prices verified 2026-04-27independent / no vendor sponsorship
CI/CD cost calculator
./compare --platforms=6
Stop reading vendor pricing pages. Plug in your builds per day, average build minutes, parallelism, and team size, and see real monthly costs across GitHub Actions, GitLab CI, CircleCI, Buildkite, Bitbucket Pipelines, and self-hosted Jenkins.
~/cicdcalculator/run --compare
live
presets:
$ compute = 20,160 build mins / month$ assumes 21 working days / month
Monthly cost comparison
sorted ascending by monthly spend / linked to vendor pricing pages
cheapest: GitHub Actions / $252/mo
GitHub ActionsPASS / cheapest
Team plan ($80) + 17,160 mins @ $0.010/min
# rate: $0.008 + $0.002/min Linux 2-core
# 3,000 free Linux mins on Team plan
$252
/ month
Linux 2-core baseline. Platform fee $0.002/min added March 2026. Self-hosted runners free.
Bitbucket Pipelines
Premium ($120) + 16,660 extra mins @ $0.010/min
# rate: $6/user + $0.01/min Linux
# 3,500 mins / month per workspace on Premium
$287
/ month
Tightly coupled with Jira. Best value if your stack is already Atlassian.
CircleCI
Performance ($300) + 0 extra credits @ $0.0006
# rate: $15/user + $0.0006/credit
# 30,000 free credits / user / month
$300
/ month
Medium resource class. Larger machines burn proportionally more credits.
Buildkite
20 seats @ $15 ($300) + 8 agents @ ~$30 ($240)
# rate: $15/user + your own infrastructure
# Developer plan free up to 5 users + 3 agents
$540
/ month
Bring-your-own-compute. No per-minute fees. Agent cost = your AWS / GCP bill.
GitLab CI
Premium ($580) + 10,160 extra mins @ $0.010/min
# rate: $29/user + $0.01/min over allowance
# 10,000 CI mins / user / month on Premium
$682
/ month
Premium tier baseline. Self-hosted runners can run free against shared compute.
Jenkins (self-hosted)
Controller + 8 agents (~$310) + admin allowance (~$800)
# rate: Free software + your infra
# Software is open source (MIT). Everything else costs.
$1,110
/ month
Software free. Infra estimate uses public AWS on-demand rates. Admin time is typical, not vendor-quoted.
$ Estimates use vendor-published pricing (verified April 2026). Enterprise discounts, regional rates, and resource-class choice will move the numbers. Use this as a starting point, not a quote.
Vendor build-minute rates / 2026 reference
# Linux 2-core baseline. Source: each vendor's public pricing page.
| Platform | Linux rate | Free / included | Seat | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GitHub Actions | $0.008 + $0.002/min | 3,000 mins (Team) | $4 / user | Platform fee added Mar 2026 |
| GitLab CI | $0.01/min over allowance | 10,000 mins (Premium) | $29 / user | Self-hosted runners free |
| CircleCI | 10 credits/min Linux med | 30,000 credits/user | $15 / user | Credits at $0.0006 |
| Bitbucket Pipelines | $0.01/min over included | 3,500 mins / workspace | $6 / user | Bundled with Jira |
| Buildkite | n/a (you bring compute) | 3 agents free (Dev plan) | $15 / user | Pricing scales by parallelism |
| Jenkins | $0 software | Unlimited self-hosted | $0 | Pay infrastructure + ops time |
Deep dives
/comparison
Platform comparison
All 6 platforms side-by-side at 5, 20, and 50 dev team sizes. Feature matrix, ecosystem fit, hidden costs.
/optimization
Cost optimization
10 proven techniques to cut CI/CD spend: caching, test splitting, conditional jobs, right-sizing runners.
/migration
Migration estimator
How much does it cost to switch CI/CD platforms? Calculator for engineering hours and timeline by team size.
/self-hosted
Self-hosted vs cloud
Where the break-even point sits. Real infrastructure costs for self-hosted Jenkins, GitLab Runner, Drone CI.
/github-actions
GitHub Actions deep dive
Free tier limits, runner pricing, the new platform fee, and how to keep your bill under $500.
/jenkins
Jenkins TCO
Free software, real costs. AWS / GCP estimates, plugin maintenance, when CloudBees is worth it.
Frequently Asked Questions
# click any question to expand
How much does CI/CD really cost?>
For a 20-developer team running 100-150 builds per day at 8 minute average, expect $300 to $1,500 per month on hosted CI/CD platforms. The cheapest option is usually self-hosted Jenkins on small cloud VMs (around $200-400/mo for infra) but that excludes engineering time, which is rarely cheap. Hosted SaaS gets you out of plumbing work, costs more, and scales linearly with build minutes.
Which CI/CD platform is cheapest?>
It depends on usage shape. For low-volume Linux builds, GitHub Actions on the Team plan is usually cheapest because the free 3,000 minutes per month covers most small teams. For high-volume builds with consistent throughput, Buildkite or self-hosted Jenkins beat per-minute platforms once you cross around 50,000 build minutes per month. CircleCI gets pricey on macOS, GitLab CI is competitive at any scale if you stay inside the included allowance.
Why does runner OS matter so much?>
Linux is the baseline price on every platform. Windows runners cost about 2x as much. macOS runners cost 10x. If you're building iOS or macOS apps, your CI bill will dwarf your colleagues' Linux pipelines. Self-hosted macOS runners (a Mac mini in a closet) are often the only way to avoid burning money on cloud macOS minutes.
Are these prices accurate?>
Numbers come from each vendor's public pricing page, verified April 2026. Real spend depends on your resource class, region, enterprise discounts (often 10-30% off list at six-figure ARR), and how often jobs queue or fail. Use the calculator as a sanity-check before sales calls, not a quote.
Should I move to self-hosted runners?>
Self-hosted runners save money once you exceed 50,000 build minutes per month consistently. Below that threshold the engineering time to run them rarely pays back. The right answer for most mid-size teams is hybrid: hosted runners for the long tail of slow jobs and PR checks, self-hosted for hot paths and macOS.
What about Jenkins vs everyone else?>
Jenkins is free software, but free software still runs on servers and needs operators. A typical mid-size Jenkins setup costs $200-500/month in infrastructure plus 4 to 20 hours per month of admin time. If your team already runs Kubernetes and treats Jenkins as cattle, total cost is competitive. If a single engineer is babysitting plugin upgrades, you're paying more than GitHub Actions in salary alone.