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Manage users and seats

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

Billable users

Billable users are users with access to a namespace in a subscription, such as direct members, inherited members, and invited users, with one of the following roles:

  • Guest (billable on Premium, non-billable on Free and Ultimate)
  • Planner
  • Reporter
  • Developer
  • Maintainer
  • Owner

Billable users count toward the number of seats purchased in your subscription. The number of billable users changes when you block, deactivate, or add users to your instance or group during your current subscription period. If a user is in multiple groups or projects that belong to the same top-level group that holds the subscription, they are counted only once.

Seat usage is reviewed quarterly or annually. On GitLab Self-Managed, the amount of Billable users is reported once a day in the Admin area.

On GitLab.com, subscription features apply only within the top-level group the subscription applies to. If a user views or selects a different top-level group (one they have created themselves, for example) and that group does not have a paid subscription, the user does not see any of the paid features.

A user can belong to two different top-level groups with different subscriptions. In this case, the user sees only the features available to that subscription.

To prevent unexpectedly adding new billable users, which may result in overage fees, you should:

Criteria for non-billable users

A user is not counted as a billable user if:

Free Guest users

  • Tier: Ultimate

In the Ultimate tier, users who are assigned the Guest role do not consume a seat. The user must not be assigned any other role, anywhere in the instance for GitLab Self-Managed or in the namespace for GitLab.com.

  • If your project is:
    • Private or internal, a user with the Guest role has a set of permissions.
    • Public, all users, including those with the Guest role, can access your project.
  • For GitLab.com, if a user with the Guest role creates a project in their personal namespace, the user does not consume a seat. The project is under the user's personal namespace and does not relate to the group with the Ultimate subscription.
  • On GitLab Self-Managed, a user's highest assigned role is updated asynchronously and may take some time to update.

On GitLab Self-Managed, if a user creates a project, they are assigned the Maintainer or Owner role. To prevent a user from creating projects, as an administrator, you can mark the user as external.

Buy more seats

  • Offering: GitLab.com, GitLab Self-Managed

Your subscription cost is based on the maximum number of seats you use during the billing period.

If restricted access is:

  • On, when there are no seats left in your subscription you must purchase more seats for groups to add new billable users.
  • Off, when there are no seats left in your subscription groups can continue to add billable users. GitLab bills you for the overage.

You cannot buy seats for your subscription if either:

  • You purchased your subscription through an authorized reseller (including GCP and AWS marketplaces). Contact the reseller to add more seats.
  • You have a multi-year subscription. Contact the sales team to add more seats.

To buy seats for a subscription:

  1. Sign in to the Customers Portal.
  2. Go to the Subscriptions & purchases page.
  3. Select Add seats on the relevant subscription card.
  4. Enter the number of additional users.
  5. Review the Purchase summary section. The system lists the total price for all users on the system and a credit for what you've already paid. You are only charged for the net change.
  6. Enter your payment information.
  7. Check the I accept the Privacy Statement and Terms of Service checkbox.
  8. Select Purchase seats.

You receive the payment receipt by email. You can also access the receipt in the Customers Portal under Invoices.

Reduce seats

You can reduce seats only during subscription renewal. If you want to reduce the number of seats in your subscription, you can renew for fewer seats.

If you want to reduce seats after you have renewed or purchased a subscription, open a ticket with the Billing team or contact your GitLab sales representative. For assistance, visit the Contact us page in your Customers Portal account.

Self-Managed billing and usage

  • Offering: GitLab Self-Managed

A GitLab Self-Managed subscription uses a hybrid model. You pay for a subscription according to the maximum number of users enabled during the subscription period.

For instances that are not offline or on a closed network, the maximum number of simultaneous users in the GitLab Self-Managed instance is checked each quarter.

If an instance is unable to generate a quarterly usage report, the existing true up model is used. Prorated charges are not possible without a quarterly usage report.

The number of users in subscription represents the number of users included in your current license, based on what you've paid for. This number remains the same throughout your subscription period unless you purchase more seats.

The number of maximum users reflects the highest number of billable users on your system for the current license period.

Users over subscription

A GitLab subscription is valid for a specific number of seats. The number of users over subscription shows how many users are in excess of the number allowed by the subscription, in the current subscription period.

Calculated as Maximum users - Users in subscription for the current license term. For example, you purchase a subscription for 10 users.

Event Billable users Maximum users
Ten users occupy all 10 seats. 10 10
Two new users join. 12 12
Three users leave and their accounts are blocked. 9 12
Four new users join. 13 13

Users over subscription = 13 - 10 (Maximum users - users in license)

The users over subscription value is always zero for trial license.

If users over subscription value is above zero, then you have more users in your GitLab instance than you are licensed for. You must pay for the additional users before or at the time of renewal. This is called the "true up" process. If you do not do this, your license key does not work.

To view the number of users over subscription, go to the Admin area.

View users

View the lists of users in your instance:

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin.
  2. Select Users.

Select a user to view their account information.

Check daily and historical billable users

Prerequisites:

  • You must be an administrator.

You can get a list of daily and historical billable users in your GitLab instance:

  1. Start a Rails console session.

  2. Count the number of users in the instance:

    User.billable.count

  3. Get the historical maximum number of users on the instance from the past year:

    ::HistoricalData.max_historical_user_count(from: 1.year.ago.beginning_of_day, to: Time.current.end_of_day)

Update daily and historical billable users

Prerequisites:

  • You must be an administrator.

