10-seat minimum on self-hosted Commercial Edition

If you're trying to purchase or upgrade a self-hosted Plane license and seeing a 10-seat minimum requirement, here's everything you need to know about why this exists and what your options are.

Does this apply to me?

The 10-seat minimum only applies to self-hosted Plane Commercial Edition.

If you're on Plane Cloud, there is no seat minimum - you can upgrade and pay for exactly the number of seats you need, including teams of 2 or 3.

Why does the 10-seat minimum exist?

We didn't take this decision lightly -it means consciously saying no to revenue from thousands of smaller teams, and we're aware of that.

The reality is that supporting individuals and small teams self-hosting productivity software requires a disproportionate amount of time and effort. The complexity of self-hosted deployments - Docker, Kubernetes, custom infrastructure, networking, reverse proxies, upgrades - creates a wide surface area for issues that are difficult and time-consuming to support at scale.

By setting a 10-seat minimum, we're optimizing for teams that have internal technical competence to handle self-hosting and need us for more complex support, best practices, and scaling guidance rather than basic setup troubleshooting.

I have an existing self-hosted license below 10 seats

If you were already on a self-hosted plan with fewer than 10 seats before the minimum was introduced, your subscription is grandfathered in. You can continue with your current seat count for as long as your subscription remains active.

Important: If you cancel your subscription, any future purchase will be subject to the 10-seat minimum. You won't be able to reinstate the old seat count.

My team is smaller than 10 - what are my options?

Option 1 - Switch to Plane Cloud Cloud has no seat minimum and you only pay for the seats you actually need. For small teams, this is often simpler and more cost-effective than self-hosting. You also get automatic updates, no infrastructure overhead, and the same features.

Option 2 - Use the Community Edition If data sovereignty or self-hosting is a hard requirement, the Community Edition is free with no seat restrictions. It has a more limited feature set compared to the Commercial Edition but is a viable option for smaller teams with basic needs.

Frequently asked questions

Does the minimum apply to upgrades or just new purchases? It applies to new purchases. If you're already have a self-hosted license below 10 seats, you're grandfathered in.

Does it apply to the Airgapped Edition? Airgapped Edition has a 100 seat minimum and is only available on the Enterprise Grid plan.

Does it apply to Plane Cloud? No. Plane Cloud has no seat minimum.

Can I get an exception? Unfortunately, no, we are not able to offer exceptions to the seat minimum for self-hosted plans at this time.

Still have questions?

Feel free to reach out to our support team and we'll help you figure out the best option for your team's size and needs.