Best offer on record: Free plan (Cloud). 4 verified findings, checked 2026-10-22.
Live check of “Free plan (Cloud)”:Confirmed
CircleCI Cloud still offers a Free plan at $0/month, including 30,000 credits per month (up to ~6,000 build minutes on the small Docker resource class) and 5 active users per month, with 30x concurrency and Docker/Windows/Linux/Arm/macOS/self-hosted executors; no credit card is required to sign up. Open-source projects get up to 400,000 credits/month for Linux builds, and free credits expire at the end of each month. Additional active users beyond 5 cost 25,000 credits each per month, deducted from the 30,000-credit pool (effective December 1, 2025).
Live check of “Open source build pool (free OSS program)”:Confirmed
CircleCI's free open source program is active and automatically available: organizations on the Free plan with public repositories get up to 400,000 credits per month for Linux, Arm and Docker open source builds, plus 30,000 credits per month for macOS and Windows builds (CircleCI's credits docs still show a stale 25,000 figure for macOS in one FAQ section, and cap macOS open source credit use at 2 concurrent jobs). No application or approval step is required, no end date is published, and open source builds keep running even after an org's personal credit balance is exhausted.
Permanent free tier on CircleCI Cloud: 30,000 credits/month (= up to 6,000 build minutes on small Docker at 5 credits/min; ~3,000 min on medium Docker at 10 credits/min). Up to 5 active users/month; 30x concurrency (Docker, Linux VM, Arm, Windows VM) but only 1 macOS concurrency; 5 concurrent self-hosted runner tasks. Includes 2 GB storage + 1 GB network transfer; excess network/storage draws from your monthly credits at ~420 credits/GB. 1,000 Smarter Testing test atoms/month free. Free plan has no GPU classes and no X-large/large+ resource classes (Docker capped at Large; macOS M4 Pro Large and all GPU classes are paid-only).
Eligibility
Anyone; no .edu email, no application, no credit card required (page states 'No credit card required'). New signups land on Free plan. From 2025-12-01 each unregistered commit author counts individually toward the 5 active-user limit (previously counted as one).
How to claim
1) Sign up at circleci.com/signup (GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket/Cursor Origin), 2) connect a repo and add project, 3) builds run automatically on the Free plan — no plan selection or payment step needed.
Expiry
Recurring monthly; the 30,000 free credits expire at end of each billing month with no rollover. No sunset date. When credits hit 0, personal builds are blocked until the next month's refill.
Gotchas
Small-Docker framing makes it look like 6,000 min but on medium Docker you get ~3,000 min; on macOS M4 Pro (200 credits/min) the 30k pool lasts only ~150 min. 5-user cap bites if many contributors push to private repos. Credits are non-refundable; unused paid credits forfeit on cancellation (Free credits simply don't roll over).
Open source build pool (free OSS program) high confidence
Free-plan orgs building public repos get up to 400,000 credits/month for Linux, Arm, and Docker OSS builds (= up to 80,000 build minutes on small Docker) on top of the 30,000-credit personal pool, plus 30,000 credits/month for macOS and Windows OSS builds. Includes enterprise-grade features (Docker layer caching, SSH debugging, flaky-test detection, self-hosted runners). OSS builds keep running even when your personal 30k pool is exhausted, and unregistered OSS contributors (e.g., PR authors) do not count toward your seat limit.
Eligibility
Free-plan organizations whose repository is public (GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket) and meets open-source licensing; OSS must be enabled in the project settings. No application, approval, or credit card; no .edu required; not region-limited. Docs note the OSS credit availability/limits are not visible in the web app.
How to claim
1) Create the account on Free plan, 2) keep the repo public on GitHub/GitLab/Bitbucket, 3) enable open source in project settings (per CircleCI staff guidance in the Dec-2025 billing change thread) — the extra pool then applies automatically, no form needed.
Expiry
Recurring monthly (400k refreshes each month), no rollover, no end date. The official open-source page states 30,000 credits for macOS/Windows, but a May 2026 support article states 25,000 credits for macOS — treat the macOS/Windows sub-pool as 25k–30k pending CircleCI confirmation.
Gotchas
OSS credit pool is invisible in the UI; if you're blocked from building you must open a support ticket. Windows/macOS OSS capacity is tiny vs Linux/Arm/Docker. The official macOS number is inconsistent across CircleCI's own pages (30k on pricing/open-source vs 25k in support docs), so plan around the lower figure.
