Does ClickUp cost more than self-hosted Plane or OpenProject?
Self-hosting does not automatically cost less than ClickUp, and the answer depends on which edition you run and what your own infrastructure already costs. The clearest saving comes from removing per-user subscription fees: the Plane Community Edition, licensed under AGPL-3.0, and the OpenProject Community edition, licensed under GPL-3.0, are free to download and run. ClickUp's prices are not part of the public material this page relies on, so take the current per-user and Enterprise figures from your own order form or renewal quote before comparing anything. Ask your ClickUp account team in writing which features your current seat count depends on, including SAML SSO, SCIM and audit logs. What replaces the subscription is recurring cost you pay to yourself or a provider. Plan for servers or cloud accounts, PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible object storage for Plane, plus OpenProject's PostgreSQL 16 or later requirement. Administration time covers upgrades, backups, monitoring and patching, and one-time migration work covers mapping lists, tasks and custom fields. Note that the paid editions bring per-user fees back. OpenProject Enterprise on-premises is priced per named user per month, with Basic at 5.95 euros and Professional at 10.95 euros (25-user minimum), and it places SSO and LDAP group synchronization in those plans. Plane's pricing page lists Pro at 6 to 8 US dollars and Business at 13 to 15 US dollars per user per month, and SAML and OIDC start at Pro on self-hosted Plane.
Be careful with any ranking of total cost. A small team on the free editions may spend mostly on its own time, while a large organization that needs SSO, audit logs and importers may pay per-user fees in both models. Compare the same scope on both sides: seats, the SSO and audit features you require, hosting in your own or a provider's environment, support hours and the migration effort your team will carry. Ask any implementation partner for a quote built from a written scope, and ask for each cost to be labeled one-time or recurring. Before you decide, confirm the current Plane and OpenProject editions and the feature list for each, since the paid tiers and their inclusions change over time.
Cost components on each side
This table sets ClickUp's per-seat subscription against the self-hosted costs of Plane and OpenProject, marking each component as one-time or recurring. Community editions carry no license fee, so hosting, databases, storage and staff time make up most of the self-hosted spend. Compare the ClickUp and Enterprise quotes line by line with your own staffing and infrastructure estimates before you decide.
| Cost component | ClickUp | Plane or OpenProject (self-hosted) | One-time or recurring |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subscription or license | Per-seat fee by plan tier. Confirm current rates in a written quote. | Community editions are free. Paid tiers are priced per user per month. | Recurring |
| Paid tier for SSO and importers | SAML, SCIM and audit logs are held for the Enterprise plan. | Plane pricing page lists Pro at 6 to 8 USD per user per month, with SAML and OIDC. OpenProject SSO sits in Enterprise plans. | Recurring |
| Price at larger seat counts | Cost rises with seats and tier. Ask for Enterprise terms in writing. | OpenProject Premium has a 100-user minimum. Corporate and Plane Enterprise Grid are quote-only. | Recurring |
| Server infrastructure | None to size or patch. Hosting sits with ClickUp. | Servers or cloud instances. OpenProject suggests 4 cores and 4 GB RAM for up to 200 users. | Recurring |
| Database, cache, queue and storage | Not billed or sized separately by the customer. | Plane needs PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible storage. OpenProject needs PostgreSQL 16 or later. | Recurring |
| Implementation and configuration | Admin time for spaces, permissions and automations. | Install, SSO setup, backups and hardening, done by your staff or a fixed-scope partner. | One-time |
| Migration from ClickUp | Export through CSV, one Doc at a time, and the API within plan rate limits. | Plane's ClickUp importer needs the Commercial Edition. Confirm OpenProject import options for ClickUp. | One-time |
| Support and upgrades | Included in the plan. Confirm response terms in the contract. | Community support is free. Paid editions, partner retainers or in-house staff cover upgrades. | Recurring |
| Internal skills and staff time | Admins manage workspaces with little platform engineering. | Staff patch, back up and upgrade the application, database and object storage. | Recurring |
Which paid tier unlocks SSO, importers and audit logs
The free editions carry no license fee, but several features you may need sit behind paid tiers. On OpenProject, single sign-on (SAML, OIDC, CAS, Kerberos and Okta), LDAP group synchronization, SCIM provisioning and portfolio management are part of the Enterprise plans, not the free Community edition. On Plane, SAML and OIDC start at the Pro tier on self-hosted installs, while LDAP support and API-enabled audit logs are listed as Enterprise features. Before you compare any price, write down each feature your identity, compliance and migration plans require, then map every one to the lowest tier that includes it on each platform. Do not assume that a feature named in a pricing table is included in the tier you are considering. Plane adds a structural step that OpenProject does not. A self-hosted Community install has to move to the Commercial Edition before you can buy a paid plan, because paid plans are unlocked with a license key and seats are counted by users with paid roles. The same Commercial Edition is also where Plane's Jira importer and its ClickUp importer run, so a team that wants to migrate from ClickUp while staying on the free feature set should confirm that it can run the importer without taking a paid plan. Ask the vendor how the Commercial Edition is licensed for your deployment, and confirm whether an install that only uses the free plan's feature set still needs a license key.
