# CircleCI

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/ci-cd/circleci/

Dedicated CI/CD platform billed on a credits system, with unmetered self-hosted runner build time.

## Who it suits

Teams running mostly on self-hosted runners, where build-minute cost disappears entirely and the credits system only meters users and premium features.

Consider something else if The workload is small and simple — a credits system adds a layer of currency conversion a flat per-minute or per-user price doesn't.

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: Yes ([source](https://circleci.com/pricing/), read 2026-09-11)
- Entry paid plan: Performance plan: starting at $15/month, including 30,000 free credits plus additional paid credits. ([source](https://circleci.com/pricing/), read 2026-09-11)
- Pricing model: Credits-based: purchased up-front and consumed in real time for compute usage, active users and premium features. Network egress beyond the plan allowance is billed at 420 credits per GB. ([source](https://circleci.com/pricing/), read 2026-09-11)

### CI/CD

- Self-hosted runners: Supported on every tier: 5 concurrent self-hosted tasks on Free, 20 on Performance, unlimited on Scale. No per-minute charge for self-hosted runner builds. ([source](https://circleci.com/pricing/), read 2026-09-11)

## Compared with

- [CircleCI vs GitHub Actions](https://inetgeek.com/compare/github-actions-vs-circleci/)
- [CircleCI vs Buildkite](https://inetgeek.com/compare/circleci-vs-buildkite/)