Is your Jira history worth money?
In this article
What is in a Jira and Linear exportWhy buyers want itHow to export itWhat is removedWhat it pairs withWhich buyers name itWhat is actually in a Jira and Linear export
- Every issue with status history, assignee changes, comments and links
- Sprints, epics and the backlog decisions
- Service management tickets, if you use Jira Service Management
- Confluence pages, if exported alongside
Why buyers want it
A ticket shows what was decided. The status history shows how long it took and how many times it bounced. The link to a pull request shows what was built. The link to a support ticket shows why. Buyers want all four because together they are a complete record of knowledge work.
- One enterprise buyer
- 35% of its first 300 partner companies had Jira (published, 2026).
- Another enterprise buyer
- lists project histories and tickets in its core categories (published, October 2026).
- The multi-lab licensing platform
- names project and sprint histories, and the ticket-to-code link, as value multipliers (published, 2026).
How to export it
You do not have to do this before talking to a buyer. The buyer walks your admin through it once a deal is scoped. For reference, as of October 6, 2026:
- Jira Cloud: a site admin opens Settings, then System, then Backup manager, and creates a backup. It includes issues, history and attachments as JSON and files.
- Linear: Settings, then Administration, then Export, produces a CSV; the API gives the full history.
- Confluence exports separately as a space backup.
- The REST API is the other route and the one most buyers prefer because it keeps issue links intact.
Vendors move menus. Check the vendor's help center for the current path.
See what your company's records could get.
Ten questions, under five minutes, built from the buyers' own published ranges.
Get my estimate →What is removed before anyone sees it
- Employee names become tokens, done by the buyer
- Customer identifiers in service tickets
- Security issues that describe open vulnerabilities, which you can exclude by label
- Credentials in attachments
How scrubbing works, and what every buyer commits to.
What it pairs with
One system is a record. Two linked systems are a story. This is where the number moves most.
- GitHub
- The pull request that closed the ticket.
- Slack
- The discussion that produced the ticket.
- Zendesk and Freshdesk
- The customer report that started it.
Which buyer types name it
Every buyer type, what it publishes, and who it wants.
Industries that run on it
In short
- Jira and Linear: high demand among buyers. 4 of the 6 buyer types name this kind of record.
- Years of history and links to other systems drive the number. A snapshot is worth little.
- Names, credentials and anything under a restrictive contract are removed or excluded before use.
- You do not export anything before a deal is scoped. The buyer handles it with your admin.
Questions owners ask.
Our Jira is a mess.
Everyone's is. Buyers want the real record, including the tickets that bounced five times.
Does Linear count the same?
Yes. Any issue tracker with history works.
What about Asana or Monday?
Same idea, different page. See Asana and Monday.
Is Jira worth anything without GitHub?
Less. The link between planning and code is where the value multiplies.
