Limits and quotas
Sites has more hard limits than most Capable features, because every publish builds and hosts a real website. Nearly all of them tell you clearly when you hit one, rather than failing silently.
The two that shape how you work are the hourly publish cap and the 1 GB site size.
Where a limit applies per Confluence instance, it covers every site you have created in that Confluence, not just one.
#Every limit
Limit | Value | What happens |
|---|---|---|
Sites per Confluence instance | 3 on Standard, 10 on Advanced | Creating another site is refused with "You can create a maximum of 3 sites on the Standard edition. Upgrade to Advanced for up to 10 sites." or "…Delete an existing site to create a new one." |
Spaces per site | 100 | The space picker greys out further options and the save is rejected. This limit is the same on every edition. |
Storage per site | 1 GB of published files | Attachments that would push the site over are skipped, logged as "Skipped <file>, would exceed site storage limit", and replaced on the page with an "Attachment not available" block. |
Single attachment size | 20 MB | Skipped with "Skipped <file>, exceeds per-attachment size limit". The size is checked both before and after the file is fetched. |
Deploys and promotes per hour | 12 per site, and 12 per Confluence instance | "Deploy limit reached (12 per hour per site). Please try again later." or "Rate limit reached (12 operations per hour)." ZIP exports and promotes count against the same allowance. |
Create and delete cooldown | 30 seconds per Confluence instance | "Please wait N seconds before creating or deleting another site." |
Deploys running at once | 1 per site | "A deploy is already in progress for this site. Cancel it before starting a new one." |
Staging preview retention | 90 days, with a warning from 14 days before | The preview is deleted and its link returns a 404. Promote is blocked with "Staging preview expired. Previews are kept for 90 days, so deploy again to rebuild it." |
ZIP export download window | 24 hours after the export finishes | No new download link can be created after that. |
Custom domains per site | 1 | "Maximum of 1 custom domains per site". The Add button disappears once a site has a domain. |
Domain ownership claim | 48 hours | "Domain claim has expired. Start setup again." |
Certificate validation window | 48 hours, checked every 5 minutes | Setup fails with a timeout message. Select Retry to pick up where it left off. |
Final domain setup window | 20 minutes | Setup fails and tidies up after itself: "…Resources have been cleaned up." |
Domain status refresh cooldown | 10 seconds | The Refresh button counts down, showing "Refresh (Ns)". |
Redirect rules | 100,000 characters in all, roughly 1,300 rules | The rule count turns red and shows, for example, "(104,212 of 100,000 characters, too long to save)". Save changes stays disabled with "Redirect rules are too long to save". |
All site settings together | 220,000 bytes | Each field has its own cap, but very long redirect rules and custom CSS together can pass this. The save is refused with "Site settings are too large to save (N of 220,000 bytes). Shorten the redirect rules or custom CSS and try again." |
Password minimum length | 8 characters | You cannot save until the password is long enough: "Password must be at least 8 characters". |
Password attempt lockout | 10 failed attempts from one network in 15 minutes | "Too many failed attempts. Please try again later." Only that network is held back, and a successful sign-in clears its counter. |
Atlassian email domains | Up to 100 | Once the list is full, the box reads "Limit of 100 reached". |
Google Workspace domains and individual accounts | Up to 100 of each | Once a list is full, its box reads "Limit of 100 reached". |
Microsoft organisations | Up to 20 | Once the list is full, the box reads "Limit of 20 reached". Allow guests needs exactly one. |
Session duration | 1 hour to 30 days, or up to 7 days for Google and Microsoft | New sites start at 24 hours. The 30-day choice is not offered for Google or Microsoft. |
Google and Microsoft sign-in starts | 60 a minute from one network, per site | The visitor sees "Too many sign-in attempts from your network. Please wait a minute and try again." |
Access-change rate limit | 12 per hour per Confluence instance | Only changes to who can get in count, including Sign everyone out. Past the limit, saving shows "Too many access changes in the last hour. Your settings were saved; save again later to apply them." The site keeps its previous access until you do. |
Header links | Up to 10 | The app will not let you add more. |
Navigation categories | Up to 20, labels up to 60 characters | Checked as you type and again when you save. |
Announcement banner text | Headline up to 300 characters | The app will not let you type more. |
Footer text | Up to 500 characters | The app will not let you type more. |
Logo and favicon upload | Up to 100 KB each | The upload is rejected. |
Cover image upload | Up to 500 KB | The upload is rejected. |
Page SEO fields | Title up to 200 characters (soft limit 60), description up to 500 characters | Soft limits are a guide shown by the counter. Going over a hard limit is rejected. |
Custom CSS | Up to 50,000 characters | Set through the API only. There is no field for it in the app. |
Macro nesting depth | 12 levels | Macros nested deeper than that leave an unresolved grey box on the page. |
Diagram source text | 16,000 characters | Anything longer is cut off. |
Cross-space link rewriting | Published pages over 5 MB are skipped | Links on those pages are left pointing at Confluence rather than the site, and a warning is written to the build log. |
Attachments that would push a site over 1 GB are skipped, not refused. The build logs each one and carries on, so a site can publish successfully with content missing. Check the deploy log after a large first publish.
#A few things worth knowing
A ZIP export counts against the hourly publish cap.
Staging previews expire after 90 days and cannot be promoted afterwards.
Only one deploy runs per site at a time. Start another and it is refused.
Theme, title and other cosmetic saves no longer count towards the access-change limit. Only changes to who can get in do.
#Related
Nearly all of them announce themselves. Read the message.
