CircleCI licensing is the set of terms under which Circle Internet Services, Inc., trading as CircleCI, sells its continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform. The commercial model is built on credits. CircleCI describes credit-based usage plans that let customers “pay only for what you use”, and describes credits as “the unit of compute consumption”, consumed by the second at a rate per minute that depends on the machine type and resource class of each job.[1] The same credits also pay for active users, for add-on features such as Docker layer caching, and for network and storage beyond plan allowances.[2]
The cloud product is offered in three tiers, Free, Performance and Scale. A fourth offering, CircleCI Server, is an on-premises installation sold under a different agreement.[1][9] Self-hosted runners let customers run jobs on their own infrastructure with either the cloud or Server.[6]
Editions
CircleCI publishes the cloud plans on its pricing page and in its documentation. Scale and Server are quoted individually.
| Plan | How CircleCI describes it | Deeper article |
|---|---|---|
| Free | USD 0 per month, 30,000 credits a month, up to 5 active users, community support[2][4] | CircleCI cloud plans and credits |
| Performance | Starts at USD 15 per month; 30,000 credits included, then USD 15 per 25,000 credits; 5 active users included, additional users at USD 15 per month[2] | same |
| Scale | Annual billing, customizable plans, all resource classes including GPU, no concurrency limit except macOS, SSO and config policies[1][2] | same |
| Server | On-premises or private-cloud installation on Kubernetes, custom user seat count, expanded support SLAs[1] | CircleCI Server licensing |
| Self-hosted runner | Machine or container runner on the customer’s own infrastructure, available on every plan[1][6] | CircleCI self-hosted runners and usage charges |
The tier shapes which features and limits apply. For example, IP ranges and the unregistered-user spend block start at Performance, and budget controls, SSO and config policies are Scale features.[1][2] Catalog rows: Free plan, Performance plan, Scale plan, Server plan.
Metrics
CircleCI uses several units at once, and a bill can combine all of them.
| Unit | What it counts | Catalog row |
|---|---|---|
| Credit | Compute time, users and add-ons, charged at USD 0.0006 per credit on the Performance package price[4] | Credit |
| Active user | A registered or unregistered user who triggers compute on a non-open-source project in a billing period[5] | Active user |
| Resource class rate | Credits per minute for each environment and size, from 5 credits for a small x86 Docker job to 1,000 for the largest GPU class[3] | Resource class credit rate |
| Concurrent job runs | Jobs running at once, 30, 80 or unlimited depending on plan[2] | Concurrent job runs |
| Runner task | The unit of self-hosted runner concurrency; a job with parallelism n is n tasks[2] | Self-hosted runner task |
| Storage and network | Gigabytes retained and, for runners only, gigabytes restored, at 420 credits per GB beyond the allowance[3][12] | Storage, Runner network egress |
| Server user licence | A Sign-on, one named account per licensed User[9] | Server user licence |
The agreements add their own term. In the Software as a Service Agreement a “User” is “a discrete instance that Customer authorizes to run Jobs”, determined from identity signals, and the definition warns that in limited cases several identity signals from one person can produce duplicate counts.[8] That sits next to the product-documentation notion of an active user and explains why reconciliation against the CircleCI Plan Usage screen matters.
Counting / floors
Credits. CircleCI rounds up to the nearest second, then to the nearest credit.[4] A credit package is USD 15 for 25,000 credits on Performance, charged at the start of the month, and paid credits roll over and expire after one year.[4] Free-plan credits expire after a month and do not roll over.[2]
Users. The first five active users are included on the Free and Performance plans. Each additional active user is charged at 25,000 credits per month on Performance, and the price list shows 40,000 credits per user per month for Scale.[3][5] Unregistered users count as active users, because each is mapped to one.[5]
Included allowances. The pricing page lists 1, 5 and 50 GB of network and 2, 2 and 200 GB of storage included on Free, Performance and Scale.[2] Overage is charged at 420 credits per GB.[2]
Server. The Software License Agreement licenses “the number of Users provided under such license”, each with a unique Sign-on, and defines the Server Plan as “the minimum indivisible cohort of licenses and Support”.[9] The Server pricing page lists 30 user seats as included.[14] Details are in CircleCI Server licensing.
Virtualization & partitioning
CircleCI does not license by processor, core, socket or host, so the virtualization and hard-partitioning rules described in virtualization and partitioning do not apply to the cloud plans. Compute is metered by resource class: the same job costs more credits on a larger machine, but the machine is a unit of billing rather than a licensed asset.[3] For a Server installation the customer supplies the Kubernetes cluster and the compute for jobs, and the licence is counted in user Sign-ons rather than in cores or hosts.[7][9]
Cloud / BYOL
Most customers consume CircleCI as a hosted service, so bring-your-own-licence questions do not arise for the cloud plans. Two deployment variations matter to licence managers. Self-hosted runners run customer-owned machines, in which case “runner execution itself does not require credits”, although at least one credit is needed on the account in case jobs use storage or networking.[6] CircleCI Server moves the control plane into the customer’s own Kubernetes cluster and is governed by the Software License Agreement and a License Key.[7][9]
Programs
- Open source credit allowance. Free-plan organizations with public repositories can use up to 400,000 credits a month on Linux open source builds, and users on open source projects are not active users.[4][5]
- Startup program. Up to USD 20,000 in compute credits for eligible early-stage startups, governed by the SaaS Agreement.[11]
- Credit refill options. Performance automatic refill, Scale credit auto-refill, Prepaid billing and Fixed-date credit allocation govern how a balance is topped up.[4]
- Usage controls. Prevent unregistered user spend, Custom storage retention and Budget controls limit spend.[1][12]
- Evaluations. No-charge trials are for internal evaluation, not production, and are limited to thirty days unless an Order says otherwise.[8]
These programs are covered in CircleCI terms, open source and programs.
Audits and compliance
The SaaS Agreement and the Software License Agreement retrieved for this article do not contain a section on audit rights. Compliance risk therefore arises mainly through billing: usage is measured by CircleCI’s own metering and shown on the Plan Usage pages, and fees “for overages” are “charged in arrears”.[8] The Software License Agreement restricts tampering with the License Key and licence registration, and requires the customer, on termination, to cease use and return or destroy the software.[9] The Server agreement also says the software reports Usage Data and that the customer must not block the communication, although the current Server 4.10 documentation says that release “does not include the data collection service”.[9]
Out of scope
- Negotiated Order forms, enterprise agreements and partner or marketplace pricing, which are not public.
- Scale and Server prices. CircleCI publishes no price for either; the Scale plan is “billed annually” and quoted on request.[2]
- Customer-side infrastructure costs for runners and Server, such as Kubernetes nodes and object storage, which depend on the customer’s cloud provider.[7]
- Third-party tools that CircleCI integrates with, for example version control hosts, which carry their own licences.