Can I reuse accounts when a developer leaves a team

[Trading]

(I have tried finding an answer to this for the last half an hour through the documentation but could not figure anything out so posting it here)

I have a small repository where there will be a number of contractors  (more than 5 ) contributing to it over the next year. However, at one time there will be no more than 2 individuals contributing to it. Essentially, we will be having the maximum 2 developers  working on a small subproject for several weeks and after that, they may leave and another set of developes may contribute.

Since the billing is dependent on the number of users, how will it work in a situation like this? 

Here is an example:
let's say we have developed a and B contributing to the repository in the first month. So I will establish a user account for each of them. Now they leave and developers C and D start contributing to the repository. Should I now create separate accounts for them? And if so, will I now the billed for 4 different accounts?

Ideally, I will want the account to be different so that we can figure out going in history that it is not the developer C who had committed a particular piece of code but rather the developer A. But if the number of accounts will keep on increasing even though I'm not using the developer A account actively for committing but just for looking into the repository, then perhaps I will be forced to reuse the account?

Please advise if there is any elegant solution.

As a summary, the requirement is to have a user account which is not actively used for committing the code but it will be good if we can continue to see the commits it by that user account for the life time of the repository

[Ana Retamal · Accepted solution]

Hi Trading, welcome to the Community :) 

You can totally keep their accounts separate with no need of paying more.  

The best solution in your case would be to create individual Bitbucket accounts for each of the developers, and only grant access to your repo to those developers that will be actively working on it. So once devs A and B leave, you revoke their access to your repo, their changes will still be there and you'll be able to see who made them but they won't be using a seat in your account. This way you'll remain under the 5 user limit unless you decide to have more than 4 developers working at the same time (keep in mind you count as 1 seat already). For more info you can read Grant repository permissions.

I hope this is clear, let us know if you have any questions!

Kind regards,

Ana

[Trading]

Thank you for your response. I have marked this question has resolved.