Linear Pricing in 2026: Free, Basic, Business and When Teams Outgrow It

Linear Pricing in 2026: Free, Basic, Business and When Teams Outgrow It

Linear has a reputation as the issue tracker developers actually like opening in the morning. It is fast, keyboard-first, and opinionated in a way Jira has never been. The pricing is a little less famous, partly because the tier names have shifted over the past year. If you remember "Plus" and "Standard" from older write-ups, those are now Basic and Business. This guide walks through what each Linear plan costs in 2026, where the free plan runs out, and how it stacks up against Jira and ClickUp.

All prices come from our product database and assume annual billing, which is how Linear advertises its per-user rates. Check Linear's pricing page before you buy, since plans change.

The Short Version

• ▸Free: $0. Unlimited members, but capped at 250 issues and 2 teams.
• ▸Basic: $10 per user per month. Unlimited issues and teams, advanced integrations, admin roles.
• ▸Business: $16 per user per month. Adds SAML SSO, audit logs and priority support.
• ▸Enterprise: custom pricing, with SSO/SAML, audit logs and custom contracts.

If you are an engineering team of under about 15 people and you are not yet at the 250-issue ceiling, Free is a real option. Once you cross that ceiling, Basic is the plan most teams land on. Business is mostly a compliance purchase.

A Quick Note on the Tier Names

Linear restructured its plans in 2026. The mid-tier that used to be called Plus (around $8 to $10 per user) is now Basic at $10, and a Business tier at $16 was introduced above it. Features that previously required an Enterprise conversation, like SAML SSO and audit logs, moved down into Business. That is genuinely good news for mid-sized companies that needed SSO but did not want to negotiate an enterprise contract.

Free Plan: What You Get and Where It Stops

The Free plan is more generous than most competitors in one way and tighter in another.

Generous: unlimited members. You can invite your whole company, contractors included, without paying a cent. Most tools meter free plans by seat. Linear meters by volume instead.

Tight: 250 issues and 2 teams. For a small startup, 250 issues sounds like a lot until you realize how quickly a real backlog grows. A team shipping weekly can generate 20 to 40 issues a week once bugs, chores and customer requests are all tracked. At that rate you hit the ceiling in two or three months. Archiving old issues buys you time, but it is a treadmill.

You also get iOS and Android apps, cycles (Linear's word for sprints), roadmaps, and GitHub and GitLab sync on Free. That is a surprisingly complete product for zero dollars, and it is the main reason Linear spreads so easily from one engineer to a whole company.

Who should stay on Free: pre-seed and seed teams, side projects, and small groups that archive aggressively. If you are comfortable closing out issues weekly, you can stay here for a long time.

Basic: $10 Per User Per Month

Basic removes the issue and team limits, which is the real upgrade. You also get advanced integrations and admin roles.

For a team of 8 engineers, that is $80 per month, or $960 a year. For 25 people it is $250 per month, or $3,000 a year. Those numbers are small compared to the engineering salaries they support, which is why most teams do not agonize over this tier.

What you are really buying: headroom. Unlimited issues and unlimited teams mean you can split into a platform team, a product team and a mobile team without hitting a wall. Admin roles mean you can stop giving everyone the keys to the workspace.

Who Basic fits: engineering teams from roughly 5 to 50 people that have outgrown 250 issues and do not need SSO.

Business: $16 Per User Per Month

Business adds SAML SSO, audit logs, priority support and more advanced admin controls on top of Basic.

That is a 60 percent jump over Basic. For 25 people it is $400 per month, or $4,800 a year, versus $3,000 on Basic. You are paying an extra $1,800 a year for the security and compliance layer.

When it is worth it:

• ▸Your security team requires SSO for every tool that touches source-adjacent data.
• ▸You are pursuing SOC 2 or ISO 27001 and an auditor wants logs of who changed what.
• ▸You have contractors and want tighter control over who can see which projects.

When it is not: if nobody has asked you for SSO and you have no audit on the calendar, stay on Basic. A common mistake is upgrading everyone to Business for a feature only two admins will ever touch.

Enterprise: Custom

Enterprise is quote-based and adds custom contracts on top of the SSO and audit features. You are in this territory at a few hundred seats or when procurement insists on a negotiated agreement, security questionnaires and a signed DPA. Expect to talk to sales.