Startup Program (CircleCI for Startups) high confidence
Up to $20,000 of free compute credits (at the $0.0006/credit rate, roughly 33M credits) usable on Docker, Linux, Arm, macOS, and Windows, spread over up to 24 months free, plus free Starter Support normally valued at $249/month, plus guided onboarding/migration support. Exact credit amount and program length vary by startup stage and location; it ends when the credits are exhausted or the promotional window closes, whichever comes first.
Eligibility
All must hold: (1) new to CircleCI or on the Free plan (no current paid customers), (2) Pre-Seed through Series A (Series B+ excluded), (3) founded within the last 5 years, (4) part of a recognized accelerator or VC, or otherwise proof of at least $500K USD raised (minimum threshold; no revenue cap or headcount cap stated). No .edu; no explicit region exclusion, but amounts/duration vary by location. No credit-card requirement is mentioned on the page.
How to claim
1) Fill out the application form on circleci.com/startup-program/ (HubSpot form), 2) or email startups@circleci.com (accelerators/VCs can enroll portfolio companies there), 3) CircleCI decides your tier on application; a representative contacts you as credits run low; after the window you move to standard pricing with volume discounts, config/history carry over with zero disruption.
Expiry
Promotional period: up to 24 months or until credits are fully consumed, whichever comes first. Program itself has no stated sunset date. Unused credits are program-scoped, not refundable/cashable.
Gotchas
'Up to' figures — the actual tier (credit count and months) is assigned by CircleCI, not chosen by you, and varies by location. If you burn the pool early you transition to paid; the 'more credits than standard Performance' pitch still leaves you on a billable plan afterward. Not available to companies already paying for CircleCI or founded 5+ years ago.
Education license / student offer — none active (Academy sunsets) medium confidence
CircleCI has no student-specific free offer or .edu-based license: students simply use the standard Free plan (30,000 credits/month) with a personal account. The former free education platform, CircleCI Academy (free courses and the Associate Developer certificate, once accessible with code public-2020), is no longer available — CircleCI's support 'Educational resources' collection states 'CircleCI Academy is no longer available' and offers all 17 former courses/certificates only as downloadable SCORM files (course + exam links via Google Drive) that you can import into your own LMS or run locally. Third-party 2026 discount roundups (CostBench, Erkan Saka) confirm no CircleCI education terms are published.
Eligibility
Formerly: anyone (public-2020 access code) for Academy courses. Now: course/exam downloads are public; no .edu email or enrollment proof needed for anything. There is no student pricing, discount, or license program to apply for.
How to claim
Nothing to claim for a student license. For the learning content: go to the 'Educational resources' collection on support.circleci.com and download the SCORM courses; for actual CI compute, just sign up for the Free plan or the OSS pool with a public repo.
Expiry
CircleCI Academy is already sunset (confirmed as of 2026-10-22; no end date published). The SCORM downloads remain available. Free plan / OSS pool have no end dates.
Gotchas
Treat any cached third-party pages advertising 'CircleCI for students' as stale. A support article (May 2026) still says macOS OSS gets 25,000 credits vs the pricing page's 30,000 — documentation is slightly out of sync. Certificate no longer issued, only self-study downloads.
2025–2026 changes and absences: (1) No free trial credits on paid plans currently exist — the pricing page (read 2026-10-22) lists no trial duration, trial credit pool, or CC-for-trial offer, and an independent 2026-10-14 tracker (PulseSignal) records "Free trial: None listed"; the trial-circleci model has been superseded by the permanent 30,000-credit Free plan. (2) CircleCI Academy (free courses/certificate, formerly the closest thing to an education program) has been sunset — the support collection now says "CircleCI Academy is no longer available"; only SCORM downloads of the 17 former courses remain; no end date was published, but it was already gone by 2026-10-22. (3) Effective 2025-12-01, CircleCI changed unregistered-user billing: every unregistered user now counts individually toward the monthly active-user total (previously all unregistered users counted as one); the Free plan keeps 5 included active users at the same price, and OSS-enabled projects are exempt (unregistered OSS PR authors don't count as seats). (4) The Free plan's 30,000-credit monthly allowance has been stable through 2025–2026 (no observed change; PriceVersion shows $0/30,000 credits recorded as current from 2026-10-04); the 400k OSS Linux pool and 30k macOS/Windows OSS pool are also still live per the official open-source page, though the support doc (May 2026) still lists macOS OSS at 25,000 credits — a documentation inconsistency worth confirming with CircleCI support. (5) Related non-offer sunsets: Bitbucket Data Center support retired 2026-10-01 and Self-Hosted Runner Bitbucket Cloud retires 2026-11-12 (VCS deprecations, not pricing); Xcode image retention is rolling off older versions each month.