A legacy plan sunset is when a software vendor retires the pricing tier you are on and tells you that, at renewal, you have to move to a different one. Your usage has not changed. Your seat count has not changed. The plan you bought just stops existing.
This became the most common form of SaaS price increase in 2026. It is why so many renewal quotes came back 20–30% higher with nothing on the invoice explaining it. Below is the pattern, then what we know is being retired.
Why legacy plan sunsets replaced ordinary price increases
Through 2024 and 2025, most large B2B vendors bolted an AI tier onto the top of their lineup. A new, more expensive SKU, sitting above whatever you already paid for. Buying it was optional, and plenty of buyers said no.
So in the first half of 2026 the strategy changed. Instead of selling you the AI tier, vendors started retiring the tiers underneath it. Salesforce, HubSpot, Notion and Asana have all been reported doing a version of this. PricePulse’s H1 2026 report pins an average 24% increase on AI-inclusive migrations specifically, and puts total H1 cost growth at 34% for companies spending north of $84K a year.
The mechanism is the point. Raise the price of a plan somebody is already on and you have invited a fight: they have a contract, a renewal date, and a procurement team holding last year’s number. Retire that plan and offer them a different one, and you have not raised anything. You are selling a new product, at a new price, because the old one is gone. Resubly calls this forced SKU migration. It is the most effective price increase available to a vendor who does not want the argument.
How to tell a sunset from a normal increase
On an invoice they look almost identical. In a negotiation they behave nothing alike. The tells:
- Your plan name changed. Last year said “Business”, this year says “Business AI”. That is a migration wearing a renewal’s clothes.
- The old tier is gone from the public pricing page. Compare it against an archived copy. A tier that has vanished from marketing is a tier being wound down.
- You were handed a date instead of a number. Sunsets come with deadlines. Price increases come with percentages.
- Nothing you actually use got better. The clearest signal of the four. If none of the features your team touches improved, you are paying for shelf space on someone’s AI roadmap.
What is being retired in 2026
What follows is a floor, not a ceiling. Vendors are wildly inconsistent about announcing this. Some give a year’s notice, some tell you at renewal, some tell one customer segment and nobody else.
Confirmed plan and tier retirements
Microsoft is the biggest single mover. Most Microsoft 365 products took an average 16% increase on 1 July 2026, with Microsoft 365 Apps at +17%, Windows E3 at +15%, Entra Plan 1 at +16%, and EMS E3 at +13%. Customers who renewed before 30 June could lock the old rate for another year. Separately, Microsoft has confirmed it is retiring close to 70 products and services across 2026, SharePoint Server 2016 and 2019, Project Server, SQL Server 2016, Dynamics GP 2016, NAV 2016 and InfoPath among them.
GitHub moved Copilot to usage-based billing on 1 June 2026, replacing premium request units with AI Credits metered on token usage. Base plan pricing held exactly as it was: Pro at $10/month, Pro+ at $39, Business at $19/user, Enterprise at $39/user. The price did not move and the bill did, because a fixed line in your budget became a variable one. Different problem, same finance meeting.
Price movement in the same window
Not sunsets, but the same pressure behind them. Notion and Ahrefs both took 25% in March 2026. Asana went up 23% the same month. Linear took 60% in February, ClickUp 58%. By category, design and development tooling led at roughly +57%, with automation at +50% and project management at +45%.
Full product shutdowns
Where a sunset ends up. Productiv announced it was retiring its SaaS management platform on 6 August 2026, leaving four days between the announcement and the shutdown. Remember that the next time a vendor assures you there will be plenty of notice.
What to do before your renewal
The window that matters opens about 120 days out. It closes the moment you sign.
- Inventory your tiers now. For every contract over roughly $10K, write down the exact plan name and check whether it still appears on the vendor’s public pricing page. The ones that quietly disappeared are next year’s problem, and you have time to deal with them today.
- Ask the question in writing. “Is our current tier being retired, and if so, when?” A vendor who will not answer that in an email has answered it.
- Price the migration early. If the answer is yes, get the AI-tier quote while there is still room to look at alternatives. A quote that lands three weeks before renewal is not a negotiation, it is a deadline.
- Separate the AI question from the renewal question. If you would not buy the AI tier on its own, say so out loud. Some vendors will hold your rate. The ones that will not have told you something useful about the relationship.
- Get the terms in the contract. A verbal “you’re fine for now” is worth nothing at the next renewal, when your account manager has moved on and nobody remembers the call.
That last point is the subject of Grandfathered SaaS Pricing Is Ending. The negotiation mechanics are in Forced SKU Migration: Why Your Renewal Quote Jumped 24%.
Tracking this as it happens
Pricing trackers tell you what a tool costs today. Shutdown trackers tell you what already died. Neither one covers the plan that still exists but is being wound down, which is where the money actually moved in 2026. That gap is what CopperFeed records: dated entries for launches, releases, repricings and shutdowns, in the order they happened.
Figures here come from published third-party reporting, linked inline. Vendor plans change without notice. Check your own contract before acting on any of it.