Free Feb 2026 Pricing All Resource Classes

CircleCI Cost Calculator

Calculate CircleCI credits and monthly cost for any resource class. Compare Linux, ARM, Windows, and macOS. Find the cheapest configuration for your pipeline.

Plan

Executor Type

Resource Class

Parallelism

1 job

15101520

Parallel jobs multiply credit usage linearly.

Docker Layer Caching (DLC)

Enable Docker Layer Caching

+200 credits per job run

DLC caches Docker image layers between builds. Costs 200 credits per run but can save 5-15 minutes of Docker pull time per build.

Build Configuration

Build duration (minutes) 10 min

115304560

Builds per day 10 / day

1255075100

Working days / month 22 days

Runs in your browser. No data stored.

Cost Summary

Linux Medium

Per Build

0 cr

Monthly Credits

Monthly Cost

$0.00

Yearly Cost

$0.00

Free credits usage 0 / 30,000 credits

Compute credits 0 cr

Total builds/month

Credits per minute

Days until free empty

30+

Credit packs needed

0 packs

Within free tier

Your workflows fit within the 30,000 free credits this month.

All Resource Classes — Monthly Cost Comparison

CircleCI vs GitHub Actions — Same Workflow

CircleCI Medium

$0.00

per month

10 cr/min = $0.006/min

GitHub Actions Pro

$0.00

per month (incl. $4 plan)

$0.006/min Linux —

Linux Medium: both platforms charge same rate per minute. CircleCI wins for Windows builds, GitHub wins for macOS builds.

Docker Layer Caching — ROI Analysis

DLC cost/build

200 cr

$0.12

Break-even save

20 min

at this resource class

If saves 5 min/build

$0.00

net monthly saving

DLC is worth it if your Docker pull time exceeds the break-even save time above per build. Typical Docker image pulls range from 2 to 15 minutes.

Optimization Tips — Reduce Credit Usage

Use parallelism to reduce wall time Faster builds

Split tests into parallel jobs to reduce overall build duration. Credit cost stays the same (parallelism × credits = same total) but builds finish faster, improving developer velocity.

parallelism: 4 # splits test suite into 4 parallel jobs

Cache dependencies between builds Save 2-5 min

Use the built-in cache step to persist npm, pip, or Maven dependencies between builds. Saves re-downloading on every run.

- restore_cache: keys: - v1-deps-{{ checksum "package.json" }}

Use path filtering to skip unnecessary builds Reduce frequency

Only trigger expensive jobs when relevant files change. Skip CI for docs-only commits.

when: condition: not: matches: pattern: "^docs/.*" value: << pipeline.git.branch >>

Right-size your resource class Most overlooked

Using Large or X-Large when Medium would suffice doubles or quadruples your credit usage. Check your build memory usage — if it stays under 4GB, Medium is enough. Only upgrade when builds are CPU or memory constrained.

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CircleCI Full Pricing Reference — February 2026

Official Pricing

Linux x86 / ARM

Class	Specs	Cr/min
small	1 CPU / 2 GB	5
medium	2 CPU / 4 GB	10
medium+	3 CPU / 6 GB	15
large	4 CPU / 8 GB	20
xlarge	8 CPU / 16 GB	40
2xlarge	16 CPU / 32 GB	80
2xlarge+	20 CPU / 40 GB	100
arm.medium	2 CPU / 8 GB	13
arm.large	4 CPU / 16 GB	26
arm.xlarge	8 CPU / 32 GB	52
arm.2xlarge	16 CPU / 64 GB	104

Windows + macOS

Class	Specs	Cr/min
win.medium	2 CPU / 7.5 GB	10
win.large	4 CPU / 15 GB	20
win.xlarge	8 CPU / 32 GB	100
win.2xlarge	16 CPU / 64 GB	200
macos.m1.medium	4 CPU M1 / 8 GB	100
macos.m1.large	8 CPU M1 / 12 GB	150

1 credit =$0.0006

25,000 credits =$15.00

Free credits/month =30,000

Open source/month =400,000

Docker Layer Caching =+200 cr/job

Frequently Asked Questions

CircleCI uses a credit-based billing system instead of direct per-minute charges. Each resource class consumes a fixed number of credits per minute — a Medium Linux machine uses 10 credits per minute. One credit costs $0.0006, so credits are sold in packs of 25,000 for $15. Every account gets 30,000 free credits per month that reset on the billing cycle. Credits purchased on paid plans roll over for up to one year. On the free plan, unused credits expire monthly.

For Linux Medium builds, both charge the same rate — $0.006 per minute. CircleCI free tier gives 30,000 credits equivalent to 3,000 Linux Medium minutes, while GitHub Actions Pro gives 3,000 minutes — identical. For Windows builds CircleCI is cheaper ($0.006 vs $0.010 per minute on GitHub). For macOS CircleCI is more expensive ($0.060 vs $0.048). The real advantage of CircleCI is built-in features like Docker Layer Caching, more resource class granularity, and better parallelism controls.

DLC costs 200 credits per job ($0.12). On a Medium Linux machine at 10 credits per minute, 200 credits equals 20 minutes. So DLC only saves money if it reduces Docker pull time by more than 20 minutes per build — which is rare. However if you use a larger resource class with more credits per minute, the break-even point is lower. DLC is most valuable for large multi-layer Docker images that take 10-15 minutes to pull, when your resource class is Large or higher.

Yes. CircleCI offers 400,000 free credits per month for open source projects — more than 13x the standard free tier of 30,000 credits. This is equivalent to 40,000 minutes on a Linux Medium machine. To qualify your repository must be public and you need to apply through the CircleCI open source program. This makes CircleCI extremely competitive for open source projects compared to GitHub Actions which offers unlimited minutes on public repos.

Parallelism splits a single job into multiple identical containers running simultaneously. If you set parallelism 4 on a 10-minute test job, it runs as 4 jobs of about 2.5 minutes each — taking 2.5 minutes of wall time but consuming 4 × 2.5 × 10 credits = 100 credits total, same as the original single job of 10 minutes. Concurrency is the number of different jobs that can run at the same time across your entire pipeline. Your plan determines your concurrency limit. Parallelism saves developer time without increasing credit cost.

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