# Trigger.dev review (2026): is the free plan enough? > Open-source platform for long-running background tasks and AI agents Checked Nov 12, 2026 ยท graded Nov 12, 2026 by ToolGPA. Trigger.dev runs background tasks and AI agents that developers write as code in their own repository. Tasks run on its managed workers with no maximum duration, or on your own servers using the open-source version. Cloud billing is a monthly plan with usage credits, plus charges for compute seconds and runs. - **Category:** Automation - **Made by:** API Hero Ltd. - **Website:** https://trigger.dev - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Not for you if you want a visual builder, as everything is code in your own project. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 12, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 12, 2026, Trigger.dev has a free plan, and paid plans start at $10 per month (Hobby), with $10 of usage credits included. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **Free plan:** $5 of monthly credits, 20 concurrent runs, 5 team members, 10 schedules, 1 day of log retention and community support. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Free | $0 | $5 monthly credits, 20 concurrent runs, 5 team members, 10 schedules and 1 day of log retention. | | Hobby | $10 per month, with $10 of usage credits included | 50 concurrent runs, 5 team members, 100 schedules, 7 days of log retention and 3 alert destinations. | | Pro | $50 per month, with $50 of usage credits included | 200+ concurrent runs, 25+ team members ($20 per extra seat), 1,000+ schedules, 30 days of logs and Slack support. | | Enterprise | Custom | Everything in Pro plus custom log retention, priority support, role-based access control, SSO and SOC 2 and pen-test reports. | Read from https://trigger.dev/pricing on Nov 12, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Trigger.dev before buying. ## Key features - **Tasks with no maximum duration:** Tasks are code that run on managed workers with no set time limit, so a single run can last minutes, days or longer. Waiting on a subtask or a long delay does not count toward compute. - **AI agents and chat:** Agent runs can last minutes or hours and survive crashes. Responses and tool calls can be streamed to a frontend through Realtime, and it works with the Vercel AI SDK. - **Schedules and webhooks:** Cron-style scheduled tasks and verified webhooks start runs. Schedules are capped by plan, from 10 on Free to 1,000 on Pro. - **Concurrency and queues:** Queues control how many runs execute at once. Limits only count while code is running, and extra concurrency on Pro is sold in bundles of 50 for $10 a month. - **Self-hosting:** The platform is open source under the Apache 2.0 license, and the vendor publishes a self-hosting guide for running it on your own infrastructure. - **Observability:** Runs are monitored and traced in a dashboard, with billing alerts at set share-of-budget levels. Log retention runs from 1 day on Free to 30 days on Pro. ## Good for - Developers who want background jobs written in code, not a visual builder - Teams running long AI agent or LLM workloads that outlast serverless timeouts - Companies that want the option to self-host an open-source job runner ## Worth knowing - Tasks are written in TypeScript in your own codebase; there is no visual workflow builder. - Compute is billed per second by machine size, plus $0.25 per 10,000 runs; a Small 1x machine costs $0.0000338 a second. - A signed HIPAA BAA is a $500 a month add-on on the Hobby and Pro plans. - The Free plan stops running tasks once its $5 of monthly credits is used up. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.2 out of 4**, graded Nov 12, 2026. Trigger.dev runs long background tasks and AI agents that you write in TypeScript in your own codebase. The free plan stops running tasks once its $5 of monthly credits are used, and there's no visual builder, so it's for developers only. - **Value for money: B.** Hobby is $10 a month with $10 of usage credits, which is the edge of the cheapest quarter ($10) in this category. Compute is billed per second on top, and a signed HIPAA BAA is $500 a month extra. - **Free plan and trial: C.** A free plan with $5 of monthly credits, 20 concurrent runs, 5 team members and 1 day of log retention. When the credits run out, tasks stop. - **Features: C.** Tasks with no time limit, schedules, queues, webhooks, a dashboard and open-source self-hosting. There's no visual workflow builder, and schedules are capped from 10 on Free to 1,000 on Pro. - **Ease of use: D.** No store rating on record. Tasks are TypeScript in your own codebase, and self-hosting is an option, so you need to be a developer to start. - **Platforms and integrations: B.** Web dashboard, with an API, webhooks, streaming to a frontend through Realtime and a self-hosting guide. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Trigger.dev's own pages on 12 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among automation tools - Trigger.dev's GPA of 2.2 is higher than 21 of the 71 other automation tools we grade, and level with 18. - It stands best on value for money (B, above 51 of 71) and worst on ease of use (D, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $10 a month, against a middle price of $19 for the category: 8 of the 38 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 2.0 out of 4. 5 tools score higher and cost less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/automation ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Trigger.dev you would be making connections to other products, each kept working as those products change. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 32 of the 71 other automation tools grade higher. It costs $120 a year. Trigger.dev is open source, so there is a third way: take its code and run it yourself. - You could not: Connections to other products, each kept working as those products change. - You could not: An AI agent, with the models and the safeguards behind it. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. ## Works with Vercel AI SDK, Claude Agent SDK, Next.js **Tags:** Workflow automation, Open source, Self-hostable, AI agents ## Alternatives - [Inngest](https://toolgpa.com/tools/inngest): Durable execution for background jobs, event-driven apps and agents. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/inngest-vs-trigger-dev) - [Windmill](https://toolgpa.com/tools/windmill): Open-source platform for scripts, workflows and internal apps. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/trigger-dev-vs-windmill) - [Kestra](https://toolgpa.com/tools/kestra): Open-source workflow orchestration platform defined in YAML. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/kestra-vs-trigger-dev) - [Camunda](https://toolgpa.com/tools/camunda): BPMN process orchestration, self-hosted or as a cloud service. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/camunda-vs-trigger-dev) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 12, 2026: - https://trigger.dev/pricing - https://trigger.dev/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/trigger-dev Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).