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Paid plans start at $87.08/mo. There's also a free plan.
Portainer Business starts at $87.08 per license per month on annual billing for Starter; monthly prices are not published. Starter covers 5, 10, or 15 nodes, while Scale is $174.58 per license per month annually for 5 to 25 nodes. Home & Student has a free, non-commercial option for three nodes. Enterprise pricing is custom. The plan grid’s main catches are annual-only published rates, license-based pricing, and node and vCPU caps.
01Every plan, line by line
| Plan | Billed annually | Billed monthly | Built for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home & Student | — | Quote | Homelabs, personal use, and learning |
| Starter | $87.08 | — | Small teams starting with container management |
| Scale | $174.58 | — | Growing teams needing more nodes and support |
| Enterprise | — | Quote | Business-critical deployments |
Add-ons and overages
- Enterprise 24/7 support option
- Managed Platform Services option
- Engineer-as-a-Service and professional services; prices not published
02What the plan grid doesn't tell you
Annual billing only
Starter and Scale are billed annually. The pricing page does not publish monthly rates, so there’s no listed month-to-month price to compare.
License-based pricing
Starter and Scale prices are per license per month, not per node. Starter also allows only one Starter license per company.
Node and vCPU limits
Starter covers 5, 10, or 15 nodes, capped at 16 vCPUs each. Scale covers 5 to 25 nodes, capped at 24 vCPUs each.
Optional services cost extra
Enterprise 24/7 support, Managed Platform Services, and Engineer-as-a-Service or professional services are options; their prices are not published.
03Which plan should you buy?
| If you are… | Get | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Homelabs and learners | Home & Student | The free option covers 3 nodes for non-commercial use. |
| Small container teams | Starter | Annual pricing is $87.08 per license per month for 5, 10, or 15 nodes, with community support. |
| Teams needing more nodes | Scale | $174.58 per license per month annually covers 5 to 25 nodes and includes 9x5 next-business-day support. |
04Is Portainer Business worth the money?
Portainer Business makes sense when a team needs one console for Kubernetes, Docker, Swarm, and Podman, plus governance and access controls. Starter’s annual price and node limits make it a meaningful step up from the free Home & Student option, which is restricted to non-commercial use and three nodes. If Community Edition already covers the team’s needs, Business may be an expensive upgrade; the published information does not establish a feature-by-feature CE comparison.
Portainer Business pricing FAQ
What are the differences between Portainer CE and Business Edition?
The published product information describes Business features including multi-runtime management, RBAC, centralized identity, audit logging, and GitOps workflows. It does not provide a feature-by-feature comparison with Community Edition, so we can’t verify which of those features CE includes or what changes between editions.
Is Portainer still free?
The pricing information lists a free Home & Student option for up to 3 nodes, limited to non-commercial use. It also identifies Community Edition, but the published information does not specify its current price, usage limits, or license terms.
Is Portainer open-source?
The product information identifies a Community Edition, but it does not state the edition’s license or confirm its open-source status. Check Portainer’s current license and edition documentation before relying on open-source terms for a business deployment.
What are the current versions of Portainer?
The published pricing and product information does not list current Portainer version numbers. We can’t verify the latest release from these materials; check Portainer’s release notes or documentation for current versions and release details.