ClickUp pricing: how the plans differ once your team starts paying
A small team on ClickUp usually reaches the pricing page for one of three reasons. The workspace ran out of storage, an automation stopped firing, or someone opened the Gantt view and saw it was only a trial. Each of those points to a different plan, and the monthly sticker price is only part of the bill once AI and billing cycles are added.
The short answer, taken from the ClickUp pricing page as it read on October 8, 2026: Free Forever costs nothing, Unlimited is $7 per user per month billed yearly or $10 billed monthly, Business is $12 billed yearly or $19 billed monthly, and Enterprise is quoted by sales. AI is a separate line on top. The rest of this article explains which limit pushes a team to which plan, and what the yearly total looks like for a real team size.
The four plans and what each one costs
All prices are in US dollars, per user per month. The page says yearly billing saves up to 30 percent on the main plans.
| Plan | Billed yearly | Billed monthly | Where it fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Forever | $0 | $0 | Trying ClickUp with a light workload |
| Unlimited | $7 | $10 | Small teams that need storage, Gantt and time tracking |
| Business | $12 | $19 | Teams that lean on automations, dashboards and timelines |
| Enterprise | Contact sales | Contact sales | SAML SSO, audit logs, data residency, HIPAA |
Three billing rules on the same page matter more than they first appear.
An upgrade applies to the whole workspace. ClickUp's FAQ states that upgrading means upgrading every member in the workspace. There is no way to pay for three power users and leave the rest on Free inside the same workspace.
Payment is per workspace. A company that runs two workspaces pays for each one separately.
New paid users are prorated. Adding someone mid cycle is billed for the time left in the cycle. If the team cancels, the current plan lasts until the end of the billing period unless an immediate downgrade is chosen, and the page offers a full refund if requested within 30 days of purchase.
Free Forever: where the ceiling actually is
Free Forever has no cap on members or tasks, which is unusual in this category. Guests are also free, but they get full create and edit rights that cannot be restricted. For a team that invites clients, that alone can be the reason to leave Free.
The limits most teams meet first, as listed in the full comparison table:
- 60 MB of file storage for the whole workspace. Tasks do not count against it, only attachments do.
- 5 Spaces, with up to 40 Lists and 100 Folders in each Space.
- 5 active automation rules and 100 automation executions.
- 1 Form, 3 Whiteboards, 1 Wiki and 2 Teams (user groups).
- Chat message history kept for 30 days, and the Activity view kept for 1 day.
Several features carry the word "Trial" in the Free column instead of a checkmark. Gantt, Timeline, Workload, Custom Fields, Time Tracking, Goals, Dashboards and Portfolios are among them. ClickUp explains these as "uses": a fixed allowance meant as a demonstration. Uses add up across the workspace and do not reset. When the allowance runs out, existing data stays, but new items cannot be created or edited with that feature.
That last rule is what catches teams. A Gantt chart that worked in week one can become read only in week four, not because a monthly quota rolled over but because the trial allowance is spent for good.
Unlimited: the plan most small teams end up on
Unlimited lifts the limits that end Free for most teams. It adds unlimited Spaces, Folders and Forms, unlimited storage, unlimited Gantt charts, unlimited integrations and custom fields, native time tracking, goals and portfolio management, resource management, ClickUp Chat and Email in ClickUp.
Its numbers, from the comparison table:
- Up to 200 Lists and 200 Folders per Space
- 500 active automation rules and 1,000 automation executions
- 10 Whiteboards and 3 Teams
- Activity view history of 7 days
- API calls at 100 per minute
Guest access changes here. Paid plans include a set number of external guest seats with permission control. On Unlimited, a workspace with one paid user gets 5 guest seats, and each additional paid user adds 2 more. Read only guests are unlimited. People from inside the organization cannot be added as guests: ClickUp bills them as paid users.
What Unlimited does not fully include is worth knowing before committing. Timeline and Workload views still show "Trial" in the Unlimited column. A team that plans capacity across people, or wants a timeline across several projects, will find those on Business.
Business: automations, timelines and sign-in controls
Business costs $12 billed yearly or $19 billed monthly. The gap between the two billing cycles is the widest of any plan, so the yearly decision matters most here.
What it adds over Unlimited, according to the plan card:
- Unlimited dashboards with advanced cards
- Unlimited message history and Activity views
- Unlimited Timeline views
- Webhooks and automation integrations
- 5,000 automation executions per month, with unlimited active rules
- Mind mapping and private whiteboards
- Custom exporting
- Sprint points and sprint reporting
- Portfolio workload management
- Google SSO and SMS two factor authentication
- Unlimited proofing on images and PDFs
Lists per Space rise to 400 and Folders per Space to 400. Teams rise to 10. Guest seats rise to 10 for a one user workspace, plus 5 for each additional paid user.
The honest test for Business is the automation count. A team that has moved status changes, assignment and notifications into rules can pass 1,000 executions a month quickly, and the jump to 5,000 is the main thing it is paying for. A team that uses ClickUp mainly as a shared task list rarely needs the step up.
