Atlassian acquired Loom in 2023, and through 2025 it absorbed the product into the same billing platform that runs Jira and Confluence. The first wave of integration was cosmetic. The second wave, which is rolling out through 2026, is not.
If you run a freelance studio that uses Loom — even quietly, even with a couple of inactive teammates on the free tier — you need to read the fine print. Atlassian's own support documentation says the quiet part out loud: "you cannot stay on current pricing". That sentence is the entire story.
What changed, in plain English
Loom historically had a "Creator Lite" role: a free seat that could be assigned to teammates or clients who needed to view recordings without recording themselves. Lots of freelance studios used Creator Lite to give clients a free login to a shared workspace, or to keep ex-collaborators on the team without paying for a full seat.
That role is being phased out. Per Atlassian's migration documentation, every existing Creator Lite user is automatically upgraded to a full paid Creator seat on the integration date, with a short grace period before billing kicks in. Workspaces created after February 2026 don't get Creator Lite at all.
The arithmetic is what stings. According to a detailed pricing breakdown by Supademo, studios with 14 inactive members on free seats have seen their bills go from ~$15/mo to over $200/mo overnight — roughly 15x — because every previously-free seat becomes a paid Creator at the prevailing per-seat rate.