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CircleCI pricing and limits

iScore71–78 · ≈#1/3
circleci.com · CI/CD
SEPT 2026 audit

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

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Entry paid planPerformance plan: starting at $15/month, including 30,000 free credits plus additional paid credits.
RegionsCloud jobs run on AWS (us-east-1, us-east-2), GCP (us-east1, us-central1) and CircleCI's own macOS cloud.
Free tierYes
CategoryCI/CD

Reviewed by Palash BagchiUpdated 22 criteria comparedSources last checked

CircleCI pricing at a glance

Entry paid plan
Performance plan: starting at $15/month, including 30,000 free credits plus additional paid credits source ↗
Pricing model
Credits-based: purchased up-front and consumed in real time for compute usage, active users and premium features source ↗
What the free plan includes
30,000 credits a month for 5 active users; extra users are $15 each source ↗
When the free offer ends
Never — the plan does not expire, but its monthly credits do: they expire after a month and do not roll over source ↗

First line of each sourced value. The full text is in CircleCI pricing below. How this free offer stacks up: cloud free tiers compared.

01.Evaluation guide

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.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Machine-derived signals

Not sourced facts — counts and matches read by a script, not a person. See each line for where it comes from.

CircleCI's own site (circleci.com) self-detects as: hosting — US hosting, Cloud Hosting, Canadian hosting, Cloud PaaS, Server Location · CDN — Edge Delivery Network · DNS — Enterprise DNS, TLD Redirects (category-level via BuiltWith, not a named vendor)

Each value below links to the page it was read from, with the sentence it came from. Criteria CircleCI does not publish are not listed.

CircleCI pricing

7 criteria
Free tierYes
Sources (1) →
Kind of free offerFree tier
Sources (1) →
  • CircleCI Pricing ↗

    “Free All our premium features. For free. [...] No credit card required. $0 /month Start now Up to 6,000 build minutes Number of build minutes when using a small Docker resource class Up to 5 active users/month”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

What the free plan includes30,000 credits a month for 5 active users; extra users are $15 each.
Sources (1) →
Credit card to startNo
Sources (1) →
When the free offer endsNever — the plan does not expire, but its monthly credits do: they expire after a month and do not roll over.
Sources (1) →
Entry paid planPerformance plan: starting at $15/month, including 30,000 free credits plus additional paid credits.
Sources (1) →
Pricing modelCredits-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.
Sources (1) →
  • CircleCI Pricing ↗

    “Credits are purchased up-front and are used to pay for CircleCI platform usage in real time. Network egress...charged at a rate of 420 credits per GB.”

    Read 2026-09-11 · official pricing · Report a correction

Limits

2 criteria
Build allowanceUp to 6,000 build minutes per month on the free plan, measured on a small Docker resource class (30,000 free credits/month).
Sources (1) →
  • Pricing - CircleCI ↗

    “up to 6,000 build minutes Number of build minutes when using a small docker resource class [...] 30,000 free credits/month”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Concurrent builds30 concurrent job runs on Free, 80 on Performance, unlimited on Scale; macOS VM concurrency is 1 / 15 / custom.
Sources (1) →

Infrastructure

1 criteria
RegionsCloud jobs run on AWS (us-east-1, us-east-2), GCP (us-east1, us-central1) and CircleCI's own macOS cloud.
Sources (1) →
  • IP ranges - CircleCI Docs ↗

    “not just jobs opted into IP ranges, are hosted on the following platforms: Amazon Web Services (AWS) Google Cloud Platform (GCP) [...] AWS : CircleCI uses the us-east-1 and us-east-2 regions. GCP : CircleCI uses the us-east1 and us-central1 regions.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

CI/CD

3 criteria
Max job durationMaximum job runtime is 1 hour on the Free plan, 3 hours on Performance and 5 hours on Scale.
Sources (1) →
Self-hosted runnersSupported 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.
Sources (1) →
  • CircleCI Pricing ↗

    “Free Performance Scale Self-hosted runner? The amount of concurrent tasks per self-hosted runner is restricted by plan. 5 20 Unlimited [...] CircleCI does not charge per build minute on self-hosted runners.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Price per extra concurrent jobNo price per extra concurrent job: concurrency is included as a plan limit and CircleCI bills compute time used, not the number of resources you can access.
Sources (1) →
  • Pricing and Plan Information - CircleCI ↗