You can trigger a manual update of the daily and historical billable users in your GitLab instance.

  1. Start a Rails console session.

  2. Force an update of the daily billable users:

    identifier = Analytics::UsageTrends::Measurement.identifiers[:billable_users]
::Analytics::UsageTrends::CounterJobWorker.new.perform(identifier, User.minimum(:id), User.maximum(:id), Time.zone.now)

  3. Force an update of the historical max billable users:

    ::HistoricalDataWorker.new.perform

Manage users and subscription seats

Managing the number of users against the number of subscription seats can be difficult:

  • If LDAP is integrated with GitLab, anyone in the configured domain can sign up for a GitLab account. This can result in an unexpected bill at time of renewal.
  • If sign-up is turned on in your instance, anyone who can access the instance can sign up for an account.

GitLab has several features to help you manage the number of users. You can:

To increase the number of users covered by your license, buy more seats during the subscription period. The cost of seats added during the subscription period is prorated from the date of purchase through to the end of the subscription period. You can continue to add users even if you reach the number of users in license count. GitLab bills you for the overage.

If your subscription was activated with an activation code, the additional seats are reflected in your instance immediately. If you're using a license file, you receive an updated file. To add the seats, add the license file to your instance.

Export license usage

Prerequisites:

  • You must be an administrator.

You can export your license usage into a CSV file.

This file contains the information GitLab uses to manually process quarterly reconciliations and renewals. If your instance is firewalled or an offline environment, you must provide GitLab with this information.

Do not open the license usage file. If you open the file, failures might occur when you submit your license usage data.

  1. On the left sidebar, at the bottom, select Admin.
  2. Select Subscription.
  3. In the upper-right corner, select Export license usage file.

License usage file contents

The license usage file includes the following information:

  • License key
  • Licensee email
  • License start date (UTC)
  • License end date (UTC)
  • Company
  • Timestamp the file was generated at and exported (UTC)
  • Table of historical user counts for each day in the period:
    • Timestamp the count was recorded (UTC)
    • Billable user count

A custom format is used for dates and times in CSV files.

GitLab.com billing and usage

  • Offering: GitLab.com

A GitLab.com subscription uses a concurrent (seat) model. You pay for a subscription according to the maximum number of users assigned to the top-level group, its subgroups and projects during the billing period. You can add and remove users during the subscription period without incurring additional charges, as long as the total users at any given time doesn't exceed the subscription count. If the total users exceeds your subscription count, you will incur an overage, which must be paid at your next reconciliation.

A top-level group can be changed like any other group.

Seats owed

If the number of billable users exceeds the number of seats in subscription, known as the number of seats owed, you must pay for the excess number of users.

For example, if you purchase a subscription for 10 users:

Event Billable members Maximum users
Ten users occupy all 10 seats. 10 10
Two new users join. 12 12
Three users leave and their accounts are removed. 9 12

Seats owed = 12 - 10 (Maximum users - users in subscription)

To prevent charges from seats owed, you can turn on restricted access. This setting restricts groups from adding new billable users when there are no seats left in the subscription.

Seat usage alerts

Version history

If you have the Owner role for the top-level group, an alert notifies you of your total seat usage.

The alert displays on group, subgroup, and project pages, and only for top-level groups linked to subscriptions enrolled in quarterly subscription reconciliations. After you dismiss the alert, it doesn't display until another seat is used.

The alert displays based on the following seat usage. You cannot configure the amounts at which the alert displays.

Seats in subscription Alert displays when
0-15 One seat remains.
16-25 Two seats remain.
26-99 10% of seats remain.
100-999 8% of seats remain.
1000+ 5% of seats remain.

View seat usage

To view a list of seats being used:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Settings > Usage quotas.
  3. Select the Seats tab.

For each user, a list shows groups and projects where the user is a direct member.

The data in seat usage listing, Seats in use, and Seats in subscription are updated live. The counts for Max seats used and Seats owed are updated once per day.

View billing information

To view your subscription information and a summary of seat counts:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Settings > Billing.
  • The usage statistics are updated once per day, which may cause a difference between the information in the Usage quotas page and the Billing page.
  • The Last login field is updated when a user signs in after they have signed out. If there is an active session when a user re-authenticates (for example, after a 24 hour SAML session timeout), this field is not updated.

Search seat usage

To search seat usage:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Settings > Usage quotas.
  3. On the Seats tab, enter a string in the search field. A minimum of 3 characters are required.

The search returns users whose first name, last name, or username contain the search string.

For example:

First name Search string Match ?
Amir ami Yes
Amir amr No

Export seat usage

To export seat usage data as a CSV file:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Settings > Usage quotas.
  3. In the Seats tab, select Export list.

Export seat usage history

Prerequisites:

  • You must have the Owner role for the group.

To export seat usage history as a CSV file:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Settings > Usage quotas.
  3. In the Seats tab, select Export seat usage history.

The generated list contains all seats being used, and is not affected by the current search.

Remove users from subscription

To remove a billable user from your GitLab.com subscription:

  1. On the left sidebar, select Search or go to and find your group.
  2. Select Settings > Billing.
  3. In the Seats currently in use section, select See usage.
  4. In the row for the user you want to remove, on the right side, select Remove user.
  5. Re-type the username and select Remove user.

If you add a member to a group by using the share a group with another group feature, you can't remove the member by using this method. Instead, you can either: