Is Notion Free in 2026? What the Free Plan Covers and What Paid Plans Cost
Short answer: yes, for one person. Notion's Free plan costs $0 and gives a solo workspace unlimited pages and blocks. Three limits decide whether it stays enough: 5 MB per file upload, 10 external guests and 7 days of page history. Once a second member joins, Notion also limits how many blocks the workspace can add. The first paid step, Plus, is $10/mo per member billed yearly.
Toolradar data: As of October 2026, Toolradar had evaluated 210 note-taking tools, and 9 of the 10 tools on its note-taking ranking have a free plan. Free tiers are the norm in this category, so the useful question is where each free tier stops. The Toolradar note-taking ranking lists the picks, and Toolradar's Notion profile sets out the tool's entry.
What the Free plan includes
Notion's pricing page lists four tiers: Free, Plus, Business and Enterprise. Enterprise is custom-priced and sold through a sales contact, so the comparison below covers the three tiers with printed prices. Plan cards show the yearly-billing rate, and the monthly rate sits behind the "Pay monthly" toggle.
Plan limits as printed on Notion's pricing page, US dollars, per seat per month:
| Free | Plus | Business | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price per member | $0 | $10/mo billed yearly, $12/mo billed monthly | $20/mo billed yearly, $24/mo billed monthly |
| Pages and blocks | Unlimited for one person, limited for 2+ members | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| File uploads | Up to 5 MB each | Unlimited, around 5GB max per file | Unlimited, around 5GB max per file |
| External guests | 10 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Page history | 7 days | 30 days | 90 days |
| notion.site domains | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| Notion AI | Trial | Trial | Monthly credits for each member |
Two rows decide most cases: file size and guests. A solo writer who keeps files under 5 MB and shares with fewer than ten outside people can stay on Free. Notion defines guests as external collaborators such as agencies, partners, contractors or vendors, so a team that works with a client or a freelance designer can reach the guest cap.
Page history is the quieter limit. Seven days covers a bad afternoon, not a bad quarter. Business keeps 90 days of history, and Enterprise lists unlimited history. If your team needs to roll back a document after a month, the free tier does not cover it.
Why a free team workspace hits a block limit
Notion's pricing FAQ draws the line between solo and shared use. A Free workspace with one person can add as many pages and blocks as needed. A Free workspace with multiple members can add a limited number of blocks before it has to upgrade. Notion defines a block as any single piece of content, such as a paragraph, a to-do item, an image or an embedded file.
When a shared Free workspace reaches its limit, people can still read, edit and organize existing blocks. They cannot add new content blocks until the workspace upgrades. For a team that is still building its wiki, that is the moment to pay.
The rule has moved over time. A July 2021 Hacker News commenter wrote that "Notion dropped block limits for free plan few years ago" (comment, July 18, 2021). The current FAQ still limits multi-member Free workspaces, so that comment describes the solo experience, not a team's.
Plus versus Business
Plus removes the file cap and the guest cap, lifts the block limit for teams and extends page history to 30 days. Its card adds custom forms, charts, custom sites, collaborative blocks and file uploads on top of the Free feature set.
Business adds Notion Agent and AI Meeting Notes, SAML single sign-on, private teamspaces and 90 days of page history, according to the Business card. It is also the tier where Notion AI credits come with each seat, which the AI section below covers.
Here is the arithmetic for a three-person team, using the printed rates. On Plus, yearly billing comes to $360 a year and monthly billing comes to $432 a year. On Business, yearly billing comes to $720 a year. The $360 gap between the two tiers on yearly billing buys single sign-on, private teamspaces, longer history and the AI credits. If none of those matter to your team, the gap is hard to justify.
Yearly billing saves $24 per member a year on Plus, $120 against $144. The pricing page says yearly billing saves up to 20%, and on Plus the gap comes to about 17%.
Notion bills per member, not per workspace. The FAQ describes a paid seat as a license for one member, and removing a member frees that seat for the next person. Adding someone in the middle of a billing cycle creates a prorated charge, and the seat count is recalculated at each renewal. Guests are free of charge, so the member list is the first cost lever. The same per-seat logic runs through other tools, such as Figma.
What the archived prices show
The Plus price printed on the pricing page was $10 per member a month under the yearly default in each of these dated copies: November 16, 2024; March 20, 2025; July 22, 2025; November 24, 2025; April 10, 2026; and September 8, 2026.
Business moved. The November 2024 and March 2025 copies print Business at $15 per seat a month, with the yearly option selected by default. They print no monthly figure. From July 22, 2025 on, the copies print Business at $20 per member a month under the yearly default, matching the current pricing page (capture, July 22, 2025).
