AI Summary
About
Linear is an issue-tracking and project-planning tool built for software teams. Founded in 2019 by Karri Saarinen and Tuomas Artman, it became the default tracker for a generation of startups by pairing a fast, keyboard-driven interface with an opinionated workflow (“the Linear Method”). The live pricing page states Linear is “trusted by more than 37,000 companies” (up from 33,000 as of the prior capture), with logos including Vercel, Cursor, OpenAI, Coinbase, Cash App, and Ramp.
Linear sells a single product across four per-seat plans — Free, Basic, Business, and Enterprise — rather than a multi-product catalogue. It competes directly with Atlassian’s Jira and with Shortcut, Height, and GitHub Issues, positioning on speed and design polish rather than configurability. By 2025 the company was widely reported to be near $100M ARR.
Linear raised an $82M Series C in June 2025 at a $1.25B valuation, led by Accel with participation from Sequoia and others — funding that coincided with its push into AI Agents that can be assigned issues. The pricing story below is notable precisely because Linear shipped that AI capability without bolting on a usage meter: AI stays inside the per-seat price.
Pricing summary : How Linear’s per-seat freemium plans are structured
Linear uses a per-seat freemium model with two dimensions:
- The seat price: Free $0, Basic $10/user/mo, Business $16/user/mo (both billed yearly), Enterprise custom. There are no usage meters — the bill is simply seats × tier price.
- The capacity gate: the Free plan is capped at 250 issues and 2 teams, which is the primary trigger to upgrade, not a feature paywall.
This is a textbook seat-based pricing model with a freemium on-ramp. What makes this different: Linear ships AI Agents that can be assigned issues, and almost all of that AI suite is folded into existing seat prices rather than becoming a separate token- or agent-metered SKU — increasingly rare among AI-era developer tools. The one exception is a small, named AI-credits meter: as of the 2026-07-29 pricing page, both Coding Sessions and a feature now labeled Loops (previously listed as “Linear Agent automations (beta)”) are footnoted “Requires AI credits,” up from just Coding Sessions on the prior capture.
Pricing by product
Linear (Individual & team plans)
| Tier | Price | Included | Key mechanics |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Unlimited members, 250 issues, 2 teams, 10MB uploads, Agent platform + Linear Agent | Capacity-capped on-ramp; AI included |
| Basic | $10 /user/mo | Everything in Free plus 5 teams, unlimited issues, unlimited file uploads, admin roles | Self-serve upgrade once Free caps bite |
| Business | $16 /user/mo | Everything in Basic plus unlimited teams, private teams & guests, Triage Intelligence, Insights, Asks, Zendesk/Intercom | ”Most popular tier for product orgs” — AI bundled in |
| Enterprise | Custom | Everything in Business plus SAML/SCIM, granular admin controls, advanced org modeling, migration support | Sales-led, annual-only, quoted |
Prices are billed-yearly rates; monthly billing is higher. Enterprise is annual-only.
Sales motions across products: PLG / self-serve for Free, Basic, and Business (all sign-up-and-pay); sales-led for Enterprise (contact-sales, custom quote). Business also exposes a “contact sales” path for larger teams.
AI Agents & Code Intelligence (mostly bundled, two credit-metered exceptions)
Most of Linear’s AI capabilities ride inside the seat price rather than forming a metered product line. The two AI-credit exceptions don’t unlock at the same tier — Coding Sessions is available starting on Basic, while Loops requires Business:
| Capability | Where it lives | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Agent platform · Linear Agent | Free and up | Included in seat price |
| MCP access | Free and up | Included in seat price |
| Coding Sessions | Basic and up | Requires AI credits — Linear’s docs cite roughly $0.50–$1 for small copy/styling tweaks, $3–$5 for small bug fixes, and $5+ for more complex sessions, varying by model and duration |
| Triage Intelligence | Business and up | Included in Business seat price |
| Code Intelligence (beta) | Business and up | Included in Business seat price |
| Loops | Business and up | Requires AI credits — Linear’s docs cite roughly $0.07–$0.20 per loop run when no coding session is invoked |
As of the 2026-07-29 capture, the page footnotes both “Coding sessions**” and “Loops**” as “Requires AI credits,” and its own feature-comparison grid confirms Coding Sessions is checked on Basic while Loops is only checked from Business up. On the prior (2026-06-20) capture, the Loops slot was listed as “Linear Agent automations (beta)” with no AI-credit footnote — it was included free in the Business seat price. The rename to “Loops” coincides with it moving behind the AI-credits meter, expanding Linear’s one AI-metered exception (Coding Sessions) to two. Linear’s AI credits documentation does publish approximate per-use cost ranges for both features, even though it stops short of a published prepaid-credit unit price or a per-tier included allowance.
