Skip to content
Idea Atlas
Sign in

StatusLens

As described:StopNarrowed:Narrow

No as a general Jira reporting suite. Go, small, as an audit-evidence app.

audited software teams · ~$80 a month per paying Jira site · last reviewed (next review by 29 Dec 2026) · 27 cited sources

Save
Share

Start this week

  1. Tell me your hours per week available, whether you've shipped a Forge app before, and whether you've prepared Jira evidence for an audit.
  2. List 30 people you can reach who run Jira at an audited company (SOC 2, ISO 27001, SOX), and book 12–15 calls. Ask for their last auditor request list.
  3. Build the manual evidence-pack template in a spreadsheet: approvals, self-approvals, skipped steps, time in approval, and sampled changes for one quarter.
  4. Create a Forge developer account, run forge create, and prove you can read an issue's changelog and store one row in Forge SQL on an issue-updated event.

Checkpoints and kill gates

Decide in advance what counts as on track. Missing a checkpoint means changing the buyer or the offer, not adding features.

  1. Day 30

    ~15 hrs/week

    12 buyer calls, 3 paid evidence packs

    Full-time

    15 calls, 5 paid packs

    If you miss it

    Switch the wedge once, to JSM SLA evidence for service teams. Missing twice means stop.

  2. Day 90

    ~15 hrs/week

    App listed, 3 paying sites, 20 trials

    Full-time

    App listed, 5 paying sites, 30 trials

    If you miss it

    Cut to the single most-used report (usually self-approval exceptions).

  3. Month 6

    ~15 hrs/week

    $1k MRR, ≥25% trial-to-paid

    Full-time

    $1.5k MRR, ≥25% trial-to-paid

    If you miss it

    Pivot A: approval-time and SLA reports for audited service desks. Pivot B: sell the evidence pack as a one-off per audit plus a subscription.

  4. Month 12

    ~15 hrs/week

    $2.5k MRR, ≤3% monthly logo churn, 10+ reviews

    Full-time

    $4k MRR, ≤3% churn, 15+ reviews

    If you miss it

    Stop adding features. Fix onboarding, the listing and churn. A profitable $2–4k app is a valid outcome.

  5. Month 18

    ~15 hrs/week

    $4.5k MRR

    Full-time

    $8k MRR

    If you miss it

    Put everything into the best source of trials. Decide whether to build a second app on the same data.

  6. Month 24

    ~15 hrs/week

    $7k MRR

    Full-time

    $13k MRR

    If you miss it

    Above target with churn ≤3%: aim for the $20k rung in year 3. $1–7k: run it as a profitable app. Below $1k: stop, or sell the app to a Marketplace vendor.

Do

  1. 1.Make change-control evidence the product. One job: "show my auditor that every production change in Jira was approved by someone other than the person who did it, and flag the ones that weren't." Time-in-status becomes a supporting report inside that job.

    Target: Every listing line and screenshot says "audit evidence", not "reports"

    Why: Generic time-in-status has 12+ apps, including a free one with 10.5k installs. The audit framing gives you a buyer with a deadline and a budget.

  2. 2.Build on Forge only, and qualify as a Forge app for revenue share: no Connect modules, OAuth, and Forge UI (UI Kit or Custom UI).

    Target: Qualifies from the first listing

    Why: That's what earns 100% of revenue up to $1M lifetime. Connect apps pay 20%, then 25% from 1 Oct 2026, and Connect loses support on 31 Jan 2027.

  3. 3.Aim for the "Runs on Atlassian" badge: Atlassian-hosted compute and storage only, no data egress except analytics, and data residency that matches the host site.

    Target: Badge on day 1 of the listing

    Why: Audit buyers ask "where does our data go?". The badge answers it before the security questionnaire. (SaaSJet already has it on Time in Status and Issue History, so it's table stakes, not an edge.)

  4. 4.Capture changes as they happen instead of rescanning history. Listen to Jira issue events and store the facts you need in Forge SQL or key-value storage. Backfill the history once, slowly, on install.

    Target: Under 50 API points per site per hour at steady state

    Why: Jira Cloud's points-based rate limit gives an app one 65,000-point hourly pool shared across all its installs by default. A changelog-scanning app runs out of quota at scale.

  5. 5.Price per user through Atlassian, with a meaningful price: $1.50/user/month for 1–100 users, $0.75 for 101–250, $0.30 for 251–1,000, $0.15 above. Annual at 10× monthly.

    Target: Blended ≥$80 per paying site. ≥40% of paying sites on annual by month 12.

    Why: eazyBI, a full BI tool, charges $3.00 for its first 100 users. An audit tool can sit at half that. Annual billing blunts after-audit cancellations.

