For a 10-person software team, the Jira versus Linear versus Kavanah question is mostly a question about what happens at person eleven. Per-user prices hide breakpoints, and the breakpoints matter more than the headline. Here is the arithmetic from each vendor's own pricing page on October 24, 2026, followed by what the money buys. Prices change; check the pages before you decide.
1. At Ten People
Jira's Free plan covers up to 10 users with 2 GB of storage, so a 10-person team pays nothing. Linear's Free plan has unlimited members but stops at 250 issues and 2 teams, so most working teams outgrow it quickly; its Basic plan is $10 per user a month billed yearly, or $100 a month for ten. Kavanah's Basic plan is $3 a seat a month, or $2 billed yearly, so $30 a month, or $20 on annual billing, with 100 AI credits per seat a month shared by the workspace. At ten people, Jira Free is the cheapest of the three, and it is honest to say so.
2. At Eleven People
Jira's Free plan has a hard user limit: a site that goes over it is moved to a 7-day trial of Standard, which Atlassian's pricing page lists at $8.48 per user a month. Eleven users at that price is $93.28 a month. Linear Basic at eleven is $110 a month billed yearly. Kavanah Basic at eleven is $33 a month, or $22 billed yearly. The order flips: the tool that was free becomes the middle option, and the per-seat difference compounds with every hire.
3. What Each One Is Best At
Jira is the most widely used: 46.4% of all respondents and 52.1% of professional developers in Stack Overflow's 2025 survey, with story points, version management, a workflow engine and over 3,000 Marketplace apps. Linear is the one developers most want to keep: its admired score in the same survey was 58.8%, against 42.1% for Jira. Kavanah is built for teams that want AI employees doing coordination work, like estimating, triage and the weekly summary, under scopes, approvals, an action ledger and undo, with sprints planned from each person's estimate-versus-actual history.
4. The Costs That Are Not on the Price Line
Count the AI. Kavanah meters AI in credits beyond the included allowance, so an agent-heavy team should estimate its usage. Count the migration: Linear has a dedicated Jira importer and a two-way Jira Sync, while Kavanah imports a Jira CSV and leaves issue types, sprints, versions and attachments behind. And count the admin time: a Jira set up with custom workflows is powerful, and someone has to maintain it.
5. A Simple Rule
If you are ten or fewer, happy with Jira and not planning to hire, stay on Jira Free. If your team wants speed and a tool developers like, try Linear. If you want AI agents doing real work under controls you can audit, at the lowest per-seat price of the three, try Kavanah. Run a two-sprint pilot before you move everyone.
The cheapest tool at ten people is not the cheapest at twenty. For the full dated comparison, including ClickUp and monday dev and what each imports from Jira, see our Jira alternative page.
