higher your annual commitment, the lower your reserved per-credit rate. The per-user effective price is a separate component and is determined independently of your volume discount tier.
You can increase your annual commitment at any point during your contract term. A top-off adds to your existing Flex balance without changing your contract end date. Your term continues as originally signed, with a larger balance to draw down.
A top-off increases your total annual Flex commitment by the amount you purchase in your Order Form. GitLab adds this balance to your total annual commitment.
You can allocate this amount only from the first of the following calendar month. A top-off does not trigger any mid-month changes to your current reservation. Your current month's allocation remains locked as provisioned.
If your top-off brings your total annual commitment into a higher volume discount tier, you receive the better tier rate from the first of the following calendar month. The upgraded rate applies to your entire remaining annual commitment going forward, not just to the top-off amount. The upgraded rate does not apply retroactively to the current month or any prior months.
For example, your original commitment is $90,000. A mid-term top-off brings your total to $120,000 and places you in the next discount tier. From the first of the following month, your credits and seats go farther under the new rate. Your current month's reservation continues at the original tier rate.
You can request a top-off on any business day of the month. After the top-off is added, you cannot modify existing monthly reservations for the current month. In the current month, you can draw down the top-off balance to offset usage that would otherwise exceed your annual per-use budget. This prevents an overage invoice.
To request a top-off, contact your GitLab account team. They can confirm the new commitment total and applicable discount tier, then issue a mid-term amendment Order Form reflecting the updated annual commitment and contract balance.
GitLab Flex is available as a recurring annual or multi-year term. To buy GitLab Flex, contact your GitLab account team or the GitLab Sales team.
Your annual commitment should account for:
Tiered volume discounts are available and automatically applied based on your total annual commitment size.
After you sign your GitLab Flex agreement, you can start provisioning your initial allocation.
You can provision and change your allocation in Customers Portal. If provisioning is successful, GitLab sends an email confirmation with the allocation information to the subscription ("Sold to") contact.
All future reservations are automatically synced to the namespace or instance used in the initial setup.
Prerequisites:
You can adjust your Flex allocation month-to-month without contract amendments:
To adjust your allocation:
The following adjustment conditions apply:
You can renew your GitLab Flex commitment for a one-year or multi-year term in collaboration with the GitLab account team.
90 days before the end of your contract, your GitLab account team contacts you to begin renewal discussions. Based on your year-to-date consumption, overage patterns, capacity needs, and growth projections, you can choose to increase or decrease your annual commitment. The new volume discount tier is based on the renewed commitment amount.
The Flex Usage dashboard provides built-in tracking and reporting capabilities.
The dashboard displays:
To help you control how much you spend against your commitment, you can set spend caps (at the subscription level) and receive budget alerts.
Per-capability caps limit how much a specific credit-based capability can consume, so one capability can't drain the shared pool. When a capability hits its cap, usage stops while everything else keeps running. The cap is per-product, not shared across the pool.
Use per-capability caps for non-critical or experimental features you want to contain.
You can set the following per-capability caps:
Each capability has its own independent cap. For example, you can cap GitLab Duo at $5,000 while leaving Artifact Registry unlimited.
GitLab sends emails as usage approaches and crosses specific limits, running on the existing budget-guardrail framework. Subscription billing contacts receive dollar-based notifications, and namespace administrators receive credit-based notifications.
GitLab sends usage notifications when:
Prerequisites:
To set a per-capability spend cap: