Refined Sites for Confluence (Intranets, Documentation, KBs)

For years, Refined has been the go-to solution for making the "clinical" look of Confluence presentable for public-facing support sites. However, their recent pricing strategy overhaul has turned what was once a premium but fair tool into an unjustifiable corporate tax. The biggest issue remains the rigid, tier-based pricing model. If you have a small team of 15 people but your Confluence license sits in the "up to 100 users" bracket, Refined forces you to pay for the full 100-user seat count. For an independent app developer or a small support team, you are effectively paying a "success tax" on seats you aren't even using. Recent "adjustments" have seen these costs skyrocket, in some cases doubling or tripling the monthly overhead without adding a single new core feature to justify the leap. Value vs. Cost Disconnect While the UI skins are polished, at its core, Refined is a layout engine. When the cost of the nice skin starts to rival or exceed the cost of the data hosting (Confluence itself), the value proposition falls apart. For businesses running help centers for niche products - like my own network monitoring app - every overhead dollar matters. Refined seems to have pivoted their strategy to focus exclusively on enterprise whales, leaving the small-to-medium businesses that helped build their reputation out in the cold. The Verdict It’s a beautiful product, but the current pricing is predatory for smaller shops. If you are a small team, you are better off migrating your documentation to a dedicated SaaS like Document360 or a static generator like Docusaurus. You’ll save thousands a year and won't be held hostage by a marketplace vendor that has lost touch with "reasonable" pricing. Pros: Great templates, easy Confluence integration. Cons: Extortionate price hikes, no granular per-user billing, ignores the needs of small businesses.

This app is for us a game changer: a 'single source of truth' for all our inforrmation (internal & external). Great functionalities, intuitive configuration and good support. Seamless integration with the JSM app.

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  Refined

  Hi Mathieu,

  Thank you for sharing your experience! We’re delighted to hear that Refined has become a game changer for your team. It’s great to know the functionality, support, and JSM integration are all working well for you.

  If you have any questions or further feedback, feel free to contact us.

  All the best,

  Team Refined

Refined's support has been a great help—very responsive and also open to hearing out ideas for improvements.

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  Refined

  Hi Samuel,

  Thanks for the 4-star review! Feedback means a lot to us, and we’re always working to make Refined Sites even better.

  If you ever have questions or more feedback, feel free to contact us.

  Kind regards,

  Team Refined

USD 107.10 for NOTHING! Many thanks to Refined for that! About two years ago, because of the migration of our server instances to either Data Center or Cloud, I evaluated the Cloud edition. For this, I used my private Atlassian account, since I also like to check from time to time how Jira and Confluence are developing. Simply to be prepared for the next (forced) migration. After completing the evaluation, I downgraded to the free plan. And since the plugins could also be used free of charge in this plan, I didn’t cancel them. As I had to find out by chance today, Refined has now decided to charge USD 30 for their plugin even in the free plan. Unfortunately, this happened to coincide with Atlassian no longer delivering my invoices via email. Apparently because in my domain’s _dmarc record I had defined p=none. Up until July 25th, this setting clearly didn’t matter, since that’s when I last received an email from Atlassian for this account. And until then, Refined would also have had the chance to announce a price increase! Then I might have noticed and could have reacted accordingly. So – once again, many thanks for NOTHING, dear Refined!

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  Refined

  Hi Andreas,

  We’re very sorry to hear you were surprised by the recent price changes. We understand that changes like this can be frustrating. To help our customers prepare, we sent an email notification about the update on May 15th, which included the details of the new pricing.

  If you would like to go over your plan options or have any questions, our support team would be happy to help — please feel free to contact us.

As an Atlassian Solution Partner, I made the decision from the start to run the company exclusively on Atlassian products. This includes our company website, which is now powered by the Refined Sites for Confluence app. This approach has been highly effective—using Confluence as a website content management system is significantly simpler and more efficient than many traditional alternatives.

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  Refined

  Hi David,

  Thank you for the positive review! Great to hear that Refined Sites for Confluence has been working so well for you.

  In case you have more feedback or any questions, feel free to contact us.

  Kind regards,

  Team Refined