True cost · Project management software
Linear true cost: the 36-month total
Linear costs $2,880 over 36 months on Basic at 10 members, billed annually, before 6 cost lines that sit outside the plan price.
What Linear costs over 36 months
Every figure below is Linear's own published rate, annualised and multiplied out over 36 months at 10 members. Where Linear publishes no rate, the row says so instead of guessing.
Billing Linear monthly instead of annually costs $100 a month rather than $80, a difference of $720 across the 36 months. That is the single largest lever on this page that costs nothing to pull.
The same plan at four team sizes
Linear charges per member, so the 36-month figure scales linearly with headcount. These are Basic totals, on annual billing, with no fees added.
1 tier is sales-led (Enterprise), so it carries no figure here.
Renewal sensitivity: three scenarios, not a forecast
Nobody knows what Linear charges in 2029. The table below is arithmetic on a rate you choose, not a prediction: it compounds the year-one total forward at 0%, 5% and 10% so you can see how much of the 36-month figure is exposed to a renewal you have not negotiated yet.
Scenario arithmetic on Linear's own published year-one figure. Uplift rates are illustrative inputs, not observed or predicted rates.
What sits outside the Linear list price
6 lines, sorted by when in the contract lifecycle they land. Lines marked as derived are arithmetic on Linear's own tier table rather than vendor prose.
Each line, what triggers it, and how to avoid it
Support and SLA
Stated on the pricing page: Enterprise security, priority support, and large-team procurement terms are custom.
What triggers it. Support is a separate product here. The Basic plan buys the software at $80 a month for 10 members; response times, named contacts and any uptime commitment are priced apart from it.
How to avoid it. If support is quoted as a percentage of licence, negotiate a cap in absolute money. A percentage compounds with every seat you add over three years.
Contract and commitment terms
Derived from the published tiers: Linear Basic is $100 a month billed monthly against $80 on annual commitment, a $720 difference over 36 months at 10 members.
What triggers it. Triggered at signature. The $80 a month for 10 members rate is conditional on the commitment. Take the flexible route and the headline price is not the price you get.
How to avoid it. Negotiate the exit, not just the entry: termination for convenience, a downgrade path, and what happens to prepaid money. Those clauses cost nothing at signature and everything later.
Unpublished pricing
Derived from the published tiers: 1 of 4 Linear tiers publish no price (Enterprise). No total on this page includes them.
What triggers it. Triggered by nothing you do. This is simply a number Linear does not publish. Every unpublished component is a hole in the $2,880 figure, which is built only from rates the vendor states.
How to avoid it. Ask for it in writing, itemised, before shortlisting. A vendor that will not put a number on a component at evaluation stage rarely gets more forthcoming after signature.
Trial and free-tier conversion
Derived from the published tiers: Linear publishes a free tier. Every 36-month figure above starts from the month you leave it, not from signup.
What triggers it. The clock, not a decision, triggers this one. Linear's free entry point ends on a date, and the $80 a month for 10 members rate starts whether or not anyone has finished evaluating.
How to avoid it. Ask for the trial to be extended to cover a full billing cycle of real use. Vendors grant this far more often than buyers ask.
Feature gated to a higher tier
Derived from the published tiers: Moving from Basic to Business costs a further $2,160 over 36 months at 10 members, which is 1.8x the entry total.
What triggers it. Triggered by needing one feature, not by growing. This is the mechanism that moves teams off Basic: a single requirement that only exists further up the ladder, at a rate that applies to every unit you buy.
How to avoid it. Test the gated feature during evaluation rather than trusting the comparison table. Capability names travel further than capabilities do.
Seat expansion
Derived from the published tiers: Five more members on Basic add $1,440 across 36 months, on top of the $2,880 above.
What triggers it. Triggered by hiring. Every figure above is priced at 10 members; this line is what each unit past that costs, and it compounds for the remainder of the term rather than the remainder of the month.
How to avoid it. Price your year-three headcount now, not today's. Negotiating the $2,880 commitment at the size you expect to be is how you avoid buying seats twice.
How that compares across project management software
The median project management software tool we track charges $9 a month at its cheapest paid tier. Re-expressed on the same basis as the figure above, 10 members for 36 months, that median works out at $3,240.
Linear lands $360 below that figure, 11.1%, measured across 30 tracked tools. A gap either way is a question, not a verdict: cheaper often means fewer included seats or a thinner support tier, and the fee lines below are where that difference usually reappears.
What changes at enterprise scale
Everything above prices the self-serve ladder. Enterprise sits off that ladder, which means the $2,880 figure is a floor for a large deployment rather than an estimate of one.
Business is the public benchmark against Jira Premium for product teams that prefer Linear's workflow.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Linear cost over three years?
$2,880 on Basic at 10 members, billed annually, which is $80 a month held flat for 36 months. That figure covers the subscription only.
Does paying Linear annually save money?
Yes. Monthly billing costs $100 a month against $80 on annual commitment, a difference of $720 over 36 months at 10 members.
What does Linear charge for outside the plan price?
6 lines: support and sla, contract and commitment terms, unpublished pricing, trial and free-tier conversion and 2 more. Each one is broken down above with what triggers it and how to avoid it.
Could Linear cost more at renewal?
Possibly, and nothing on this page predicts it. If the rate held flat the three-year total would be $2,880; at a hypothetical 10% a year it would be $3,177.60. Cap the uplift in the contract and the question stops mattering.
What does Linear cost for a team of 25?
$7,200 over 36 months on Basic, billed annually. Linear charges per member, so that scales directly with headcount.
Price Linear on your own numbers
This page holds the term axis. The pricing breakdown holds the seat axis: every tier, the per-seat calculator, and the same fee list against the monthly figure.
Sources and method
- List rates and fee disclosures: Linear official pricing page, verified 16 May 2026.
- 36-month totals: the published annual-equivalent rate multiplied by 36, at 10 members. No inflation, no discount, no fee estimates included.
- Renewal rows: scenario arithmetic on rates stated in the table. They are inputs, not observations.
- Category median: the cheapest paid monthly tier of every tool we track in the same category, re-expressed over 36 months.