Linear has four tiers: Free (unlimited members, capped at 2 teams and 250 issues), Basic ($10/user/month), Business ($16/user/month), and Enterprise (custom, annual-only). Both paid tiers are billed annually with no published monthly option. AI features (Coding Sessions, Loops) draw from a separately-metered credit pool not included in the seat price.
- Free is genuinely usable — unlimited members, just capped at 2 teams and 250 issues
- Both paid tiers require annual billing; there's no published monthly rate
- AI Agent features meter separately via credits, not included in the per-seat price
- SSO, SCIM, and HIPAA compliance are Enterprise-only — no way to add them to Business
Linear's pricing page is unusually short for a developer tool — one free plan, two paid tiers, and a custom Enterprise plan. The core seat prices ($10 and $16/user/month) are clean and well-corroborated across sources. The complexity that does exist is in two places: the hard 250-issue cap on Free, and the fact that Linear's newer AI features run on a separate, unpublished credit-metering system.
This guide covers the confirmed seat pricing, what the 250-issue Free cap actually means in practice, and where AI credit metering sits outside the advertised per-seat number.
1. How much does Linear cost?
Source: linear.app/pricing (official), verified Sep 19, 2026.
Both Basic and Business are billed yearly with no published monthly option on Linear's official pricing page — a 20-person team on Basic commits to roughly $2,400 upfront for the year, not a month-to-month arrangement. Enterprise is also annual-only, negotiated directly with Linear's sales team.
2. What each plan includes
| Feature | Free | Basic | Business | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unlimited issues | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Unlimited teams | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Private teams & guest access | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Insights analytics | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ | ✓ |
| SAML SSO / SCIM provisioning | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
| HIPAA compliance | ✕ | ✕ | ✕ | ✓ |
3. Cost calculator
4. Hidden costs to budget for
| Scenario | Annual cost | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Basic, 20 users, annual | $2,400/yr | Base |
| Business, 20 users, annual (for SSO) | Requires Enterprise instead | No self-serve SSO option |
| Heavy AI Coding Sessions usage | Variable, unpublished rate | Separate credit meter |
Linear's AI Agent platform — including Coding Sessions and Loops — draws down credits purchased separately from your seat subscription, and Linear doesn't publish a per-credit rate on its pricing page. A team that leans heavily on AI-assisted coding or automation should treat this as an open-ended usage line to monitor, not a flat cost included in the $10 or $16 seat price.
5. How Linear pricing has changed
6. Which plan should you choose?
- If you're a small team under 250 issues and 2 teams, Free is genuinely sufficient and permanent, not a trial.
- If you've outgrown the issue cap but don't need private teams, guest access, or Insights, Basic is the practical default for most software teams.
- If you need private teams, unlimited teams, or Insights analytics, Business is worth the jump.
- If SSO, SCIM, or HIPAA compliance is a hard requirement, you're required into Enterprise regardless of team size — there's no lower-cost path to those specific features.
7. Is it worth the price?
Linear is well-regarded for a genuinely fast, well-designed interface, and its pricing is transparent relative to most issue trackers — no per-feature marketplace add-ons like some competitors. The main things to plan around: the annual-only billing commitment (no testing a single month), and AI credit costs that scale independently of your seat count if your team leans on Coding Sessions or Loops heavily.
8. How to pay less
- Stay on Free as long as the 250-issue cap genuinely fits — archiving old, resolved issues frees up room without requiring an upgrade.
- Confirm whether you actually need Business's features before upgrading from Basic — private teams and Insights are the main differentiators, and not every team uses both.
- Monitor AI credit usage from day one if using Coding Sessions or Loops — since the per-credit rate isn't published, tracking your own usage trend is the only way to forecast this cost.
- If SSO is the only reason for Enterprise, negotiate specifically around that requirement rather than accepting a full Enterprise feature bundle you may not need otherwise.
Per third-party deal-flow data, the median Linear customer pays approximately $700/year — useful context for a typical small-to-mid team's spend level.
9. Alternatives and what they cost
| Tool | Entry price | Cheaper when |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub Issues | Included with GitHub | Already paying for GitHub Team/Enterprise and don't need Linear's dedicated PM features |
| Jira | $7.75-15.25/user/mo | Deeper enterprise workflow customization is needed |
| Height | $6.99/user/mo | Lower per-seat cost is the primary driver |
10. The bigger picture: why Linear bills drift
Metered AI features on top of per-seat subscriptions are becoming the norm across developer tools, and they're exactly the kind of cost that's easy to lose track of since it scales independently of headcount. Zapro AI is built to surface this kind of usage-based drift across your entire software stack, not just Linear.
11. The bottom line
Linear's core pricing is about as clean as developer tools get — two paid tiers, clear feature gates, no marketplace of add-ons. The two things worth planning for specifically: the annual-only billing commitment, and AI credit usage that isn't included in the seat price and isn't published at a per-unit rate.
FAQs
Basic is $10 per user per month and Business is $16 per user per month, both billed annually with no published monthly option. Enterprise is custom-quoted, also annual-only.
Yes, and it's permanent, not a time-limited trial — unlimited members, capped at 2 teams and 250 total issues. Archiving resolved issues frees up room without requiring an upgrade.
No. Coding Sessions and Loops (Linear's AI Agent features) draw from a separately-metered credit system. Linear doesn't publish the per-credit rate, so usage should be monitored directly.
No. SAML SSO, SCIM provisioning, and HIPAA compliance are exclusively available on Enterprise — there's no way to add them to Business at any price.
The most common way is unmonitored AI credit usage growing independently of your seat count. A vendor spend platform that tracks usage-based charges, not just flat seat fees, is the most reliable way to catch this.