  6. 6.Sell before you build. Produce 3–5 evidence packs by hand for design partners (their CSV exports plus your template), for a fee.

    Target: 3 paid packs by day 30

    Why: It proves auditors accept the output and that someone pays before you spend 8 weeks on code.

  7. 7.Ship one excellent evidence pack, then widen. v1: approvals and self-approval checks, skipped-step exceptions, time in approval, a sampled change list by period, and an XLSX and PDF export with a hash of the contents.

    Target: v1 listed on the Marketplace by week 10–12

    Why: A narrow app that auditors accept beats a broad app that's "nice".

  8. 8.Own the search terms incumbents don't lead on: "SOC 2 Jira evidence", "change management audit Jira", "segregation of duties Jira", "ISO 27001 Jira". Write one guide per term, plus an Atlassian Community article.

    Target: 10 guides by month 6. ≥40% of trials from search and content.

    Why: Category leaders own "time in status". Audit terms are thinner, and the buyers who search them have a deadline.

  9. 9.Make support a ranking asset. Reply within one business day, publish a public changelog, and ask every happy customer for a review at day 30.

    Target: ≥4.7 rating and 20+ reviews by month 12

    Why: Reviews and ratings are visible next to install counts on every listing. Leaders have 200–270 reviews.

  10. 10.Give audited teams a reason to keep paying between audits: a monthly control check ("3 changes this month were self-approved") delivered inside Jira or to a Confluence page.

    Target: ≥60% of paying sites open the monthly check

    Why: It turns a once-a-year purchase into a monthly habit, which is the fix for seasonal churn.

  11. 11.Automate operations from day one: in-app onboarding, self-serve docs, templated support replies, error messages that tell the admin what to do.

    Target: ≤1 support ticket per 10 paying sites a month

    Why: Support load grows with installs. At limited hours per week, every repeated question has to become a doc.

  12. 12.Hold the "not audit advice" line. Say "evidence and exceptions for your auditor", never "SOC 2 compliant" or "passes your audit".

    Target: Zero compliance claims in the listing

    Why: You don't control the audit outcome. A claim you can't back is a refund and a bad review.

Avoid

  1. 1.A general "reporting suite" for Jira admins and PMOs (time in status + SLA + roll-ups + audit, all at once)

    Why: Four crowded categories, each with an established leader. You'd be a mediocre fifth in each.

  2. 2.Launching as another "Time in Status" app

    Why: SaaSJet (5.3k installs), OBSS (4.4k), Bloompeak's free app (10.5k), votazz, Broken Build, Appfire and others. Search results are full, and the leaders have 200+ reviews.

  3. 3.Cross-project roll-ups of estimates and progress

    Why: JXL (Appfire), Tempo's Structure, and Jira's own Plans already do it. It's a different buyer (PMO) and a different sale.

  4. 4.Any Connect module, or a remote backend you host

    Why: It loses the 0% revenue share and the "Runs on Atlassian" badge, and Connect support ends on 31 Jan 2027.

  5. 5.Rescanning full issue history on a schedule

    Why: It will exhaust the shared 65,000-point hourly pool across all installs and get the app throttled for everyone.

  6. 6.A Data Center or Server version

    Why: Forge is Cloud only. A second codebase doubles work for a shrinking segment.

  7. 7.A free tier or a lifetime deal

    Why: A free competitor already has 10.5k installs. You can't win the free game, and free installs create support load without revenue. Use the Marketplace trial.

  8. 8.Selling to PMOs for portfolio reporting

    Why: They buy dashboards and roll-ups, often through BI tools such as eazyBI. It's a different job from audit evidence.

  9. 9.Claims like "SOC 2 compliant", "FDA Part 11 ready" or "audit-proof"

    Why: Legal and refund exposure. The auditor decides, not the app.

  10. 10.External integrations that egress data (Slack, email services, Power BI feeds) before $5k MRR

    Why: Each one breaks "Runs on Atlassian" or needs admin egress controls, and adds support. Deliver inside Jira and Confluence first.

  11. 11.The Confluence version before $10k MRR

    Why: It's a second product with its own competitors. Ship it only when paying Jira customers ask.

  12. 12.AI features as the headline

    Why: Atlassian's Rovo and incumbents' AI assistants already cover "ask a question about Jira data". Use AI only inside the evidence pack, if at all.

  13. 13.Paid ads before month 6

    Why: Marketplace search is the channel. Ads to "Jira admins" are expensive and lead to the same listing.

  14. 14.Adding features when a checkpoint fails

    Why: A miss means the wrong buyer or the wrong job. Change that.