Hidden costs : What a real Linear bill looks like beyond the headline seat price
Linear’s per-seat model is unusually honest — there are no overage meters, so the bill is close to fully predictable. The “hidden” costs are structural (annual-vs-monthly delta, the Free cap, and AI credits) rather than metered surprises.
A 20-person product team on Business
| Line item | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Business plan — 20 seats × $16 (billed yearly) | $320 |
| Monthly-billing premium (if not annual) | +~$80 |
| Coding Sessions AI credits (optional) | varies |
| Total (annual billing) | $320/mo |
The lesson: a Linear bill scales cleanly with headcount and the only real “gotcha” is the annual-vs-monthly delta — choosing monthly billing inflates the effective per-seat price, and Coding Sessions are the one place spend can drift via AI credits.
A startup straddling the Free cap
| Line item | Monthly cost |
|---|---|
| Free plan (under 250 issues, 2 teams) | $0 |
| Forced upgrade once issue cap is hit — 8 seats × $10 Basic | $80 |
| Total after the 250-issue cap bites | $80/mo |
The lesson: the 250-issue / 2-team Free cap, not a feature wall, is what eventually converts teams to paid — a capacity trigger that is easy to forecast against.
Want to estimate your own Linear bill? Use the Linear pricing calculator to model your monthly cost based on seat count, tier, and billing cadence.
Pricing evolution : From Standard/Plus seats to Basic/Business with bundled AI
Cadence
| Quarter | Price changes | Product / SKU additions | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 Q1 | 0 | 0 | Baseline: Free $0, Standard $8, Plus $12 (yearly), Enterprise contact-sales. |
| 2022 Q4 | 1 | 0 | Plus raised $12 → $14 and switched to annual-only; 250-issue Free cap in place. |
| 2023 Q2 | 0 | 1 | Linear Insights and SLAs added to the Plus tier; seat prices held at $8/$14. |
| 2024 Q2 | 0 | 1 | Standard/Plus renamed Basic/Business (Basic $8, Business $12, billed yearly); four-tier grid introduced. |
| 2025 Q3 | 0 | 1 | AI Agents shipped — Linear for Agents, MCP access, Product Intelligence (beta); “AI agents” added to Free. Prices not rendered in archive. |
| 2026 Q1 | 1 | 1 | Basic $10 / Business $16 first render clearly; AI block expands (Agent platform, Triage Intelligence, Pulse, Salesforce add-on). |
| 2026 Q2 | 0 | 1 | Coding Sessions shipped (2026-06-11) as Linear’s first AI-credit-metered feature, billed from a workspace-level prepaid credit balance; seat prices held at $10/$16. |
| 2026 Q3 | 0 | 1 | ”Linear Agent automations (beta)” renamed “Loops” (2026-07-29) and moved behind the same “Requires AI credits” footnote as Coding Sessions, doubling Linear’s AI-credit-metered exception count; seat prices unchanged. |
Tracked range: 2022-01–2026-07. Exact 2025 seat prices are unknown because archived mid-2025 snapshots did not render the Basic/Business dollar figures. Quarters not listed were verified stable (0 price changes, 0 SKU additions).
Notable changes
- 2022-11 — Plus moved from $12 to $14 per user/mo and dropped monthly billing, per the archived pricing page.
- 2024 (by 2024-05) — Standard/Plus rebranded to Basic/Business (Basic $8, Business $12), per the archived pricing page; the two-paid-tier structure was preserved.
- 2025 (by 2025-09) — Linear’s “Artificial intelligence” feature block went live (Linear for Agents, MCP access, Product Intelligence beta), with “AI agents” surfaced on the Free plan, per the archived pricing page.
