CI/CD Calculator 2026
Buildkite, GitHub Actions, GitLab, CircleCI
Stop reading vendor pricing pages. Plug in your builds per day, average build minutes, parallelism, and team size, and see real monthly costs across GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, Buildkite, Bitbucket Pipelines, and self-hosted Jenkins.
Monthly cost comparison
sorted ascending by monthly spend / linked to vendor pricing pages
$ Estimates use vendor-published pricing (verified April 2026). Enterprise discounts, regional rates, and resource-class choice will move the numbers. Use this as a starting point, not a quote.
Vendor build-minute rates / 2026 reference
# Linux 2-core baseline. Source: each vendor's public pricing page.
| Platform | Linux rate | Free / included | Seat | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Actions | $0.008 + $0.002/min | 3,000 mins (Team) | $4 / user | Platform fee added Mar 2026 |
| GitLab CI | $0.01/min over allowance | 10,000 mins (Premium) | $29 / user | Self-hosted runners free |
| CircleCI | 10 credits/min Linux med | 30,000 credits/user | $15 / user | Credits at $0.0006 |
| Bitbucket Pipelines | $0.01/min over included | 3,500 mins / workspace | $6 / user | Bundled with Jira |
| Buildkite | n/a (you bring compute) | 3 agents free (Dev plan) | $15 / user | Pricing scales by parallelism |
| Jenkins | $0 software | Unlimited self-hosted | $0 | Pay infrastructure + ops time |
Deep dives
All 6 platforms side-by-side at 5, 20, and 50 dev team sizes. Feature matrix, ecosystem fit, hidden costs.
10 proven techniques to cut CI/CD spend: caching, test splitting, conditional jobs, right-sizing runners.
How much does it cost to switch CI/CD platforms? Calculator for engineering hours and timeline by team size.
Where the break-even point sits. Real infrastructure costs for self-hosted Jenkins, GitLab Runner, Drone CI.
Free tier limits, runner pricing, the new platform fee, and how to keep your bill under $500.
Free software, real costs. AWS / GCP estimates, plugin maintenance, when CloudBees is worth it.
Cost by build-minute tier
# Every platform priced at exactly your monthly volume.
Solo dev or 2-3 person team. GitHub Actions Free covers it.
Typical 25-dev team. The crossover zone.
Self-hosted starts to win decisively here.
Every free tier side-by-side, with the catches.
Per-platform pricing deep dives
# What each platform actually costs once you read past the marketing page.
How $15/user plus your own compute compares to per-minute platforms.
AWS, GCP, Spot, Mac mini and Kubernetes per-agent monthly figures.
$3-$6/user with 3,500-6,000 included build minutes per workspace.
Open-source self-hosted at $30/mo for a small team setup.
Free Professional with 3 agents, $1,999/yr Server, or $45/user Cloud.
Velocity at $40/user including 24K credits, plus iOS economics.
Head-to-head comparisons
# Direct X-vs-Y, with real numbers at three team sizes.
CI/CD cost by language stack
# Build duration and resource needs vary by language. So does the bill.
Why every macOS minute costs 10x Linux. Mac mini fleet math saves 90%.
Gradle cache, emulator overhead, and Linux-runner pricing across platforms.
Where the build minutes go in Spring Boot pipelines, and how to claw them back.
Frequently Asked Questions
# click any question to expand