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Annual agreement

An annual agreement is the recurring contract covering platform access, coverage and capacity for a term. It follows a bounded pilot or is entered directly, and it is the point at which a relationship moves from a single question to an ongoing one.

A customer can stop after the pilot, which is what makes the annual agreement a decision rather than a default.

Why it matters when the plan changes

The structure of an agreement determines what a customer can do with it. An agreement built around a fixed deliverable ends when the deliverable is delivered; one built around access, coverage and capacity can grow as more of the organisation comes into scope without renegotiating what was bought. This is close to how a framework agreement works: it sets the terms under which further work is arranged over a period, rather than fixing the work itself at the outset.

The tension is between commitment and flexibility. A supplier needs predictable revenue to build; a customer needs to expand or stop based on what they learn. Separating the commitment into recurring access and consumable capacity is how both are partially satisfied, and it is why capacity expires at term end rather than rolling forward. Implementation is priced and scoped separately for the same reason: fixed work should not be mistaken for the recurring line it sits beside.

In practice

A company runs a bounded pilot on one team with an agreed question, deliverables, fee and review point, and can stop afterwards. It does not, and enters an annual agreement covering the division, with paid pilot work credited where the scope overlapped. A second division joins later, adding coverage and only the new implementation work.

Evidence

What it cannot tell you

An annual agreement describes the structure of commitment, not the value delivered within it. It cannot tell you whether the coverage purchased matches actual need, whether capacity will be used before it expires, or whether a customer would have expanded without one. Term length, billing cadence and true-up mechanics are separate questions the agreement's existence does not settle.

How Atlas reads it

The route is pilot, annual agreement, expansion, renewal, with direct entry also possible. Paid pilot work is credited where it covers the same deliverable, and implementation is not charged twice for the same person and scope. Expected hiring or staff turnover does not automatically increase a commitment. Term and billing directions remain to be reconciled, and signed customer terms are authoritative.

Questions

Recurring platform access for a defined scope, the covered employee population, the leader licences activated, and a committed level of organisation capacity for completed work. This resembles the framework agreement structure documented on Wikipedia in 2026, which sets terms for later arrangements rather than fixing work upfront. Implementation is priced and scoped separately from this recurring line.

Yes, direct entry into an annual agreement is possible. The pilot exists so a bounded first question with a review point lets a customer stop, similar to how Article 28 of the General Data Protection Regulation, dated 2016, requires an agreement to record instructions rather than assume them. Neither route is the default.

It expires at term end rather than rolling forward. That is what makes a capacity commitment a commitment rather than a deposit, and it is one of the three rules that make the model work commercially alongside annual commitment and expansion packs.

Along coverage, licences and capacity rather than by buying another package. More teams, units or countries are covered, more leaders are activated, or more capacity is added as use grows. Expansion follows real use rather than a renegotiation of what was purchased.

Not entirely yet. Negotiation directions on term length, billing, true-up and renewal are recorded as still to be reconciled rather than as approved defaults, and commercial and finance jointly own settling them. Signed customer terms remain authoritative in every case.