Linear Review

Linear is an issue tracker built for engineers first. It does fewer things than Jira or ClickUp, on purpose: issues, projects, cycles and roadmaps for software teams, with strong defaults instead of endless configuration.

The pricing question is mostly about when you leave Free, because the 250-issue cap is reached quickly by any active team, and then which of the two paid plans your org chart needs. This review prices each plan for real team sizes, separates the seat price from the AI usage billed on top, and sets Linear against four alternatives.

Toolradar data: Linear is listed as an alternative to 35 other tools on Toolradar, second of 23 bug-tracking tools, and 17 of those 23 tools offer a free plan, as of October 2026.

That cross-shopping count is why the alternatives below matter: buyers rarely look at Linear alone.

How we compared: Linear's pricing page, its billing and AI credits documentation, and the pricing pages of Jira, Shortcut, GitHub and YouTrack, all read on October 19, 2026. We did not run a Linear workspace for this review.

Linear is a project and issue tracking tool built for product and engineering teams. Work is organized as issues inside teams, grouped into projects, scheduled in cycles (Linear's name for sprints) and rolled up into initiatives for longer-term goals. Linear says it is trusted by more than 40,000 companies.

Around that core sit the features that make it a planning tool rather than a bug list: customer requests linked to issues, triage with rules and SLAs, releases, dashboards and progress reports, API and webhook access, and import and export from other trackers. Intake can come from Slack, email or web forms.

The newer layer is AI. Every plan includes Linear's agent platform and Linear Agent, while Business adds Triage Intelligence, Code Intelligence and Loops, and paid plans can run coding sessions in which Linear Agent writes code and opens pull requests.

A workspace starts on Free with unlimited members, two teams, 250 issues and a 10 MB file upload limit. On Free every user is an admin, which is fine for a founding team and awkward once contractors join.

Basic removes the issue cap, raises the team limit to five, allows unlimited file uploads and adds admin roles. Business removes the team limit and adds private teams and guest accounts, Linear Insights, Linear Asks, Triage Intelligence, Code Intelligence, Loops and Zendesk and Intercom integrations.

Enterprise adds SAML and SCIM, granular admin controls, advanced org modeling, migration support and an account manager, on annual billing only.

Billing follows unsuspended users in any role. Linear's billing docs say users added mid-month are not charged until the following month, and users removed mid-month are not credited. Monthly and yearly billing are both offered on Basic and Business, but the pricing page prints only the yearly rates.

AI usage sits outside the seat. Coding sessions and Loops draw on a prepaid, workspace-level credit balance in US dollars: sandbox runtime costs $0.25 per 20-minute block plus model tokens at the provider's published rates, and a typical Loop run without a coding session costs $0.07 to $0.20.

Top-ups have a minimum amount, credits expire 12 months after purchase and added funds are non-refundable. Other AI features are included in the plan.

Prices below were read on Linear's pricing page on October 19, 2026. Yearly totals are our arithmetic from the per-user yearly rate; Linear's billing documentation confirms monthly billing is available on Basic and Business, but the pricing page prints only the yearly rates, so check the monthly rate in Linear's checkout before choosing it.

Free is $0 with unlimited members, 2 teams, 250 issues and 10 MB uploads. Basic is $10 per user a month billed yearly, $120 per user a year, with 5 teams, unlimited issues and admin roles. Business is $16 per user a month billed yearly, $192 per user a year, with unlimited teams, private teams, guests and the AI triage and insights features. Enterprise is priced on request and billed annually only.

Our cost table for a year on yearly billing: 10 users cost $1,200 on Basic or $1,920 on Business; 25 users cost $3,000 or $4,800; 50 users cost $6,000 or $9,600. The Business premium is $72 per user a year, so a 25-person team pays $1,800 more for private teams, guests and the AI triage layer.

Discounts are documented in Linear's billing docs: startups affiliated with a partner in its startup program get up to 6 months of Business free, full-time students get a year free for student-led projects, and university staff get 75% off Basic and Business.

Basic fits a startup or a single product team of up to five Linear teams that wants unlimited issues and admin roles without paying for org features it does not use. For a 10-person team the yearly bill is modest next to engineering salaries, and the speed of the tool is the point.

Business fits a company with several engineering teams, contractors who need guest access, or a support team that files issues from Zendesk or Intercom. The private-teams line is the usual trigger: once security or HR work needs to be hidden from the rest of the company, Basic stops working.

Skip Linear if non-technical teams must plan their work in the same tool, if you rely on heavily customized Jira workflows, or if your code and issues already live together in GitHub and a free tracker is enough.