GitLab Flex

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.

Offerings

Footnotes:

1. The administration fee and storage are billed separately and do not draw from your GitLab Flex commitment.

Monthly drawdown cycle

GitLab Flex operates on a monthly drawdown cycle based on calendar month.

• Beginning of the month

  • Seat count is set: GitLab sets your reserved seat count for the month, and charges for seats only at the end of the month.
  • Capabilities become active: GitLab enables all the capabilities you provisioned for the month.
  • Reserved credits become available: Your organization can start using your monthly credit pool.
  • Prior month’s overage is billed: Any overage from the previous month is billed.

• During the month

  • Usage is tracked: GitLab meters your credit consumption in real time for usage-based products.
  • Reserved credits are consumed first: Your usage draws from your monthly reserved pool first. After you use up the pool, usage draws from your On-Demand spend.

• End of the month

  • Unused reserved credits expire: You lose any credits you did not use during the month, and they do not roll over. GitLab already debited the cost of these credits from your balance at the start of the month.
  • Reservation is debited: GitLab draws down your reserved credit pool and any reserved add-ons from your annual Flex balance at your discounted Flex rate. The drawdown reduces your reserved quantity at the discounted rate. It does not charge a separate dollar amount against your annual commitment.
  • Seats are charged at the monthly peak: GitLab counts the highest number of seats you used at any point during the month, and charges for that number. Seats above your reservation are charged at your per-seat rate and draw from your remaining Flex balance.
  • Overage is calculated: If your total monthly usage is more than your allocation, GitLab bills the extra amount separately at the beginning of the next month.

At the beginning of the next month, a new reservation debits and the drawdown cycle repeats with a new monthly allocation.

Volume discounts

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.

Mid-term top-offs

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.

Top-off provisioning

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.

Discount tier upgrades from top-offs

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.

Top-off timing

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.

Top-off requests

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.

Buy GitLab Flex

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:

• Base seat costs: Number of users × seat tier price (Premium or Ultimate) × 12 months.
• Expected credit usage: Estimated monthly consumption for credit-based capabilities × 12 months.
• Growth buffer: Additional capacity for mid-year expansion or new capability adoption.

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.

Provisioning

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.

• On GitLab.com, changes are synced to the namespace.
• On GitLab Self-Managed and GitLab Dedicated, you receive an activation code for your instance.

All future reservations are automatically synced to the namespace or instance used in the initial setup.

Allocate monthly reservation

Prerequisites:

• You must be a billing account manager.

1. Sign in to Customers Portal.
2. Select Edit monthly reservation.
3. Allocate your monthly reservation across seats and products.
4. Review your annual Flex balance.
5. Select Save changes.

Adjust your allocation

You can adjust your Flex allocation month-to-month without contract amendments:

• Seat count: Increase or decrease the number of seats.
• Reserved credit pool: Increase or decrease your monthly use-it-or-lose-it credit reservation.
• Spend control: Adjust your monthly allocated spend for per-use capabilities.

To adjust your allocation:

1. Sign in to Customers Portal.
2. Update your allocation for the upcoming month.
3. Review the changes.
4. Select Save.

Allocation adjustment conditions

The following adjustment conditions apply:

• Changes must fit within the remaining balance. You cannot allocate more than your remaining annual commitment.
• Due date for changes is end of month. You must submit the changes before 11:59pm UTC of the current month to apply to the next month. Changes submitted after the due date apply to the following month after the next. After a month begins, that month’s reservation is final and you can’t reduce, reverse, or prorate it.
• Seat and reservation changes only take effect at month boundaries. You can’t change your reservation mid-month.
• Offering is fixed. You can’t change the offering selected in your contract.
• Minimum monthly reservation is fixed. You can’t change the required monthly reservation fixed in your contract.
• Seat tier changes require contract amendment. If you want to change between Premium and Ultimate tiers, contact your GitLab account team. A tier change takes effect on the first of the month and cannot be applied mid-month.

Renew GitLab Flex

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.

Flex Usage dashboard

The Flex Usage dashboard provides built-in tracking and reporting capabilities.

The dashboard displays:

• Annual commitment and balance: Total Flex commitment, year-to-date consumption, and remaining balance.
• Monthly allocation: Seat count, reserved credits, and per-use budget for the current month.
• Credit consumption by capability: Breakdown of credits used for each usage-based product.
• Credit consumption by project: Top projects by credit usage.
• Credit consumption by offering: Usage split between GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed, GitLab Dedicated, and offline environments.
• Forecast vs. actual usage: Projected annual consumption compared to actual pace.
• Overage summary: Month-to-date and year-to-date overage.

Usage and spend controls

To help you control how much you spend against your commitment, you can set spend caps (at the subscription level) and receive budget alerts.

Spend caps

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:

• Restricted: No overage past reservation, blocked at the reservation. The spend ceiling equals the reservation.
• Usage cap: Bounded overage past reservation. The spend ceiling is the reservation plus the capped amount.
• Unlimited: Unlimited overage past reservation. No spend ceiling.

Each capability has its own independent cap. For example, you can cap GitLab Duo at $5,000 while leaving Artifact Registry unlimited.

Usage notifications

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:

• A product crosses 50%, 80%, or 100% of its monthly reservation. At 100% the product starts drawing per-use and is entering overage.
• A product first enters overage for the month, billing at the list rate against your annual commitment.
• A capped product crosses 50% or 80% of its cap (warning notification), or reaches 100% and is cut off (cut-off notification).

View the Flex Usage dashboard

Prerequisites:

• You must be an administrator.

1. In the upper-right corner, select Admin.
2. In the left sidebar, select Flex Usage.

Set a spend cap

To set a per-capability spend cap:

1. Sign in to Customers Portal.
2. Select Flex dashboard.
3. Select a month to display all capabilities.
4. In the row of the add-on you want to cap, from the Spend Control dropdown list, select a cap type. If you enter a value for the cap, it is converted to a dollar figure at that product’s rate.
5. Review the reservation summary to confirm the caps are reflected in your add-ons subtotal and total.
6. Select Save.