Enterprise: when security review decides the plan
Enterprise has no published price. It adds the features an IT or security team usually asks for: SAML SSO and SCIM provisioning, audit logs, session management, custom roles, data residency, custom branding and an Enterprise API. MSA and HIPAA agreements are available. Automation executions rise to 250,000 per month and API calls to 10,000 per minute.
Enterprise also includes live onboarding training and a customer success manager. For most teams of under 20 people, nothing on this list is required by the work itself. It becomes the plan when a customer contract or internal policy names one of these controls, most often SSO or audit logs.
The AI line on top of the plan
AI is priced separately from the four plans above, which is where many budgets go wrong. On October 8, 2026 the AI section of the pricing page showed:
| AI plan | Yearly billing selected | Monthly billing selected | Monthly credits included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Forever | $0 | $0 | Trial access to advanced AI features |
| Brain AI | $9 per user | $14 per user | 1,500 AI Super Credits per user |
| Everything AI | $28 per user | $33 per user | 5,000 AI Super Credits per user |
Brain AI covers the assistant, AI chat with a choice of Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini models, AI writing and enterprise search. Everything AI adds the AI notetaker, AI fields, AI automations and dashboards, image generation and more use of Super Agents. Credits are pooled across the workspace and used by agents, AI fields, automations and image generation. More credits cost $10 per 10,000.
Because the AI plans are priced per user, adding them to a whole team can cost more than the base plan itself. Everything AI on yearly billing is more than double the price of Business on yearly billing.
What a year costs for a team of 8
The table below multiplies the published per user prices by 8 people for 12 months. It assumes every member is on the same plan, which matches ClickUp's rule that an upgrade covers the whole workspace. Taxes are not included.
| Setup | Yearly billing | Monthly billing |
|---|---|---|
| Unlimited only | $672 | $960 |
| Business only | $1,152 | $1,824 |
| Unlimited + Brain AI for all 8 | $1,536 | $2,304 |
| Business + Brain AI for all 8 | $2,016 | $3,168 |
| Business + Everything AI for all 8 | $3,840 | $5,040 |
Two patterns stand out. First, on Business, monthly billing costs $672 more per year than yearly billing for the same 8 people. Second, the AI choice moves the total more than the base plan choice does. A team comparing Unlimited and Business is looking at a $480 difference a year on yearly billing, while adding Everything AI to Business adds $2,688.
A team that wants to compare these totals with tools that price per seat differently can line them up against the comparison page, and the monday.com comparison covers a tool sold in seat bundles rather than per user.
Deciding which plan the team actually needs
Most teams can decide by asking which limit they hit first.
- Storage or attachments. If files are part of the work, 60 MB on Free will not last. Unlimited removes the cap.
- Gantt or time tracking. Both are trials on Free and fully available on Unlimited.
- Client access. If outside people need restricted rights, Free cannot do it. Unlimited is the first plan with guest permission control.
- Automation volume. Count the rules that fire daily and multiply by working days. Past about 1,000 a month, Business is the plan that fits.
- Timeline or workload across projects. These are full features only from Business.
- SSO, audit logs or HIPAA. Enterprise.
Then settle the billing cycle. A team that has used ClickUp for a few months and is unlikely to leave saves 30 percent or more by paying yearly. A team still testing can start monthly and switch once the workflow has settled, keeping in mind that the 30 day refund window applies from purchase.
Discounts are worth checking before paying list price. The same FAQ points nonprofits to a nonprofit discount, students, educators and school administrators to an academic discount, and startups to an application form for startup credit. Payment is by major credit card, and bank transfer is accepted only for Enterprise orders above a minimum.
Finally, treat AI as its own decision. Try the free AI access, count who actually uses it, and price the AI plan against that number rather than the whole headcount.
What to change first
Before upgrading, list the one limit that is blocking the team today and match it to the cheapest plan that removes it. If the team is small and mainly needs boards, Gantt and chat without per user AI pricing, Pinateca is free for up to 5 people and 10 boards and is worth comparing on the same spreadsheet.
Q1. Can I upgrade only some people in a ClickUp workspace to a paid plan?
No. ClickUp's pricing FAQ states that upgrading means upgrading the entire workspace, including all members. Outside collaborators can be added as guests within the guest seat allowance, but people from inside the organization are billed as paid users.
Q2. What happens when a "Trial" feature runs out on the Free plan?
ClickUp calls these allowances "uses". They add up across the workspace and do not reset. When the limit is reached, existing data is kept, but new items cannot be created or edited with that feature until the workspace moves to a plan that includes it.
Q3. Is ClickUp AI included in the Unlimited or Business plan?
The main plans include only limited AI usage. Full AI is sold separately as Brain AI or Everything AI, priced per user per month. On October 8, 2026 the pricing page showed Brain AI at $9 with yearly billing and $14 with monthly billing, and Everything AI at $28 and $33.
Q4. How much cheaper is yearly billing on ClickUp?
On the main plans, Unlimited drops from $10 to $7 per user per month and Business from $19 to $12. The page describes this as saving up to 30 percent. For a team of 8 on Business, the difference is $672 a year.
Q5. Can I get a refund if ClickUp does not work out for the team?
The pricing page describes a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee with a full refund if requested within 30 days of purchase. After cancelling, the current plan stays active until the end of the billing cycle unless an immediate downgrade is chosen.