Buildkite vs CircleCI Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
Personal
- Free forever; no credit card, no expiry
- 3 concurrent jobs, 1 user, 90-day retention
- Community support
Pro
Popular- Unlimited users and test executions
- All agent sizes + Mac M4, cache volumes
- Priority email support and SSO
Enterprise
- Premium support SLA available
- SCIM/SAML/ADFS, audit logs, build exports, pipeline templates
- Test Engine usage included
- Advanced governance & control
Free
- Up to 6,000 build minutes
- Up to 5 active users/month
- Docker, Windows, Linux, Arm, macOS, self hosted runners
- 30x concurrency
Performance
- 30,000 credits included free
- 5 active users
- Larger resources
- 80x concurrency
- Optional 8x5 support add-on
Scale
- Customizable plans
- Enterprise controls
- Largest resource classes
- All environments, even GPU
- Optional 24/7 support add-on
Buildkite vs CircleCI FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- CircleCI is the cheaper option, starting at $15/mo vs $30/mo for Buildkite.
- Can I use either one for free?
- Both offer free plans, so you can try each without paying. Start with whichever fits your workflow better and upgrade when you hit the limits.
- How do they charge?
- Different approach here. Buildkite uses hybrid pricing, while CircleCI goes with usage-based. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. Buildkite: Sitting mid-market against CircleCI and GitHub Actions, Buildkite isn't fighting on price — it's picking off engineering orgs that want hybrid/self-hosted agent control without going full enterprise-only like Harness. The free tier and no-CC trial signal they're trying to hook technical users first, then sell the org later. CircleCI: CircleCI sits mid-pack against GitHub Actions and GitLab CI — pricier than bundled-in options for teams already living in GitHub, but positioned as the specialist tool for orgs that want dedicated CI/CD performance without going full enterprise DevOps platform. They're chasing teams who've outgrown Jenkins or hit friction with GitHub Actions' concurrency limits but aren't ready for GitLab's whole-lifecycle price tag.
Still deciding? See the best Buildkite alternatives or the best CircleCI alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
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