Mockups for JIRA 4 Licensing Changes FAQ

This document is meant to complement Atlassian's JIRA 4 Licensing Changes FAQ, to try to answer questions you may have about the new licensing and pricing changes in Mockups for JIRA. We'll continue to update it in case we missed something.

If you have questions after reviewing the FAQ, don't hesitate to contact us and we'll do our best to get you sorted out.

1. Why did Balsamiq change licensing and pricing for Mockups for JIRA?
2. Is my Mockups for JIRA 3 still getting updated?
3. Why don't you offer a 10-Editor license level for $10 like Atlassian does?
4. Does my Mockups for JIRA license have to match my JIRA license?
5. As an existing customer, how do I get Mockups for JIRA on JIRA 4?
6. What if I don't plan to move to Mockups for JIRA on JIRA 4 right away?
7. Does the same key work on JIRA 3.x and JIRA 4?
8. As a customer, what changes when it's time for me to renew my maintenance?
9. What if my license maintenance has expired?

1. Why did Balsamiq change licensing and pricing for Mockups for JIRA?

The main reason is that per-user pricing is more fair to everyone. If you only need 10 users in your organization to create wireframes with Mockups, you can now purchase a 10-Editor license for just $400 and designate them as the mockup editors, leaving all of your other users "undisturbed".

Another reason we changed our pricing is to stay aligned with Atlassian's licensing, which you are already familiar with.

2. Is my Mockups for JIRA 3 still getting updated?

But of course! We now create two versions of Mockups for JIRA, one running on JIRA 3 and one for JIRA 4 customers. Both versions will continue to receive the bug fixes and improvements we make to the mockups editor.

We will gradually phase out support for the version running on JIRA 3.x, according to the Atlassian Support End of Life Policy - we follow their same dates. For example, just like Atlassian, we will continue to provide support for JIRA 3.13.5 until July 21, 2011.

3. Why don't you offer a 10-Editor license level for $10 like Atlassian does?

Just like Atlassian, we aim to give our customers great software at affordable prices and share the commitment to making the world a better place by donating to charities and non-profits (we donated over $670,000 worth of software so far).

So why is the 10-Editors license $400 and not $10? A couple of reasons:

• Mockups for JIRA comes with free Mockups for Desktop, which is normally sold for $79 per user. Our 10-Editor license is only $40 per user, which we believe is a pretty good deal for both the Desktop version and the Mockups for JIRA plugin (a 10-User pack of Mockups for Desktop is $709, just for comparison).
• We want to provide great customer support and free updates to all of our Mockups for JIRA customers, big or small. These things cost us time and money, as we're sure you'll understand.
• We are a small company, and cannot afford to scale to supporting hundreds of thousands of customers like Atlassian can, at least for now.

We hope these bullets will help you understand why we're not offering a $10/10-Editor version of Mockups for JIRA at this point in time. If you'd like to chat about it, get in touch!, we'd love to hear from you.

Also remember that your Mockups for JIRA license and your JIRA licenses do not have to match, so you can purchase a 3-editor license of Mockups for JIRA (just $149) and install it on your 10-User JIRA server. We hope this helps!

4. Does my Mockups for JIRA license have to match my JIRA license?

No. You can purchase any editor-level license you'd like, and specify which of your JIRA users will be able to create and edit UI Mockups with Mockups for JIRA. Everyone else will be able to see the mockups of course. Please refer to our Mockups for JIRA Admin Guide for more details.

5. As an existing customer, how do I get Mockups for JIRA on JIRA 4?

If your Mockups for JIRA plugin is under active maintenance, update to JIRA 4 and download the JIRA 4 version of Mockups for JIRA from here and install it normally.

Your old key will still work, at the unlimited level (or 3-editor level if you bought Mockups for JIRA Personal).

Once your existing maintenance runs out, you'll need to nominate a quantity of users and pay the associated Renewal price, which will 'lock-in' that number of licensed users. After that, you can always purchase license upgrades if you require more users.

6. What if I don't plan to move to Mockups for JIRA on JIRA 4 right away?

That's fine. You can continue to use your current license, and even renew at the old prices ($399 for an unlimited commercial maintenance license, $199 for an unlimited academic maintenance license - just email us if you'd like to purchase one of them). We'll continue providing support for Mockups for JIRA running on JIRA 3.x as defined in the Atlassian Support End of Life Policy - we follow their same dates. For example, just like Atlassian, we will continue to provide support for JIRA 3.13.5 until July 21, 2011.

7. Does the same key work on JIRA 3.x and JIRA 4?

Yes, as long as you're running Mockups for JIRA 3.x version 1.6.53 or higher, or any version for Mockups for JIRA 4.0. :)

8. As a customer, what changes when it's time for me to renew my maintenance?

Customers on JIRA 3.x

Nothing changes. If you chose to stay on JIRA 3.x and Mockups for JIRA, you can still renew your old license at the same renewal rate ($399 for an unlimited commercial maintenance license, $199 for an unlimited academic maintenance license - just email us if you'd like to purchase one of them) as long as the maintenance period is within the Atlassian Support End of Life Policy - we follow their same dates. For example, just like Atlassian, we will continue to provide support for JIRA 3.13.5 until July 21, 2011.

Customers on JIRA 4.x

If you have obtained a new Mockups for JIRA 4 user-based license key, your maintenance renewal will be based on the user-tiers of your Mockups for JIRA 4 license key.

9. What if my license maintenance has expired?

You will need to renew your license in order to have full access to Mockups for JIRA on JIRA 4, future upgrades and Balsamiq's Support. You'll have the choice to renew your license under the old Mockups for JIRA 3.x edition-based pricing, or switch to the new Mockups for JIRA user-based pricing. Renewal prices are based upon the number of users you nominate.

Please note that renewals are back-dated to when your license expired, so it's always a good idea to keep your maintenance up-to-date.