$ ~/cicdcalculator

CircleCI pricing 2026
./circleci --credits-explained

By Oliver Wakefield-Smith, Founder, Digital Signet·Verified June 2026

CircleCI is the only major CI/CD platform that bills compute in credits instead of minutes. The system is more flexible than per-minute pricing because larger machines burn credits faster, but it's also opaque if you've never thought about resource classes. This guide demystifies the credits model and shows what CircleCI actually costs at every team size.

Quick answer

How much does CircleCI cost in 2026?

The Free plan gives you 30,000 credits a month (about 3,000 Linux Medium build minutes) with up to 5 users. The paid Performance plan starts at $15/month, including 30,000 credits plus 5 active users; each extra user is $15 and extra credits cost $15 per 25,000 pack, roughly $0.0006 per credit. Because CircleCI bills in credits, your real cost depends on the resource class: Linux Medium burns 10 credits per minute ($0.006), while macOS M4 Pro runs 200 to 400 credits per minute ($0.12 to $0.24). Scale is a custom annual contract for enterprises.

Free plan credits
30,000 / mo
Performance
From $15 / mo
Linux Medium
$0.006 / min
Extra credits
$15 / 25K

Credit cost by resource class

Resource classvCPU / RAMCredits / minCost / min10K mins cost
Small (Linux)1 / 2 GB5$0.003$30
Medium (Linux)2 / 4 GB10$0.006$60
Large (Linux)4 / 8 GB20$0.012$120
X-Large (Linux VM)8 / 32 GB100$0.060$600
Medium (Windows)4 / 16 GB40$0.024$240
M4 Pro Medium (macOS)6 / 28 GB200$0.120$1,200
M4 Pro Large (macOS)12 / 56 GB400$0.240$2,400

Plans / 2026

Free
$0
30,000 credits / mo
Unlimited
Personal projects, OSS, evaluation. ~3,000 mins of medium Linux per month.
Performance
From $15 / mo
30,000 incl, +$15 / 25K credits / mo
5 active users incl, $15 each extra
Most teams. Org-level credit pool; extra users billed as 25,000 credits each.
Scale
Custom
Volume contract credits / mo
Custom contract
Enterprise. SAML SSO, audit logs, custom concurrency. Sales-led, billed annually.

Worked example / 20 dev team

$ team_size = 20
$ builds_per_day = 120
$ avg_minutes = 8
$ resource_class = medium_linux # 10 credits/min
# total compute
monthly_minutes = 120 * 8 * 21 = 20,160
credits_burned = 20,160 * 10 = 201,600
# Performance plan accounting
base = $15 # includes 30,000 credits + 5 active users
extra_users = 15 * $15 = $225
billable_credits = 201,600 - 30,000 = 171,600
credit_packs = 7 * $15 = $105 # $15 per 25,000
# total monthly bill
monthly_total = ~$345

The included 30,000 credits are an org-level pool, not per user, so a mid-size team burns through them in the first few days of the month. Most of the bill is active-user charges plus credit packs. Push to large or x-large machines, or switch resource classes to macOS, and the credit packs stack up fast.

How to lower CircleCI spend

  • > Right-size resource_class in .circleci/config.yml. Defaults to medium; small often works for unit tests.
  • > Use parallelism: with split tests to cut wall-clock time without raising machine size.
  • > Cache aggressively with restore_cache and save_cache for dependency installs.
  • > Self-host runners for macOS workloads or sustained heavy compute.
  • > Watch the Insights dashboard for the longest jobs, optimise those first.

Compare with other platforms

vs all platformsvs GitHub Actionsvs GitLab CIcost optimizationback to calculator

Frequently Asked Questions

# click any question to expand

How do CircleCI credits work?>
CircleCI bills compute in credits rather than minutes. Each resource class consumes credits at a different rate per minute: a small Docker runner uses 5 credits per minute, medium uses 10, large uses 20, and Linux VM x-large uses 100. macOS M4 Pro runners burn 200 to 400 credits per minute. Credits cost $15 per 25,000 (so $0.0006 each), making a medium Linux build minute $0.006.
What's the cheapest CircleCI plan?>
The Free plan includes 30,000 credits per month, enough for around 3,000 medium Linux build minutes. The Performance plan starts at $15 per month and includes 30,000 credits plus 5 active users; each additional active user costs $15 (25,000 credits) and extra credits are $15 per 25,000 pack. The credit pool is org-level, not per user. Scale is a custom annual contract for enterprises with large parallelism or compliance needs.
Why is CircleCI so much more expensive on macOS?>
Apple licensing makes Mac hardware costly. CircleCI's current macOS fleet is M4 Pro: the Medium class (6 CPU, 28 GB) consumes 200 credits per minute (20x Linux Medium) and Large (12 CPU, 56 GB) consumes 400. A 15-minute iOS build on M4 Pro Medium costs 3,000 credits, or about $1.80. That is roughly double GitHub Actions hosted macOS for the same wall-clock. Self-hosted runners on a Mac mini are usually cheaper for sustained iOS workloads.
Can I use my own runners on CircleCI?>
Yes. CircleCI Self-Hosted Runners let you register your own infrastructure to execute jobs. Self-hosted runner usage doesn't consume credits, so once you cross around 50,000 build minutes per month they pay for themselves quickly. The main constraint is that some CircleCI features (Docker layer caching, machine images) only work on cloud runners.
Are there hidden CircleCI costs?>
Three things to watch. (1) Concurrency: Performance includes 80 concurrent jobs, beyond that you pay $15 per additional concurrent slot. (2) Storage: artifacts and workspace files have a 1 GB free quota; extra storage is billed. (3) GPU machines: NVIDIA T4 instances exist but cost 80-200 credits per minute, easy to burn through Performance plan credits in hours.
How does CircleCI compare to GitHub Actions on price?>
On raw Linux compute the two are now identical: CircleCI Medium is $0.006 per minute and GitHub Actions Linux 2-core is $0.006 per minute since the January 2026 cut. The difference is the fixed costs: GitHub Team charges $4 per seat with 3,000 included minutes, while CircleCI Performance charges $15 per active user beyond the first five with a 30,000-credit pool. For macOS-heavy workloads GitHub Actions is clearly cheaper per minute ($0.062 vs $0.12 on M4 Pro Medium). Run your actual numbers through the calculator on the homepage before committing.