How to get a page approved in Confluence Cloud, on any plan
A procedure, a policy, a release note: some pages are only worth something if a named person approved them. In 2026 Confluence Cloud got approvals of its own, but only on Premium and Enterprise. This guide shows how to use them, how to run a simple sign-off on Free and Standard with nothing installed, and what to check when a page changes after it was approved.
We build Signoff for Confluence, an approval app, so read the last section with that in mind. Everything before it works without any app.
Built-in approvals (Premium and Enterprise)
Atlassian describes them in Request and manage approvals in Confluence. First a space admin sets the space’s status mode to Enable statuses with approvals; in the other modes the approval settings are hidden. Then:
- Open the page and open its content status menu.
- Select Start approval.
- Add the approvers. You can add a message and a due date.
- Select Start. Confluence notifies the approvers and shows the progress on the page.
Things to know before you rely on it:
- It works on pages, not on live docs or blog posts.
- You need edit permission on the page to request or answer an approval.
- A space admin can name up to five required approvers. All approvals in that space then go to those people.
- A space admin can turn on Require approval before publishing, and new pages in the space then need approval before they are published.
- The settings are per space. Atlassian started rolling the feature out in 2026, and some sites may not have it yet.
If you are on Premium or Enterprise and your approvers are the same few people in each space, try this first.
A sign-off on Free and Standard
Free and Standard have no approvals, but every plan has content statuses, comments and page history. Together they make a simple sign-off:
- A space admin opens the space settings for statuses and adds two suggested statuses, for example In review and Approved. Turn off custom statuses if you want everyone to use the same words.
- The author edits the page, selects Status above the title, picks In review and publishes.
- The author adds a comment that @-mentions the approver. The mention reaches them through the Confluence bell and email.
- The approver reads the page, opens Page history and notes the current version number.
- The approver replies to the comment: “Approved version 7.” Then they set the status to Approved.
The comment is the real record, not the status. A status is a label on the page: it does not say who set it or which version it was about. The comment says both, and page history lets anyone open version 7 later and compare it with today’s page.
When the page changes after approval
This is the part that goes wrong most often. Someone fixes a typo, or changes a number, and the page still looks approved. Before you trust an approved page:
- Find the version that was approved, in the approval or in the comment.
- Open Page history and check if there are newer versions.
- If there are, select both versions and Compare to see what changed.
If edits after approval are not allowed at all, add a page restriction so only the owners can edit it. Note that in Confluence Cloud an edit restriction is not passed down to child pages the way a view restriction is (CONFCLOUD-5095), so restrict each page you want to lock.
One rule for many spaces
Teams that have a quality system usually want one rule everywhere: “quality documents need both QA leads, and the approval is good for a year.” Built-in approvals are set space by space, so with fifty spaces you set the same approvers fifty times, and again when one of them leaves. Some approval apps work the same way, with a workflow you copy into each space. If you have many spaces, ask about this before you install anything.
Before you pick an approval app
We read the recent low-star reviews of the approval apps on the Atlassian Marketplace. The same few problems came up again and again. Ask about them in the trial:
- Many spaces. Can many spaces share one workflow, or do you copy it into each space?
- Edits after approval. What does the page show when someone edits it after approval? Does the app block the edit, reset the status, or say nothing?
- Price. Is the app free now and paid later? Marketplace apps are priced by the number of users on your site, not by how many people approve.
- Moving from Data Center. If you are migrating, check that the Cloud version has the features you use on Data Center.
- Just a read confirmation? If all you need is “I have read this”, a full document workflow may be too much.
Where Signoff fits
Signoff for Confluence works on every plan, Free included. Each approval records the exact page version it covered, and the badge under the page title changes from Approved · v7 to Approved · page changed as soon as someone edits the page. A policy (approvers, any-one or everyone, valid for 3 to 24 months) is defined once, and spaces use it by reference or take the site default, so a hundred spaces follow one rule with nothing copied. There is an approvals inbox, a list of approvals that are due again, and a CSV of who approved which version, and when.
What it does not do: it does not stop anyone from editing a page or publishing a new one. It reports the status honestly; for locking, use page restrictions as above. It runs on Atlassian Forge with no external calls and is free for sites of up to 10 users.