Trello is still the easiest work tool to learn in 2026. A new person can use a board in five minutes. It fits small teams with simple workflows. It gets expensive or limiting when you need timelines, reporting or heavy automation, because those sit behind Premium at $10 per user a month.
I checked Trello’s pricing page and Atlassian’s automation quota docs on October 20, 2026. Prices below are per user per month, billed yearly, in US dollars.
Trello plans in 2026
| Plan | Price | Key limits and features |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Up to 10 collaborators per Workspace, 10 boards, 10 MB per file, 250 automation runs a month |
| Standard | $5 ($6 monthly) | Unlimited boards, 250 MB files, 1,000 runs, Custom Fields, advanced checklists, card mirroring, single-board guests, AI features |
| Premium | $10 ($12.50 monthly) | Calendar, Timeline, Table, Dashboard and Map views, unlimited runs, admin and security, observers, collections |
| Enterprise | $17.50 ($210 a year per user) | Unlimited Workspaces, multi-board guests, org-wide permissions, Atlassian Guard Standard with SSO |
What Trello does well
- It is easy. Boards, lists and cards. No training needed for most people.
- The Free plan is real. Unlimited cards, unlimited Power-Ups per board and an unlimited activity log.
- Quick capture. You can send to-dos from email, Slack and Microsoft Teams into your Inbox on every plan.
- Card mirroring (Standard and up). One card can show on several boards, which helps when two teams share a task.
- Mobile apps on iOS and Android that are good enough for daily use.
Where Trello falls short
- No timeline on Free or Standard. Calendar, Timeline, Table and Dashboard views need Premium. Many teams upgrade only for these.
- Board-level thinking. Reporting across many boards is weak until Premium’s Workspace views.
- Automation caps. Free gets 250 runs a month and Standard 1,000. A busy board can use that up in a week.
- No native task dependencies. Trello has no built-in way to say “Task B waits for Task A” like Asana or Smartsheet. Teams add a Power-Up for this.
- Guests. Standard allows single-board guests only. Multi-board guests need Enterprise.
The automation limits most reviews skip
Trello automation (formerly Butler) is counted in runs and operations. From Atlassian’s quota docs:
| Plan | Runs a month | Operations a month | Emails a month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | 250 | 2,500 | 250 |
| Standard | 1,000 | 20,000 | 1,000 |
| Premium and Enterprise | Unlimited | 150,000 + 10,000 per user (max 250,000) | 1,000 per paid user (max 100,000) |
Other limits:
- Quotas reset on the 1st of each month at midnight GMT.
- One run can do up to 20 actions.
- A board can have 20 card buttons and 20 board buttons.
- Each user has 64,000 characters of automation commands.
- An email action can go to up to 50 recipients.
Quotas are pooled. Every board in a Workspace draws from the same monthly runs and operations. One busy board can use up the quota for all the others. Email actions count per email sent, so one email to 12 board members uses 12 of your email quota.
How to check your use: open any board, open the board menu and select the Workspace activity tab. It shows your plan and the runs and operations used this period. Our Butler troubleshooting guide covers what to do.
Example: how fast a small team uses 250 runs
Each time an automation fires, it uses one run, plus one operation for each action it takes. Here is a common rule:
- Rule: when a card moves to Done, mark the due date complete and move the card to the top of the list.
- Cost per card: 1 run and 2 operations.
- A team that closes 15 cards a workday: 15 x 20 workdays = 300 runs a month.
That one rule already goes past the Free plan’s 250 runs. Add a daily “sort list by due date” command on three boards and you use another 60 or so runs. This is why I tell small teams to expect Standard (1,000 runs) once they automate anything daily.
Real cost for a team of 10
| Plan | Yearly billing | Monthly billing |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | $600 a year | $720 a year |
| Premium | $1,200 a year | $1,500 a year |
For a 10-person team, Free works if you keep to 10 boards and fewer than 250 automation runs a month. Most growing teams move to Standard within months. Move to Premium when you need a timeline or a dashboard. See our full Trello pricing breakdown.
Who Trello fits
Good fit:
- Small teams (2 to 10 people) with simple to-do or pipeline boards.
- Content calendars, hiring pipelines, sales leads and personal planning.
- Teams that already use Jira or Confluence, since Trello is part of Atlassian.
Pick something else if:
- You run projects with dates that depend on each other. Look at Asana or Smartsheet.
- You need dashboards across many teams. See our Trello vs Asana comparison.
- You want one tool for docs, tasks and time tracking. Compare ClickUp vs Trello.
My setup tips for new Trello teams
- Start with three lists: To Do, Doing, Done. Add more only when people ask.
- Use labels for type and Custom Fields (Standard) for data you will filter on.
- Add Power-Ups one at a time. Our Power-Ups guide lists the useful ones.
- Make your first automation a button, not a rule. A button runs only when someone clicks it, so it uses fewer runs than a rule that fires on every change.
- Archive done cards every month so boards stay fast.
Verdict
Trello is the best “start today” tool for small teams. Free and Standard are fair value. The catch is that the features growing teams want (timeline, dashboard, unlimited automation) live in Premium, and at $10 a user a month Trello is no longer the cheap option. Compare it with tools that include timelines on their entry paid plan before you decide. Choose Trello for simplicity, not for power.
Common questions
Is Trello still free in 2026?
Yes. Free covers up to 10 collaborators per Workspace, 10 boards and 250 automation runs a month.
How much is Trello Standard?
$5 per user a month billed yearly, or $6 billed monthly.
Does Trello have a Gantt or timeline view?
Yes, on Premium ($10 per user a month yearly) and Enterprise. Free and Standard do not include Timeline view.
How many automations does Trello Free include?
250 Workspace command runs a month, which reset on the 1st at midnight GMT.
Is Trello good for project management?
For simple boards, yes. For dependencies, workload and cross-team reporting, tools like Asana, Smartsheet or monday.com fit better.
Sources
- Trello pricing (checked Oct 20, 2026)
- Atlassian: Trello automation quotas and limits
- Atlassian: Trello Standard
- Atlassian: Trello automation usage log
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