An independent pricing tracker, PricingSaaS Pulse, logged the Business change between April 1 and July 6, 2025, as $15 to $20 per seat a month, under the headline "Notion Increases Business Plan Price by 33% While Adding New Features to Free Plan" (PricingSaaS record). The same window added Notion Mail to the Free plan, according to that record.
Students and educators
Notion's FAQ says the Plus plan, with a one-member limit, is free for students and educators. Sign up with a school email address, and the FAQ says thousands of school email domains qualify, not just .edu.
The eligibility has not always read that way. A July 2021 Hacker News commenter complained that the offer "only applies to colleges with a .edu domain" (comment, July 18, 2021). The current FAQ says thousands of school email domains are eligible, not just .edu.
The one-member limit is the catch. A study group or class project cannot share a free Plus workspace under this offer, so any shared student project moves to the team math above.
What users say
Two Hacker News comments show how the free tier reads to people who use it. In a January 2024 thread about a competing product, a commenter wrote, "Notion's free plan is adequate for personal use" (comment, January 19, 2024). In June 2026, another user opened a question with "As someone who uses Notion on the free plan" and asked whether Obsidian works better with local AI tools (comment, June 1, 2026).
Read together, the two comments line up with the pricing page. The free tier suits solo use, and the 2026 question is about a different tool altogether.
Notion AI on each tier
Free and Plus include a trial of Notion AI, according to the plan cards on the pricing page. Business includes a monthly allowance for each member: 1,500 Standard credits and 500 Select credits. On Enterprise, the pricing page lists credit amounts as custom, and the help center says included amounts depend on the plan and purchase arrangement. Notion's help center says these credits reset monthly, do not roll over, and cannot be pooled or moved between people (Notion help center). It also says existing Business and Enterprise workspaces move to the new credit system on November 2, 2026.
Admins can buy more Notion credits. The pricing page's AI card lists them at $10 per 1,000 monthly Notion credits. Usage beyond the included credits is covered by purchased Notion credits, so the monthly allowance is the figure to plan around. For a comparison of other assistants' free tiers, see Dupple's guides on Gemini and Grok.
Billing details that matter
Upgrades are charged immediately, with the amount due reduced for the unused share of the current cycle. Downgrades take effect at the end of the billing cycle. Notion accepts major credit and debit cards, and workspace admins find invoices under Settings and members, then Billing.
If a payment fails, the FAQ says Notion may retry up to 8 times in the following month. After that, the workspace is restricted for a period and then downgraded to Free.
Notion calls its refund policy simple. It refunds the full amount, not prorated, if you downgrade within three days of a monthly signup or within 30 days of an annual signup. Members added by mistake can be refunded prorated charges if you reach out within three days of the invoice date.
Who should pay
Stay on Free if you work alone, keep files under 5 MB and can live with 7 days of page history. Nothing in the printed limits changes that for solo work.
Pay for Plus when a second person joins the workspace, when files outgrow the free cap, or when you need more than a week to recover an old version. Plus removes the team block limit and the file cap, and a three-person team on yearly billing pays $360 a year.
Pay for Business when you need SAML single sign-on, private teamspaces, 90 days of history or the AI credits for each member. Without those needs, the $360 step from Plus buys little that a team can point to.
Students and educators should start with the Plus route above and sign up with a school address.
My pick for most teams is Plus on yearly billing. Business suits companies that need single sign-on or per-member AI credits, and it is hard to justify without those needs. Stay on Free for solo work, move to Plus as soon as a second person shares the workspace, and treat Business as a purchase for a specific need, not a default.
Cite this: Dupple, "Is Notion Free in 2026?", October 2026.
FAQ
Is Notion free for one person?
Yes. A solo Free workspace gets unlimited pages and blocks, with a cap on file uploads, 10 external guests and a short page history.
How much is Notion Plus per month?
$10/mo per member billed yearly, or $12/mo billed monthly, as printed on the pricing page. Yearly billing saves about 17% against monthly billing.
Does the free plan include Notion AI?
As a trial. Business includes a monthly allowance of Standard and Select credits for each member.
What happens when a free team reaches the block limit?
Existing content stays readable and editable, but new blocks cannot be added until the workspace upgrades.
Can students get Plus for free?
Yes, according to the pricing FAQ. The Plus plan with a one-member limit is free for students and educators who sign up with a school email address.
Which alternatives should I compare first?
If the free tier is too tight for your team, read our Notion alternatives guide before you upgrade. Compare each option on the same rows as the table above: guests, file size, page history and block rules.
Related
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Across our whole catalogue the median is $23.50 a month and 37% of tools advertise a free tier. Figures are the lowest recurring monthly price quoted in our own review of each tool, read on 2026-10-23. Full method and every category.
