Linear's free plan and its 250-issue limit

Linear's Free plan allows 250 issues and 2 teams, with unlimited members. When a workspace reaches the limit, teams have three ways out: archive issues and stay free, pay for a Linear plan, or move to another tracker. This guide sets out what the limit is, what each path costs, and where each one wins.

Each Linear fact below carries the date it was checked and where it came from. Linear's pricing moves: during 2026 it raised Basic from $8 to $10 and Business from $14 to $16 per user per month (Gitsu research, 2026-08-22). Check the Linear pricing page before you decide.

What is Linear's free plan limit?

Linear's Free plan limit is 250 issues and 2 teams (Linear pricing page, checked 2026-09-24). Members are unlimited, so the limit bites on the amount of work you track, not on the size of the team. File uploads are capped at 10MB on Free and unlimited on paid plans (same page, same date).

The pricing page lists the Free plan's core features as issues, projects, cycles and initiatives, import and export, and API and webhook access (checked 2026-09-24). Below the limit, a small team gets most of Linear's workflow.

What happens when you reach 250 issues?

At the limit, new issue creation stops until the team archives issues or upgrades, according to the third-party pricing write-ups Gitsu collected on 2026-08-22. The team can still read the issues it has. Linear's own pricing page states the number and not the behaviour, so treat the details as reported rather than documented.

Two things follow from how the limit works:

• It stops you filing new work. The limit is felt at the moment someone tries to create an issue, often in the middle of triage or a bug report.
• It counts active issues. The same write-ups describe the cap as 250 active issues (2026-08-22), which is why archiving keeps a team on Free. The pricing page says "250 issues" without that word, so check the notice in your own workspace.

The same write-ups report that most teams shipping regularly outgrow the Free plan within about six months (Gitsu research, 2026-08-22).

What are your options at the limit?

Teams at the limit take one of three paths:

A fourth option is to run two tools, with public bug reports in GitHub Issues and internal planning in Linear. It keeps the Linear workspace small, at the cost of keeping two systems in sync.

Should you archive issues to stay on the free plan?

Archive if the limit is the only thing wrong. It costs nothing and keeps your workflow as it is. The cost is recurring: the team reaches 250 active issues again, and someone has to decide what to archive each time.

Before a large archive, export what you might want later. Linear's workspace CSV export, under Settings > Administration > Import Export, is available to workspace admins and covers every issue's title, description, status, priority, labels, cycle and dates (Linear docs, checked 2026-09-24). It does not include attachment files.

Is Linear Basic worth paying for?

Pay if the team likes Linear and has the budget. Basic costs $10 per user per month and Business $16 (Linear pricing page, checked 2026-09-24). Third-party write-ups report those as annual-billing prices, with Basic at $12 when billed monthly (Gitsu research, 2026-08-22).

The cost grows with the team: five people on Basic pay $50 a month at the annual rate. In return you keep what Linear does well: cycles with automation, a triage inbox, projects and initiatives above issues, and a fast, keyboard-first interface. Basic also removes the issue limit, raises the team limit from 2 to 5, and removes the 10MB upload cap (pricing page, 2026-09-24).

When does moving to GitHub Issues make sense?

Move when your code already lives on GitHub and you would rather not pay per seat for a second system. GitHub Issues and GitHub Projects come with every GitHub account and have no issue limit. Gitsu's research found this is the usual path for GitHub-first teams, solo developers and open-source projects, who pick it because there is no new tool, login or bill (2026-08-22).

The cost is in features. As of Gitsu's August 2026 comparison, GitHub Projects has no cycle automation such as rollover or velocity, no triage inbox, and no layer above issues equivalent to Linear's initiatives. Linear wins on those, and on speed. Moving from Linear to GitHub Issues walks through the migration and what you give up.

Other trackers such as Plane, Shortcut and ClickUp also take teams leaving Linear (Gitsu research, 2026-08-22). Plane in particular appeals to teams who want to self-host.

Where does Gitsu fit?

Gitsu is one way to make the GitHub Issues path easier to live with. It is a client for GitHub Projects: your issues stay in GitHub, and Gitsu adds a faster list and board, nested filters, saved views and keyboard control on top. It never counts your issues, because it never stores them. The Free plan is the web app with unlimited projects, and the paid plan adds the desktop app and its agent features.

It does not replace Linear feature for feature. The gaps above are Gitsu's gaps too, because Gitsu works with the data GitHub Projects holds. Linear vs GitHub Issues compares the two in more depth.

Which path should you take?

Archive if the limit is the only complaint and you can spare the time. Pay if the team relies on cycles, triage and initiatives and the per-seat cost is fine. Move to GitHub Issues if your code is on GitHub, the budget is tight, and you can live without Linear's planning layer.