- 2026 (by 2026-01) — Basic $10 and Business $16 render clearly on the archived page, with the AI suite expanded to Agent platform, Triage Intelligence, and Linear Agent for Slack; the June 2025 $82M Series C at a $1.25B valuation (reported by TechCrunch) coincided with the AI push.
- 2026-06-11 — Linear shipped Coding Sessions, its first usage-metered feature, billed from a prepaid workspace AI-credit balance shared across AI tools, per the company’s changelog.
- 2026-07-29 — The Business-tier feature listed as “Linear Agent automations (beta)” was renamed “Loops” and given the same “Requires AI credits” footnote as Coding Sessions, expanding Linear’s AI-credit-metered exception from one feature to two while headline seat prices ($10/$16) stayed flat, per the live pricing page.
The AI-without-a-meter decision in detail
The most strategically interesting move in Linear’s history isn’t a price change — it’s a non-event. When Linear shipped AI Agents (2025), it did not create a per-token, per-agent, or per-resolution meter. Instead, the Agent platform landed on the Free plan, and Triage Intelligence and Code Intelligence landed inside the existing Business seat price. The narrow exception is growing: Coding Sessions (June 2026) and, as of July 2026, Loops — the feature previously listed as “Linear Agent automations (beta)” — both carry a “Requires AI credits” footnote. In an era when peers (Cursor, Intercom Fin, Zendesk AI) were attaching usage or outcome meters to AI, Linear is still trying to keep the bulk of its pricing legible, but a two-feature credit exception is now large enough to watch rather than dismiss as a footnote.
What’s unique : The pricing mechanics that set Linear apart from Jira and AI-metered peers
1. Most AI is bundled into seats, with a narrow but growing credit-metered exception. Linear gives the Agent platform away on Free and folds Triage Intelligence and Code Intelligence into the Business seat price at no surcharge — a deliberate contrast with outcome-based pricing peers like Intercom Fin. The exception is Coding Sessions (added June 2026) and, since July 2026, Loops (renamed from “Linear Agent automations”), both of which require purchased AI credits.
2. The Free cap is a capacity gate, not a feature wall. Free includes the AI agent platform and unlimited members but caps issues at 250 and teams at 2. Linear converts on capacity exhaustion rather than by paywalling marquee features.
3. Only two paid tiers, held stable for years. Linear has run exactly two paid tiers since launch (Standard/Plus, now Basic/Business). The simplicity is the product — buyers can reason about the whole catalogue in seconds.
4. Annual-only at the top. Both Business’s headline rate and the entire Enterprise tier are annual-anchored (Enterprise is annual-only), which smooths revenue and discourages monthly churn at the high end.
Strengths & weaknesses
| Strengths | Weaknesses |
|---|---|
| Fully predictable bill — seats × price, no overage meters | Per-seat cost climbs linearly with headcount; no volume tiering shown |
| Most AI included at no surcharge — strong value vs metered AI peers | Coding Sessions and Loops “require AI credits” — a growing opaque consumption exception (one feature in June 2026, two by July 2026) |
| Simple two-paid-tier catalogue is easy to evaluate and forecast | No monthly option on Business’s headline rate / Enterprise (annual-anchored) |
| Generous Free plan (AI agents, unlimited members) drives PLG adoption | 250-issue Free cap can feel abrupt for fast-moving small teams |
| Transparent public pricing for Basic and Business | Enterprise is fully quote-based with no anchor price published |
Billing UX : The named controls Linear exposes for plans and billing
- Billing-cycle toggle — the pricing page defaults to “Billed yearly”; monthly billing is available at a higher effective per-seat rate.
- Self-serve “Get started” upgrade — Free, Basic, and Business all upgrade in-product without sales contact.
- “Contact sales” path on Business — larger Business buyers can route to sales alongside the self-serve button.
- Admin roles & granular admin controls — Basic adds admin roles; Enterprise adds granular admin controls and advanced org modeling for seat governance.
- Invoice/PO billing (Enterprise) — Enterprise unlocks invoice/PO billing on top of the default card-based self-serve flow.
