CircleCI vs Portainer Pricing (2026)
How do these two stack up on price? Here's what each one costs, what you get, and where the value sits.
| CircleCI pricing | Portainer pricing | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts at | $15/mo | $1045/mo |
| Number of plans | 3 | 3 |
| Free plan | — | |
| Free trial | — | |
| Pricing model | usage-based | hybrid |
Price is one row. To weigh the features too, use our feature comparison template →
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 included free
- 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
Starter
- 5, 10, or 15 nodes
- Community support
- Up to 16 vCPUs per node
- Online purchase only, not via resellers
Scale
Popular- 5 to 25 nodes
- 9x5 next business day support
- Up to 24 vCPUs per node
- Vendor onboarding
- Available through resellers
Enterprise
- 32 to unlimited vCPUs per node
- Prioritized 9x5 support, 24/7 option
- Production and non-production nodes
- Customizable license agreement
- Assigned support engineer
- Security assessment report
- TAA compliance certificate
- Managed platform services option
CircleCI vs Portainer FAQ
- Which one is cheaper?
- CircleCI starts lower at $15/mo, compared to $1045/mo for Portainer.
- Can I use either one for free?
- CircleCI has a free plan. Portainer doesn't — though they do offer a free trial.
- How do they charge?
- Different approach here. CircleCI uses usage-based pricing, while Portainer goes with hybrid. That changes the math depending on your team size and usage.
- Which one is a better deal?
- Depends on what you need. CircleCI: Sitting in the middle of the CI/CD pack, undercutting some enterprise-first competitors on entry price while still using usage-based mechanics that can get expensive at scale. They're clearly fishing for teams that started on GitHub Actions or Jenkins and now need something more purpose-built without jumping straight to enterprise pricing. Portainer: At four-figures-a-month before you even hit Enterprise, Portainer is priced for infrastructure teams at mid-size to large companies, not solo devs or small startups — this isn't competing with free/cheap container UIs, it's going after teams who'll pay for a polished management layer across many nodes. The 15-node, 45-day extended trial for Enterprise signals they're chasing larger deployments where the sales cycle is longer and the node count matters more than feature checklists.
Still deciding? See the best CircleCI alternatives or the best Portainer alternatives, ranked with verified pricing.
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