Is Trello worth the price?
Trello remains the simplest kanban board on the market — and its pricing reflects that simplicity.
The Free plan is genuinely useful for personal task management (unlimited cards, unlimited Power-Ups, 10 boards). Standard at $5/user/mo is the cheapest paid team PM tool you can find.
But Trello's simplicity becomes a ceiling: once you need Gantt charts, time tracking, or sophisticated reporting, you're either paying $10/user/mo for Premium or leaving for a more capable tool. The 250 Butler automation runs/month on Free is the most common upgrade trigger — a single active rule on a busy board exhausts it in weeks.
Pricing Plans
Free TrialFree
Free
- Unlimited cards
- Up to 10 boards per workspace
- Up to 10 workspace members
- Unlimited Power-Ups
- 250 Butler automation runs/mo
- 10MB per file attachment
Standard
$5
- Unlimited boards
- Unlimited workspace members
- Advanced checklists
- Custom fields
- 1,000 Butler automation runs/mo
- 250MB per file attachment
Premium
$10
- Timeline, Calendar, Dashboard views
- Unlimited Butler automation runs
- Workspace-level templates
- Admin and security features
- Priority support
- 250MB per file attachment
Enterprise
$17.50
- 50-user minimum
- Organization-wide permissions
- Attachment restrictions
- Power-Up administration
- Free SSO with Atlassian Access
- Unlimited workspaces
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
Butler automation on Free (250 runs/mo) depletes fast — a single rule on a busy board with 10 card moves/day burns 300 runs in a month, forcing an upgrade or disabling automations entirely
Standard's 1,000 Butler runs/mo is shared across the ENTIRE workspace, not per board. Five boards with 3 automations each can exhaust the quota by mid-month
Free plan caps at 10 boards per workspace AND 10 collaborators — teams of 11 must upgrade regardless of feature needs
File attachment limit is 10MB on Free (fine for docs, not for design files). Standard and Premium jump to 250MB but there is no unlimited option on any plan
Enterprise requires a 25-user minimum at $17.50/user/mo ($5,250/yr floor). Smaller teams cannot access enterprise security features like org-wide permissions and attachment restrictions
Power-Up governance (controlling which third-party integrations team members install) is Enterprise-only — no way to restrict risky integrations on Free, Standard, or Premium
Third-party Power-Ups for advanced features (time tracking, Gantt charts, CRM integration) charge separately at $5-15/user/mo, often negating Trello's cost advantage over tools that include these natively
Auto-renewal with no mid-term downgrades — Trello charges the full billing cycle with no refunds, and you must cancel ~7 business days before renewal to avoid the next charge
How Trello Compares
10-person team, 12 months, annual billing
Which Plan Do You Need?
Unlimited cards, unlimited Power-Ups, and 250 automation runs/month. For personal task boards, editorial calendars, or lightweight project tracking, nothing beats Trello Free — zero cost, zero learning curve.
Unlimited boards, advanced checklists, custom fields, and 1,000 Butler runs/month. At $5/user/mo it undercuts ClickUp ($7), Asana ($10.99), Monday ($9), and Linear ($10).
Timeline, Calendar, Dashboard, and Map views transform Trello from a kanban board into a lightweight project management platform. Unlimited automations remove the Butler bottleneck.
SSO, SCIM provisioning, org-wide governance, and centralized workspace management. The real reason to go Enterprise: controlling which Power-Ups team members can install and restricting file attachments — impossible on lower plans.
Our Recommendation
Worth it if...
You want the simplest possible visual task management with minimal setup time. Trello's drag-and-drop kanban boards, 5-minute onboarding, and generous Free plan make it ideal for small teams, personal projects, and non-technical users who find Jira, ClickUp, or Monday overwhelming.
Skip if...
You need time tracking, resource management, goals/OKRs, or detailed reporting — Trello has none of these natively. Relying on third-party Power-Ups adds $5-15/user/mo and creates a fragmented experience. Also skip for teams larger than 20: the lack of governance controls below Enterprise is a real security gap.
Negotiation tips
Trello is part of Atlassian — bundle with Jira or Confluence for potential discounts through Atlassian Cloud. Enterprise has volume discounts at 100+ and 500+ seats. Non-profits get free or discounted licenses through the Atlassian Community program.
Team Cost Scenario
Team of 10, 12 months: Marketing team using Trello for campaign management, editorial calendars, and task tracking. Needs multiple views and automations.
| base Plan | Premium annual: $10/user/mo × 10 users = $1,200/yr |
| power Ups | Time tracking Power-Up (Toggl/Harvest): ~$100-150/user/yr for 10 users = $1,000-1,500/yr |
| total With Add Ons | $2,200-2,700/yr with one Power-Up |
| Annual Total | $1,200/yr (Premium only) or $2,200-2,700/yr with time tracking Power-Up |
Overage & Usage Pricing
board Limit
Free: 10 boards/workspace. Standard+: unlimited. Cannot buy extra boards on Free
butler Runs
Free: 250/mo, Standard: 1,000/mo, Premium: unlimited. No overage purchase option — you upgrade or wait until next month
collaborators
Free: 10 per workspace. Standard+: unlimited. Must upgrade for team of 11+
file Attachments
Free: 10MB per file, Standard/Premium: 250MB per file. No total storage limit but individual files are capped
operations Limit
Premium: 150,000 + 10,000/user per month, capped at 250,000/workspace. Enterprise: custom limits
Recent Pricing Changes
2023-2026
Trello simplified pricing in 2023, removing per-board Power-Up limits and making all Power-Ups unlimited across all plans. Enterprise pricing dropped from ~$21/user to $17.50/user in 2024.
Standard ($5) and Premium ($10) have been stable since 2023. In 2025, Atlassian Intelligence (AI) was added to Premium at no extra cost.
Trello remains the most affordable Atlassian product, positioned as the simple entry point alongside Jira and Confluence.
How Trello Compares to Competitors
ClickUp ($7/user/mo Unlimited) is the value-for-features winner — it includes Gantt charts, time tracking, goals, docs, whiteboards, and 25,000 automations/month where Trello Standard offers 1,000. The trade-off is complexity: ClickUp has a steeper learning curve and can feel overwhelming for simple workflows where Trello excels.
Asana ($10.99/user/mo Starter) offers a more structured project management approach with timeline views, goals, portfolios, and workflow automation. Asana is better for teams that need accountability and process enforcement — Trello is better for teams that want flexibility. Monday.com ($9/user/mo Standard) sits between Trello and Asana in complexity, with strong dashboards and 25,000 automations/month. Monday's visual interface is closer to Trello's philosophy but offers significantly more built-in features without Power-Up dependency.
Notion ($10/user/mo Plus) is the Swiss army knife — docs, wikis, databases, and project boards in one tool. Notion's kanban boards are functional but less polished than Trello's. Choose Notion if you want an all-in-one workspace; choose Trello if you want the best drag-and-drop board experience.