Strategic wins : The pricing decisions that compounded for Linear
1. Bundling most AI into seats kept pricing legible
By declining to meter the bulk of its AI suite, Linear avoided the bill-shock and forecasting anxiety that usage-based AI pricing can create. AI became a reason to be on Business rather than a new invoice line, which protects Linear’s core promise of a predictable, design-led product — even as a narrow AI-credit exception (Coding Sessions, and since July 2026, Loops) has quietly doubled. It is still a sharp counter-position to outcome- and token-metered rivals, provided that exception list doesn’t keep growing.
2. A capacity-gated Free plan that actually converts
Linear’s Free plan is generous on features (it even includes AI agents) but tight on capacity — 250 issues, 2 teams. That makes the upgrade trigger a natural value metric tied to real usage growth, not an artificial feature lock, which keeps the funnel friendly while still converting.
3. Holding to two paid tiers for years
Most SaaS tools accrete tiers and add-ons over time. Linear kept exactly two paid tiers and simply renamed them (Standard/Plus → Basic/Business), preserving the simplicity that makes its pricing page trivially scannable. Simplicity is a retention and conversion asset, not just an aesthetic one.
Areas to improve : Where Linear’s per-seat model leaves money or clarity on the table
1. Clarify the AI-credit mechanic before the exception list grows further
“Requires AI credits” now footnotes two features — Coding Sessions and, since July 2026, Loops — on an otherwise meter-free page, and both instances are still a footnote rather than a priced line item. As AI usage grows, Linear should publish the credit price, included allowances per tier, and overage rates so buyers can forecast it — the way transparent usage pricing tools surface their pools. Left unpriced, each additional renamed-and-metered feature chips away at the “no surprises” pitch Linear built its brand on.
2. Offer volume or commit discounts on large seat counts
The per-seat price is flat regardless of headcount, so a 500-seat org pays the same per seat as a 6-seat team until it negotiates Enterprise. Publishing a volume-discount curve or a committed-use option would give midmarket buyers a reason to consolidate on Linear rather than negotiate ad hoc.
3. Anchor the Enterprise tier with a “starting at” price
Enterprise is fully quote-based with no published anchor. A “starting at $X/user/mo” or minimum-seat floor would reduce sales friction and help finance teams budget, without sacrificing the negotiation room Linear wants on large deals.
Monetization stack & signals : how Linear builds & buys its revenue engine
Buys 4 Builds 0 5 signal roles
Linear buys its monetization spine outright — Stripe runs billing, checkout, tax and the Snowflake data pipeline; there is no in-house meter behind its per-seat price. The signal worth watching is in the hiring: a profitable PLG company standing up its first sales-led layer (first APAC AE, a managed Growth-AE org, first sales SE, first in-house accounting lead).
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“To provide its customers with a variety of pricing plans while optimising for conversion, Linear chose Stripe Billing, an automated solution for managing recurring revenue, paired with Stripe's Optimized Checkout Suite.”
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“Linear chose Stripe Billing ... paired with Stripe's Optimized Checkout Suite.”
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“For tax compliance, Linear rolled out Stripe Tax.”
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“To address its data reliability challenges, Linear adopted Stripe Data Pipeline. Data Pipeline now sends Linear's Stripe data directly to Snowflake, where it's combined with other business sources.”
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“You also have the option to add AI credits to your workspace to unlock some additional AI features.”
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First sales-anchored SE plus an "early-team" CSM "laying the foundation" — Linear is standing up the post-sale expansion/retention layer an enterprise motion needs, on top of self-serve.
“As a Solutions Engineer ... you will drive revenue by leading technical discovery, demos, proof-of-concepts ... through onboarding and expansion.”
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First sales-anchored SE plus an "early-team" CSM "laying the foundation" — Linear is standing up the post-sale expansion/retention layer an enterprise motion needs, on top of self-serve.
“As a Solutions Engineer ... you will drive revenue by leading technical discovery, demos, proof-of-concepts ... through onboarding and expansion.”
- Accounting Lead Customer success seen May 4, 2026
First in-house accounting/close-process owner at a profitable company — finance infrastructure (controls, audit readiness) maturing toward the rev-rec discipline an enterprise + annual-billing book demands.
“As our first in-house Accounting Lead, you'll own the foundation: the close process, the controls, the audit readiness ... Linear is profitable.”
