CircleCI is a leading continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform that automates software builds, tests, and deployments. It offers multiple pricing tiers: a Free plan with 6,000 build credits per month, a Performance plan at $15/mo with 80,000 credits, a Scale plan at $2,000/mo with 400,000 credits, and custom enterprise pricing for large organizations. CircleCI supports config-as-code pipelines via config.yml and integrates deeply with GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab.
CircleCI is a developer tools platform founded in 2011 with a hiltonsoftware Score of 76/100. CircleCI pricing starts at $15/mo/month with a free plan available. CircleCI serves 2M+ users and competes with GitHub, GitLab, and Vercel in the developer tools market. Key CircleCI features include Docker/machine/macOS/Windows executors, Parallelism and concurrency controls, and Resource classes for CPU/RAM tuning. hiltonsoftware.co rates CircleCI 4.4/5 based on user ratings (40%), feature depth (25%), value for money (20%), market presence (10%), and growth trajectory (5%).
DevOps teams and engineering organizations looking for a fast, scalable CI/CD platform with deep container support, powerful parallelism, and a rich ecosystem of reusable orbs for automating complex build and deployment workflows.
Complete pricing breakdown for all CircleCI plans. Updated March 2026.
Side-by-side pricing and feature comparison of the top Git hosting platforms.
| Feature | CircleCI | GitHub Actions | Jenkins |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free Tier | 6,000 credits/mo | 2,000 min/mo | Free (self-hosted) |
| Starting Price | $15/mo | $4/user/mo (with GitHub Team) | Free (hosting costs apply) |
| Cloud/SaaS | Yes | Yes | No (self-hosted only) |
| macOS Builds | Yes (all plans) | Yes (limited) | Yes (with Mac hardware) |
| Docker Layer Caching | Yes (paid) | Yes | Manual setup |
| Parallelism | Excellent (test splitting) | Matrix builds | Parallel stages |
| Ecosystem | Orbs marketplace | 15,000+ actions | 1,800+ plugins |
| Best For | Fast Docker builds | GitHub-native CI/CD | Full control/self-hosted |
Yes, CircleCI offers a free plan with 6,000 build credits per month, enough for approximately 1,000 minutes of builds on medium Docker containers. The free plan supports up to 30 users and 1 concurrent job. It includes Docker executor, orbs marketplace, and community support. For larger teams, paid plans start at $15/month.
CircleCI Performance plan costs $15/month base plus usage-based credits. It includes 80,000 credits/month and 5 concurrent jobs. Scale plan starts at $2,000/month with 400,000 credits, unlimited concurrency, self-hosted runners, and SAML SSO. Enterprise pricing is custom. Credits are consumed based on resource class and execution time.
CircleCI is better for teams needing advanced CI/CD features like Docker layer caching, parallelism with automatic test splitting, and multi-platform builds (Docker, machine, macOS, Windows). GitHub Actions is better for teams already on GitHub who want native integration and a larger action marketplace. CircleCI offers more flexible resource classes; GitHub Actions offers simpler pricing.
CircleCI charges based on build credits consumed during pipeline execution. Different resource classes cost different credit amounts per minute: small Docker (5 credits/min), medium (10), large (20), xlarge (40). macOS and Windows executors cost more. The Performance plan includes 80,000 credits/month; additional credits cost $0.0006 each. This model lets you optimize costs by choosing appropriate resource sizes.
Yes, CircleCI supports self-hosted runners on the Scale and Enterprise plans. Self-hosted runners let you run jobs on your own infrastructure, which is useful for compliance requirements, specialized hardware access, or cost optimization for compute-heavy workloads. Runners support Linux, macOS, and Windows and can be installed on bare metal, VMs, or Kubernetes clusters.
Reviewed by Sarah Mitchell, Cloud & Developer Tools Editor. Last updated: March 2026. Pricing verified. Methodology