Retiring your app

As the Marketplace grows, app users need to be able to easily find current and relevant apps. Therefore, we try to retire apps no longer relevant or compatible with their Atlassian products. This helps Marketplace visitors quickly discover current and relevant apps and reduces the likelihood of finding outdated apps.

There are two ways for apps to become retired:

• Automatic retiring of apps
• Manual retiring of apps

Automatic retiring of apps

The Marketplace automatically retires an app if the time since the end-of-life (EOL) of the latest version of the Atlassian product that the app supports is more than one year.

Automatic retiring of apps works for both cloud and server apps. For EOL dates of Atlassian products and product versions, see Atlassian Support End of Life Policy.

Manual retiring of apps

We have EOL terms for manually retiring apps that are paid via Atlassian. To manually retire your apps with active customers, you must abide by the following terms:

• Communicate the upcoming EOL to your customers effectively via emails, blogs, marketing, or other channels.
• Remember that you are obligated to support your current customers for the terms of any maintenance they have already purchased. For example, if a customer bought an annual subscription to your app last week, you must support them for 51 more weeks.
• Archive the app listings on the agreed date or schedule to archive them

How to manually retire your app

The process for manually retiring an app works slightly differently for each app type. Read the section that corresponds to your situation below:

• Paid via Atlassian server apps only
• Paid via Atlassian cloud apps only
• Paid via Atlassian Apps with both cloud and server versions
• Free apps

Paid via Atlassian server apps only

Only Atlassian Marketplace team members can manually archive Atlassian server apps.

If your app contains server versions, you need to do the following:

1. Communicate the EOL to your customers, with a minimum notice period of 90 days.
2. Raise a ticket with the Atlassian Marketplace team at our Service Desk, explaining that you'd like to archive the app, and giving the details of the customer communications you've sent. The Atlassian Marketplace team will set the discoverability of the app to Hidden on the Marketplace site, manageable in UPM if already installed. This prevents new customers from finding the app.
3. Once all is confirmed (customer communications, commitment to fulfilling customer maintenance responsibilities), we can archive the app to prevent new purchases and existing customers from renewing.

Once the app is archived, you may still need to release bug fix versions to customers, as part of your ongoing maintenance responsibilities. In these situations, you can either:

• provide the fix directly to the affected customers, or
• get in touch with us via our Service Desk, whereby we can unarchive the app, release your fix version, and then proceed to re-archive the app.

Paid via Atlassian cloud apps only

Atlassian cloud apps built with Forge and Connect can only be manually archived by the Atlassian Marketplace team members. Once a cloud app is archived, the app stops working for all customers. Unlike Forge apps, once a Connect cloud app gets removed from Marketplace, it still remains installed on customer sites. You can request the installations to be manually removed.

If your app only contains cloud versions, you need to:

1. Communicate the EOL to your customers, with a minimum notice period of 90 days.
2. Raise a ticket with the Atlassian Marketplace team at our Service Desk, explaining that you'd like to retire the app, and giving the details of the customer communications you've sent. The Atlassian Marketplace team will set the discoverability of the app to Hidden on the Marketplace site, manageable in UPM if already installed. This prevents new customers from finding the app, but does not prevent existing customers from renewing. If your archived app uses the Connect framework, then you can optionally request Marketplace support to remove installations from the customer sites. This can be only done if there are no active evaluations or licenses for your app.
3. To prevent existing customers from renewing their subscriptions, you need to release a new version of your app with the payment model set to Free. All customers are then upgraded to the new version.

Once the final maintenance date has passed for the last customer's license, we can archive the cloud app from the Marketplace.

Paid via Atlassian Apps with both cloud and server versions

It's currently only possible to archive a whole app listing. This means that you can’t archive just the cloud or server version of an app. Note that only an Atlassian Marketplace team member can archive an app.

Unlike with server apps, once you archive a cloud app, the app ceases to function for all customers.

If your app contains both cloud and server versions, you need to do the following:

1. Communicate the EOL to your customers, with a minimum notice period of 90 days.
2. Raise a ticket with the Atlassian Marketplace team at our Service Desk, explaining that you'd like to archive the app, and giving the details of the customer communications you've sent. The Atlassian Marketplace team will set the discoverability of the app to Hidden on the Marketplace site, manageable in UPM if already installed. This prevents new customers from finding the app, but does not prevent existing customers from renewing.
3. For the cloud version: to prevent existing customers from renewing their subscriptions, you need to release a new version of your app with the payment model set to Free. All customers are then upgraded to the new version.

Once the final maintenance date has passed for the last customer's license, we can archive both cloud and server versions of the app from the Marketplace. If there are still customers with valid server licenses, you must adhere to the license agreement, and continue providing support until this period is up.

Free apps

Free apps still require some form of communication outlining that they are to be retired. However, this is more relevant to cloud apps because cloud apps stop working once removed from the Marketplace.

If you have a marketing platform, such as a blog, website, or forum, you can use this platform to announce the retirement of your app. If you have active customers, we recommend a notice period of 90 days.

Your app listing should also be updated to state that the app will be retired from the Marketplace on a particular date.

Once the communication has been distributed with ample warning, raise a ticket with the Atlassian Marketplace team at our Service Desk.