In 2023, we introduced updates to HCP Terraform offerings, including an enhanced free tier to bolster security posture from the start, to make it easier for practitioners and teams to get started, adopt best practices earlier, and scale with consistent usage metrics based on managed resources.
Today, we’re sharing the next step in that journey: we’re completing the transition to the enhanced Free tier experience for all organizations still using legacy, user-based Free plans. The enhanced Free tier (introduced in 2023) continues to provide access to more premium capabilities for up to 500 managed resources, with unlimited users, so teams can collaborate without user-count friction.
These updates are designed to:
- Make secure defaults accessible from the start (including features like SSO and policy as code in Free).
- Keep onboarding friction low for smaller teams while covering meaningful real-world use cases (up to 500 managed resources).
- Provide a consistent way to understand usage across tiers via managed resources.
»Completing the transition from legacy Free plans
If you’re already on the new enhanced Free tier, no action is required.
As part of the ongoing shift to the enhanced Free tier introduced in 2023, the legacy Free plan will reach end of life on March 31, 2026 and remaining organizations will be automatically transitioned to the enhanced Free tier. For organizations whose Plan & Billing status currently shows a current plan of “Free (Legacy)” and wish to update today:
- You’ll see an in-product prompt to “Migrate to the new Free tier today.”
- The migration flow shows a plan summary (including the 500 managed resources limit and your current count) and a feature comparison (for example: cost estimation, policies, policy enforcement, run tasks, and run task enforcement available in the new Free tier).
- Once activated, the UI notes that the change is not reversible back to older legacy plan types.
»Capabilities of the HCP Terraform enhanced Free tier
HCP Terraform enhanced Free tier is built for teams getting started with Terraform and includes core team workflows, as well as additional security features. The enhanced Free tier introduced in 2023 added capabilities such as SSO, policy as code (Sentinel + OPA), run tasks, and the HCP Terraform agents.
To learn more about the updates, read this Terraform announcement blog.
»How is the Free tier measured?
The Free tier includes 500 managed resources at no charge. A “managed resource” (also called “Resources Under Management” / RUM) is a resource in an HCP Terraform–managed state file where mode = “managed”, counted starting from the first plan/apply, with “null resources” excluded.
»Getting started
If you’re on the legacy Free tier, sign in and follow the in-product migration prompt to move to the enhanced Free tier. Migrating earlier is the fastest way to start taking advantage of the expanded Free tier capabilities.