- Manager, Growth Sales RevOps seen Apr 2, 2026
Building a managed Growth-AE function with forecasting rigor — the revenue org is being operationalized around the PLG-sourced pipeline, not just the product funnel.
“We're looking for a Growth Sales Manager to lead and scale our growth segment ... maintaining strong pipeline discipline and forecasting accuracy.”
- Account Executive, APAC Growth seen Dec 19, 2025
Linear's first APAC sales rep — explicitly layering a sales-led motion onto its PLG core. The canonical "self-serve company builds outbound" inflection, region by region.
“We are now expanding into APAC and hiring our first sales rep in the region ... building pipeline from a strong PLG foundation, shaping the regional go-to-market.”
Signals reviewed · derived from public job posts, press & filings, product docs
Job postings fill and close over time — once a posting is filled we keep it as a dated citation (the quoted evidence remains); use View open roles for current listings.
Key takeaways
- Bundling AI into seats can be a feature, not a missed monetization. Linear shipped assignable AI agents with zero AI surcharge, betting that predictability and adoption beat the incremental revenue of a token meter. For tools where AI augments an existing workflow, this preserves trust.
- A capacity cap converts better than a feature wall. Linear’s Free plan gives away marquee features (including AI) but caps issues at 250 — upgrades happen when teams genuinely outgrow the workspace, aligning the upgrade trigger with realized value.
- Tier stability is underrated. Two paid tiers held for years (just renamed) make the catalogue scannable and lower the cognitive cost of buying — a quiet conversion advantage over competitors that pile on tiers and add-ons.
- Annual anchoring at the top smooths revenue. Making Enterprise annual-only and leading Business with the yearly rate nudges buyers toward longer commitments without a hard contract requirement.
- A single footnote can become two within two months. In July 2026, Linear extended its “Requires AI credits” footnote from Coding Sessions alone to also cover the renamed “Loops” feature — the seat price didn’t move, but the crack in Linear’s predictable-bill promise widened; the lesson is to price even small consumption mechanics in the open before the exception list grows.
UBP implications
- AI can be a tier driver instead of a usage meter. Linear demonstrates that an AI capability can pull buyers up the seat ladder without being separately metered — a viable alternative to per-token or per-outcome billing when AI augments rather than replaces a seat’s work.
- Capacity caps are a clean upgrade metric for seat-based tools. Tying the free-to-paid trigger to a usage ceiling (issues, teams) gives seat-based products a usage-aligned conversion lever without abandoning per-seat simplicity.
- Predictability has monetizable value. In a market drifting toward consumption pricing, Linear’s flat per-seat bill is itself a differentiator — proof that “no surprises” can be a competitive position, not a concession.
Sources
- Linear pricing page (accessed 2026-07-29)
- Linear changelog (accessed 2026-06-21)
- Linear blog (accessed 2026-06-21)
- Linear documentation (accessed 2026-06-21)
- Linear AI credits documentation (accessed 2026-07-29)
- Linear billing and plans documentation (accessed 2026-07-29)
Bottom line
Linear is the rare AI-era developer tool that shipped agents without shipping a broad meter: Free $0, Basic $10, Business $16 per user/mo (billed yearly), and custom Enterprise, with most AI bundled into every seat. The bill is still mostly seats × price, but the cracks in that promise are widening — as of July 2026, two named features (Coding Sessions and Loops, formerly “Linear Agent automations”) require separately purchased AI credits, up from one in June 2026. For teams that value a forecastable invoice, Linear’s per-seat freemium is still close to as legible as SaaS pricing gets, provided that exception list doesn’t keep growing.
Want to compare Linear against other developer-tools pricing? Browse the pricing blueprint.
Pricing timeline : Major events on a vertical axis
Each milestone below corresponds to a public pricing change, product launch, or material adjustment. Major events use a filled marker; minor adjustments use a faded one.
'Linear Agent automations' renamed 'Loops', added to AI-credit metering
Linear renamed the Business-tier "Linear Agent automations (beta)" feature to "Loops" and added the same "Requires AI credits" footnote already carried by Coding Sessions, expanding the AI-credit-metered exception from one feature to two. Headline seat prices are unchanged: Free $0, Basic $10, Business $16 per user/mo (billed yearly).
