# Kumu review (2026): is the free plan enough? > Relationship maps for systems, stakeholders and networks Checked Nov 12, 2026 ยท graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA. Kumu is a browser-based tool for turning data about people, organizations and concepts into relationship maps. Public projects on kumu.io are free, while private projects are billed per project. A self-hosted Enterprise edition is available for teams with sensitive data. - **Category:** Whiteboards & Mind Maps - **Made by:** Kumu - **Website:** https://kumu.io - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Tight if your work is private, because each private project is its own monthly charge. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 12, 2026, Kumu has a free plan, and paid plans start at $9 per month per private project. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **Free plan:** Free registration and unlimited public projects, with unlimited collaborators, maps and views. - **Free trial:** Two-week free trial of private projects. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Basic workspace | $0 | Unlimited public projects; private projects cost $9 per month each; daily backups. | | Pro workspace | $10 per workspace / month, plus $20 per month per private project | View-only access control, custom branding, activity feeds, real-time comments, hourly backups, private project archiving. | | Enterprise | Custom | Self-hosted or cloud-hosted private instance with SAML single sign-on and a 99.95% uptime SLA. Sold through sales. | Read from https://kumu.io/pricing on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Kumu before buying. ## Ways to pay less - **Private projects for students** (Education): Students doing classroom work or doctoral research can email from a .edu address to get 3 private projects at no charge. Source: https://kumu.io/pricing ## Key features - **Relationship maps:** Data about people, organizations or concepts is drawn as a network, with decorations, filters and clustering applied on top. - **Spreadsheet import:** Maps can be built from imported spreadsheets rather than drawn by hand, which suits larger datasets. - **Public and private projects:** Projects can be public and visible to everyone, or private with access given to named people. Maps can be embedded on other sites. - **Workspaces:** Projects are grouped into workspaces, each with its own name and billing profile. Pro workspaces add view-only roles and branding. - **Use cases:** The vendor's examples include stakeholder maps, systems maps and causal loop diagrams, and social network maps. ## Good for - Researchers and consultants mapping stakeholders or systems - Public-interest projects that can stay public at no cost - Students who need private projects for coursework ## Worth knowing - Private projects are billed per project, so the monthly cost rises with each one: $9 on Basic, $20 on Pro. - All kumu.io customer data lives in one shared database; the vendor points sensitive work to Kumu Enterprise. - The Free workspace's public projects are visible to everyone and indexed by search engines. - Archived private projects cost $20 to unarchive on a Pro workspace. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.0 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. Kumu draws relationship maps from spreadsheets, for stakeholder, systems and social networks. Public projects are free but visible to everyone and indexed by search engines, and each private project costs $9 a month, so the bill grows with every project. - **Value for money: C.** Private projects are $9 a month each on Basic, and Pro is $10 a workspace plus $20 a month per private project. That sits in the ordinary range for one project and climbs fast with more. - **Free plan and trial: C.** Registration and unlimited public projects are free, but public means anyone can see them. A two-week trial of private projects is offered. - **Features: C.** It does one job fully: network maps with filters, clustering and spreadsheet import. That is a narrower job than a whiteboard. - **Ease of use: C.** No store rating on record. You import data and set up decorations before a map reads well. - **Platforms and integrations: C.** Web only, with no apps and no integrations listed. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Kumu's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among whiteboard and mind map tools - Kumu's GPA of 2.0 is higher than 4 of the 61 other whiteboard and mind map tools we grade, and level with 7. - Its paid plans start at $9 a month, against a middle price of $7.49 for the category: 29 of the 44 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.0 out of 4. 28 tools score higher and cost less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/whiteboards ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** The plain part of Kumu you could make: mind mapping. What surrounds it you could not. The 1 things listed below take a company, not a weekend. That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 50 of the 61 other whiteboard and mind map tools grade higher. It costs $108 a year. - You could make: Mind mapping: an app builder makes this well. - You could not: A diagram editor. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. **Tags:** Diagrams, Mind mapping ## Alternatives - [MindMeister](https://toolgpa.com/tools/mindmeister): Browser-based mind mapping with real-time collaboration. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/kumu-vs-mindmeister) - [Coggle](https://toolgpa.com/tools/coggle): Collaborative mind maps and flowcharts in the browser. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/coggle-vs-kumu) - [Cmap](https://toolgpa.com/tools/cmap): Free concept-mapping software from IHMC for school and research. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/cmap-vs-kumu) - [Plectica](https://toolgpa.com/tools/plectica): Card-based visual mapping for diagrams and concept maps. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/kumu-vs-plectica) - [Miro](https://toolgpa.com/tools/miro): Online whiteboard for team brainstorming, diagrams and planning. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/kumu-vs-miro) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://kumu.io/pricing - https://kumu.io/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/kumu Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).