    “Concurrent job runs refers to the number of jobs that can run simultaneously without queueing. You pay for compute based on the total amount of time you use compute resources, not the number of resources that you have access to. [...] With usage-based pricing, that means you pay the same amount either way”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing · Report a correction

Support

1 criteria
Support on entry paid planSold as an optional add-on rather than included: 8x5 support on the credit-based plan, 24/7 support on Scale. Buying the product does not buy a support level.
Sources (1) →
  • CircleCI Pricing ↗

    “included free larger resources 80x concurrency optional 8x5 support add-on scale enterprise-level power [...] all environments, even gpu optional 24/7 support add-on”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official pricing · Report a correction

Compliance

8 criteria
SOC 2SOC 2 Type II compliant.
Sources (1) →
  • CircleCI Security ↗

    “SOC 2 Type II provides CircleCI with an opportunity to meet (and exceed) industry standards and gives our customer organization's access to industry-recognized, standardized reports that they can compare across services in our space.”

    Read 2026-09-14 · official site · Report a correction

GDPR / data residencyProcesses EU and UK residents' personal data under the EU and UK GDPR; a DPA is available to sign. Page covers processing commitments only; it names no data-residency or EU-hosting option.
Sources (1) →
  • Commitment to data privacy - CircleCI ↗

    “CircleCI processes the personal data of customers who are citizens or residents of the European Union in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation, and processes the personal data of customers who are citizens or residents of the United Kingdom in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation. [...] For customers interested in signing a data processing addendum with CircleCI, you can sign our DPA here”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction

PCI DSSCard payments run through Stripe's own PCI compliance — not a direct PCI-DSS certification of CircleCI's own platform.
Sources (1) →
Encryption at restEnvironment variables are encrypted at rest and in transit; source code is not encrypted at rest, secured behind DMZ, bastion hosts and firewalls.
Sources (1) →
  • Your security is our priority - CircleCI ↗

    “Environment variables are encrypted at rest and in transit, and injected into the runtime environment at the start of a job. [...] Source code is always encrypted via TLS and SSH in transit, but is not encrypted at rest. Source code at rest is secured behind multiple layers of architecture security such as DMZ, bastion hosts, and firewalls.”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official site · Report a correction

Customer-managed keysSelf-hosted CircleCI server: the operator generates the Tink keyset encrypting context environment variables, plus artifact encryption and signing keysets. Scope: the self-hosted CircleCI server installation guide, not CircleCI cloud.
Sources (1) →
  • Phase 2 AWS - core services - CircleCI Docs ↗

    “The application requires a Kubernetes Secret containing signing and encryption keysets. These keysets are used to encrypt and sign artifacts generated by CircleCI. [...] CircleCI will not be able to recover the values if lost. [...] All environment variables stored in contexts are encrypted using either Google Tink or HashiCorp Vault”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

Role-based access controlOrganization and project roles (admin, contributor, viewer) with a published permissions matrix; roles can also be assigned to groups.
Sources (1) →
  • Roles and permissions overview - CircleCI Docs ↗

    “Manage user access to organizations and projects with CircleCI roles and associated permissions. By default, users can access projects based on roles set at an organization level. For more granular control, you can assign roles at the project level. [...] The table below shows the permissions associated with each CircleCI organization role”

    Read 2026-09-13 · official docs · Report a correction

Private networking / VPCSite-to-site connectivity, an encrypted tunnel from cloud jobs to resources behind your firewall, is in preview on the Scale plan.
Sources (1) →
Dedicated infrastructureServer plan runs CircleCI on-prem or in your private cloud behind your firewall, with an air-gapped install option.
Sources (1) →

When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.

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CircleCI in the news

Headlines from other publications, not checked by us · collected

Selected by a search on this company, refreshed weekly. Nobody here has verified these claims — where something material is confirmed, it is written into the page above with its source, the way every other fact on this site is.

CircleCI pricing questions

How much does CircleCI cost?

Performance plan: starting at $15/month, including 30,000 free credits plus additional paid credits.

CircleCI Pricing · read

How does CircleCI charge?

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.

CircleCI Pricing · read

Does CircleCI have a free tier?

Yes. 30,000 credits a month for 5 active users; extra users are $15 each.

CircleCI Pricing · read

Does the CircleCI free offer expire?

Never — the plan does not expire, but its monthly credits do: they expire after a month and do not roll over.

CircleCI Pricing · read

Do you need a credit card to start on CircleCI?

No.

CircleCI Pricing · read

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Comments

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