Current: Free / Basic $10 / Business $16 / Enterprise, AI bundled
Live pricing page shows Free ($0, capped at 250 issues / 2 teams, includes the Agent platform and Linear Agent), Basic $10 per user/mo, Business $16 per user/mo (both billed yearly), and custom Enterprise. Business now includes Triage Intelligence, Linear Agent automations (beta), and Code Intelligence (beta) at no AI surcharge. Coding Sessions require AI credits.
Basic $10 / Business $16 with full AI agent suite
Wayback snapshot renders Basic at $10 per user/mo and Business at $16 per user/mo (billed yearly). The AI block is now Agent platform, MCP access, Triage Intelligence, Issue discussion summaries, and Linear Agent for Slack; Pulse and a Salesforce add-on appear. The exact month seats moved from $8/$12 to $10/$16 is unknown because mid-2025 snapshots did not render prices.
AI Agents added across tiers (prices not rendered in archive)
Wayback snapshot shows Linear's "Artificial intelligence" feature block live: Linear for Agents, MCP access, and Product Intelligence (beta), plus "AI agents" listed on the Free plan. Basic/Business dollar figures did not render in this archived snapshot, so exact 2025 prices are unknown.
Tiers renamed Standard/Plus → Basic/Business
Wayback snapshot shows the paid tiers rebranded to Basic ($8 per user/mo) and Business ($12 per user/mo, billed yearly), with a four-tier Free/Basic/Business/Enterprise grid. Business bundles Linear Insights, Zendesk/Intercom integrations, and Triage responsibility.
Plus raised to $14 and made annual-only
Wayback snapshot shows Standard held at $8 while Plus moved to $14 per user/mo and dropped monthly billing (annual-only). The page introduces a stacked Free / Standard / Plus / Enterprise layout with a 250-issue Free cap.
Free / Standard $8 / Plus $12 (per-seat freemium)
Wayback snapshot shows three plans on yearly billing: Free $0, Standard $8 per user/mo, and Plus $12 per user/mo (both −20% vs monthly), with Enterprise as contact-sales. Free is capped at 250 issues; paid tiers unlock unlimited issues and file uploads.
- · Linear's AI Agent platform is the only paid-feature set it gives away on the Free plan — Free explicitly lists "Agent platform" and "Linear Agent" while capping the workspace at 250 issues and 2 teams.
- · Linear renamed its paid tiers from Standard/Plus to Basic/Business around 2024 without changing the underlying two-paid-tier structure it has run since launch.
- · Despite shipping AI agents that can be assigned issues, Linear charges $0 extra for AI — there is no per-token, per-agent, or per-resolution meter anywhere in its public pricing.
Questions & answers
- How much does Linear cost in 2026?
- Linear has four plans: Free ($0), Basic at $10 per user per month, Business at $16 per user per month (both billed yearly), and Enterprise on custom annual pricing. Monthly billing costs more than the yearly rates shown.
- Is Linear free, and what are the Free plan limits?
- Yes. The Free plan supports unlimited members but caps the workspace at 250 issues and 2 teams, with 10MB file uploads. It still includes Linear's Agent platform and the Linear Agent.
- Does Linear charge extra for its AI Agents?
- Mostly no. The Agent platform, Triage Intelligence, and Code Intelligence are bundled into existing per-seat tiers with no per-token or per-agent fee. Coding Sessions and Loops (renamed from "Linear Agent automations" in July 2026) are the two exceptions and require separately purchased AI credits.
- What is the difference between Linear Basic and Business?
- Basic ($10/user/mo) adds 5 teams, unlimited issues, unlimited file uploads, and admin roles. Business ($16/user/mo) adds unlimited teams, private teams and guests, Triage Intelligence, Linear Insights, Linear Asks, and Zendesk/Intercom integrations.
- Did Linear used to call its plans Standard and Plus?
- Yes. Archived pricing pages show Linear ran Standard and Plus tiers from launch, renaming them to Basic and Business around 2024 while keeping the same two-paid-tier structure.
- Is Linear billed per user or by usage?
- Linear is purely per-seat. Every paid plan is priced per user per month with no usage meters, overage charges, or token-based billing.