Linear vs Jira vs ClickUp on Price

Here is how Linear compares per user per month on the plans most teams actually evaluate.

A few things stand out.

Jira is cheaper on paper. Standard at $8.60 undercuts Linear's $10, and Premium at $15.80 is within pennies of Business at $16. On the other hand, Jira's free plan caps you at 10 users, while Linear's Free lets you invite everyone.

ClickUp is similar in price but a different product. At $10 for Unlimited it matches Basic, and Business at $19 is higher than Linear's equivalent. But ClickUp is built to cover everything: docs, whiteboards, time tracking, Gantt charts and more. If you need marketing, operations and engineering in one tool, ClickUp is the better fit. If you only need engineering, Linear's focus is the point.

The price gap rarely decides this. Speed, workflow fit and how your team feels about the tool matter more than a $1.40 difference per seat.

What You Pay Beyond the Seat Price

Seat price is not the only cost.

Migration time. Moving from Jira is the biggest hidden expense. Linear has importers, but custom fields, complex workflows and years of history never map perfectly. Budget a week or two of cleanup for a mid-sized team, and expect some grumbling while people relearn habits.

Add-ons elsewhere. Linear is intentionally narrow. There is no Gantt view, no resource management and reporting is minimal. If you need those, you will pay for another tool alongside it, which can erase the price advantage.

Integrations. The ecosystem is thinner than Jira's, especially for enterprise systems like ServiceNow or SAP. Slack, GitHub, GitLab and Figma work well. Niche enterprise connectors may not exist.

When Teams Outgrow Linear

Linear does one thing very well, and the honest flip side is that it stops where software engineering stops.

You outgrow Free because of the issue cap. This is the most common upgrade trigger and it is cheap to solve.

You outgrow Basic because of compliance. SSO and audit logs push you to Business. This is a process requirement, not a product failing.

You outgrow Linear itself when non-engineers need in. Marketing, operations and customer success teams tend to hit the ceiling within weeks. They want timelines, dependencies, custom fields and richer reporting. Linear is not trying to be that, and forcing it usually ends in a second tool anyway. For cross-functional work, evaluate ClickUp or Asana.

Pros and Cons

What Linear does well:

• ▸Very fast interface with instant page loads
• ▸Clean design that engineers enjoy using
• ▸Excellent keyboard-driven workflow
• ▸Fast API, a real advantage if you automate a lot
• ▸Strong GitHub and GitLab integration: pull requests link to issues and merged PRs close them
• ▸Well-designed cycles and roadmaps
• ▸Free plan allows unlimited members

Where it falls short:

• ▸Missing advanced enterprise reporting
• ▸Built mostly for software engineering teams
• ▸Pricier than Jira at the entry level ($10 vs $8.60)
• ▸Smaller integration ecosystem than Jira
• ▸Less flexible for complex enterprise workflows
• ▸The 250-issue free cap arrives faster than you expect

Which Plan Should You Pick?

Solo developer or tiny team: start on Free. Archive regularly and upgrade when it gets annoying.

Startup of 5 to 50 engineers: Basic at $10. It is the sweet spot and the cost is small relative to what it saves in friction.

Company with SSO or audit requirements: Business at $16, ideally after confirming that an auditor or security team really requires it.

Mixed teams beyond engineering: skip the debate and compare ClickUp or Asana first. Linear will feel cramped.

Cost-sensitive team already comfortable with Jira: Jira Standard at $8.60 is cheaper per seat and you avoid a migration. Just be honest about whether the speed and polish gap is worth paying for.

Bottom Line

Linear's pricing is straightforward and fair for what it delivers: a generous free plan, a sensible $10 middle tier, and a $16 Business plan that mostly buys compliance features. It is not the cheapest option, and Jira undercuts it on paper, but the day-to-day experience is the reason engineering teams keep choosing it.

The decision is really about scope. If your tracker is for software engineering, Linear is hard to beat. If you need it to be everything for everyone, you will outgrow it quickly.

Pricing reflects the plans listed in our product database at publication, based on annual billing. Check Linear's pricing page for current offers before you buy. Some links on this site may be affiliate links; they never affect our rankings.