GitLab Secrets Manager credit usage

GitLab Secrets Manager usage consumes GitLab Credits based on two meters:

GitLab Credits used for GitLab Secrets Manager are drawn from the monthly commitment pool and on-demand credits available in the top-level group (namespace) or instance subscription.

Included credits allocated to each user do not apply to GitLab Secrets Manager.

GitLab Credits usage caps do not limit Secrets Manager usage. Per-user caps do not apply because usage is not attributed to individual users, and namespace spend caps do not block Secrets Manager consumption.

Credits are consumed for secrets storage and operations based on these rates:

View and manage credit usage in the GitLab Credits dashboard.

Each secret successfully fetched in a CI/CD job counts as one read operation, even if the job later fails. A job that references multiple secrets performs one read operation for each secret. If you retry the job, the secrets are fetched again.

Secret operations do not consume credits if the read operation fails, including when:

To help gauge the expected monthly consumption of secrets in different situations, here are some examples:

Customers on GitLab Self-Managed can use GitLab Secrets Manager with their cloud license or offline license. Customers with an offline license must purchase the GitLab Secrets Manager add-on.

Customers with this add-on are billed under an Enterprise License Agreement (ELA) with a flat fee per customer.

Customers with a cloud license can use Secrets Manager without an add-on, and are billed based on usage.

To purchase GitLab Secrets Manager add-on (ELA), contact the GitLab Sales team.

When the Premium or Ultimate subscription for your namespace is canceled or expires, Secrets Manager enters a 14-day grace period that starts on the subscription end date.

When the grace period ends, secret read operations are blocked. GitLab does not delete your secrets, and you can still view details or delete existing secrets.

To restore full access, renew your subscription.

Beta usage of the GitLab Secrets Manager didn’t consume GitLab Credits.

On GitLab.com, if you did not start a trial, GitLab Secrets Manager is disabled and your secrets are read-only. You can view details or delete existing secrets.

To restore access, start a trial or enable GitLab Secrets Manager with GitLab Credits.

You can evaluate GitLab Secrets Manager with a free 30-day trial. The trial provides a pool of 500 temporary evaluation credits for stored secrets and secret operations.

The trial ends when either happens first:

Temporary evaluation credits are shared across the namespace, not allocated per user. They don’t roll over and can’t be used after expiring.

You can activate a trial only once for your subscription. If your namespace has previously used a trial, it is not eligible to activate another one.

If you disable GitLab Secrets Manager during your trial, you can re-enable it at any time before the end of your trial period.

An administrator starts the trial for the instance. The trial credits are shared across all groups and projects in the instance. Offline instances cannot start a trial.