Linear Free Plan Limits Explained: 250 Issues, 2 Teams, and What Happens at the Cap

Linear's free plan has four hard limits: 250 issues, 2 teams, 10 MB per file upload, and Google-only SSO - with unlimited members. The 250 count excludes archived issues, so archiving is the pressure valve. Once a workspace passes 250 active issues, you cannot create new ones until you archive some or upgrade to Basic at $10 per user per month billed yearly ($12 monthly). Business is $16 yearly ($18 monthly) and Enterprise is custom, annual only.

That is the answer most people searching "linear free plan limits" want. The rest of this guide covers what each limit means in practice, what the cap looks like when you hit it, which features sit on which tier, and how the free plan compares with alternatives.

#Every Linear Free Plan Limit

Here is the Usage section of Settings > Plans in a free workspace - the in-app table is more precise than the marketing page because it spells out that the issue count excludes the archive:

The important nuance is that 250 is a workspace-wide total of active issues, not a monthly quota and not a per-team number. A two-team workspace shares the 250. Nothing resets it except archiving or deleting issues.

#What Happens When You Hit 250 Issues

Linear's billing docs put it plainly: once a free workspace has over 250 issues, "you will no longer be able to create new issues." Existing issues stay editable, boards keep working, and integrations that create issues - GitHub, Slack, the API - fail to create new ones until the count drops.

Three ways out, in order of cost:

1. Archive closed issues. Archived issues do not count toward the 250, and archiving is reversible - you can search for and restore an archived issue later.
2. Turn on or shorten auto-archive. In Team Settings under Issue statuses & automations, Linear auto-archives completed and canceled issues after a period of inactivity. The default is six months; set it to one month and a busy team's Done column stops eating the cap.
3. Upgrade to Basic, which removes the issue limit entirely.

Auto-archive runs roughly daily, so shortening the period does not free space instantly, but it holds a small team under the cap indefinitely as long as work actually gets closed. Where teams get stuck is a large backlog: 250 open ideas with nothing to archive means the free plan is over regardless of how tidy Done is.

#Linear Pricing: What Each Plan Adds

Linear has four plans. Yearly and monthly prices differ on the two paid self-serve tiers, and Enterprise is annual only.

A few things worth knowing before you pick a tier:

• Basic is the "remove the limits" plan. It lifts issues and uploads to unlimited and takes teams from 2 to 5. It does not add analytics, guests or intake.
• Most of the features Linear markets are Business features. Insights (analytics), Asks (Slack and email intake), Triage Intelligence, guest accounts and private teams all start at $16 per user per month yearly. Business has a free trial; look for "Start a free trial" under the Business column in Settings > Plans.
• Web intake forms are Enterprise only, and submitters sign in through your identity provider. If you want a public form that turns requests into issues, Linear is not the tool on any self-serve tier.
• Per-user pricing covers every member. Because Free allows unlimited members, the jump to Basic can be a surprise: a 20-person workspace that never paid a cent becomes $200 per month billed yearly.

#Is Linear Cheaper Than Jira?

Not on list price. Jira Standard is $7.91 per user per month against Linear Basic at $10, and Jira Premium at $14.54 against Linear Business at $16. Jira's free plan caps at 10 users with no issue limit, while Linear's caps at 250 issues with no user limit - so under 10 people Jira Free stretches further, and over 10 people Linear Free does. The full breakdown is in Linear vs Jira.

#Is the Linear Free Plan Enough?

It is enough for a small engineering team that closes issues and archives them. Unlimited members is genuinely generous - most competitors cap seats before they cap anything else - and everything that makes Linear fast is on Free: List and Board views, cycles, projects, the command palette, GitHub integration.

It stops being enough in three predictable situations:

• A growing backlog. Product teams that log every idea reach 250 open issues in a few months, and archiving does not help with open work.
• Files bigger than 10 MB. Design teams attaching Figma exports or recordings hit this first.
• A third team. Any org structure past two teams needs Basic.

#How t0ggles' Free Plan Compares

If the issue cap is the wall you are hitting, the shape of the alternative matters. t0ggles limits its free plan differently: 100 tasks per board and 3 seats, but with every feature turned on - Columns, List, Calendar and Gantt views, task dependencies, milestones, reports, public boards and intake forms. There is one paid plan at $5 per user per month billed annually, and it makes everything unlimited with no tier gating.

Be honest with yourself about headcount. Linear Free wins outright for a 15-person team that just needs an issue tracker, because t0ggles Free stops at 3 seats. t0ggles Free wins for a small team that wants reports, forms, dependencies and a public roadmap without a $16 Business tier - and the $5 paid plan stays cheaper than Linear Basic once you do pay.

For the feature-by-feature comparison see t0ggles vs Linear. If you are weighing Linear's board specifically, read Does Linear Have a Kanban Board?.

#Frequently Asked Questions

#Getting Started

1. Check where you stand in Linear under Settings > Plans - the Usage section shows the current limits for your workspace.
2. If you are close to 250, shorten auto-archive under Team Settings > Issue statuses & automations and archive anything already closed.
3. If the backlog itself is the problem, price out Basic for your headcount, then compare it with a free t0ggles board - 100 tasks, every feature on, and $5 per user when you outgrow it.