OpenProject lists its Jira Migrator under Enterprise plans from Basic upward. If you expect to move Jira history into OpenProject, add that tier to the comparison even if you do not need single sign-on. The migrator is in beta, supports only Jira Data Center 10.x and 11.x, and does not support Jira Cloud, so confirm your source version before you assume the cost line applies. Mark each paid feature as one of three types: needed at go-live, needed for a one-off migration, or nice to have. Migration-only features are a one-time cost that can sit beside a smaller recurring plan. The last step is to price the tier you actually need, not the tier that looks cheapest. Use the per-user figures from each vendor's pricing page for the same headcount, and ask both vendors in writing whether the quoted seat count includes guest, viewer or read-only users. Confirm the minimum seat count on OpenProject Enterprise plans, since those plans have user minimums, and confirm which Plane roles count as paid seats. A matrix with one row per required feature and one column per tier will show whether a higher tier is needed for a single feature or for the whole package.
What moves the cost comparison
Self-hosted pricing is not one number. The totals move with how many people need seats, which features force a paid edition, how much data you carry, how available the system must be, and who runs it. Work through these six drivers before comparing any ClickUp invoice with a self-hosted estimate.
Seat count and how it is billed
OpenProject Enterprise on-premises is priced per named user per month, and its tiers have minimums of 25 users for Professional and 100 for Premium, with Corporate on request for 250 or more users. Plane's paid editions count seats by users with paid roles, so guest and view-only users may not add cost. Ask each vendor how it counts a viewer, a guest and a deactivated account, and model your real headcount by role, not total ClickUp seats.
Features that force a paid edition
SSO and audit requirements are where the free editions stop. On self-hosted OpenProject, SSO (SAML, OIDC, CAS, Kerberos, Okta) and LDAP group synchronization sit in Enterprise plans. On self-hosted Plane, SAML and OIDC start at Pro, while LDAP and API-enabled audit logs are Enterprise features. List every control your auditors expect, then price only the tier that delivers it.
Data volume and attachments
Storage cost grows with attachments, comments and the history carried over from ClickUp. Plane stores files in S3-compatible object storage such as MinIO, and OpenProject's sizing guide scales CPU and memory with user count, not file volume. Before quoting, export a task CSV with attachment links from ClickUp, measure the total size of attached files, and confirm how each platform imports them.
Availability and managed services
A single Docker Compose host is cheaper to run but has less redundancy than the Kubernetes and Helm route, which Plane documents for high availability. Plane's Helm chart can point PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and object storage at external managed services, which shifts cost from staff time to a monthly service bill. Decide your uptime target first, then price the topology that meets it.
Editions and licensing terms
Plane Community is AGPL-3.0 and matches the Free feature set, while its paid features require switching to the proprietary Commercial Edition with a license key. OpenProject Community is GPL-3.0 and free, with Enterprise features under a subscription. Confirm with each vendor whether AGPL or GPL obligations apply to your modifications and internal use, and whether an upgrade path between editions carries a migration cost.
Internal skills and operating time
The largest recurring cost is often staff time. Someone must own PostgreSQL, the cache and queue services, object storage, upgrades, backups and certificates, and OpenProject's PostgreSQL 16 requirement with its extensions is one more item on that list. Ask your team who will patch and restore these services, how many hours a month that takes in your environment, and whether a fixed-scope implementation or retainer covers that work.
How the model changes for small teams and large organizations
A small team that runs the free editions pays no per-seat license fee. Plane Community Edition is licensed AGPL-3.0 and matches the feature set of the Plane Cloud Free tier, and OpenProject Community is free and includes work packages, Gantt charts, agile boards, time tracking and dashboards. The main recurring costs are a single server or virtual machine, storage and backups, and the staff hours needed to patch and restart the stack. Plane documents Docker Compose for small and mid-size teams, so the initial deployment is usually a modest one-node setup.
- Infrastructure: One virtual machine or server, sized from OpenProject's guide of 4 cores and 4 GB RAM for up to 200 users.
- Backups: Scheduled database and file backups, which are your responsibility on the free editions.
- Administration: Patching, upgrades and monitoring handled by an internal staff member, often part-time.
- Identity: Local accounts, since SSO, LDAP and SCIM sit behind paid tiers.
- Support: Community channels rather than contracted response times.
Before you rely on this model, confirm the current free feature set with each vendor and the staff time you can realistically allocate to upgrades.
A mid-size team usually needs single sign-on before it needs anything else, because access reviews and offboarding depend on it. On self-hosted Plane, SAML and OIDC are available on the Pro tier and above, which requires moving from the Community Edition to the Commercial Edition with a license key. OpenProject lists SSO (SAML, OIDC, CAS, Kerberos, Okta) and LDAP group synchronization in its Enterprise plans. Licensing becomes the largest recurring line item, and it scales with named or paid users rather than with server size.
- Licenses: Per-user fees, such as the OpenProject Basic and Professional figures in euros per named user per month with a 25-user minimum on the Professional tier, or Plane Pro's listed range per user per month.
- Infrastructure: Usually still a single node or a small pair, sized against the 8 cores and 8 GB guide for around 500 users.
- Database: A dedicated PostgreSQL instance, with OpenProject requiring PostgreSQL 16 or later and the pg_trgm, btree_gist and unaccent extensions.
- Migration effort: One-time import work, including the Plane importers or the OpenProject Jira Migrator, which is in beta and covers only Jira Data Center 10.x and 11.x.
- Administration: Identity provider configuration and periodic group mapping.
Ask each vendor for a quote based on your exact seat count and the tier that includes the SSO feature you need.
A large organization typically runs Kubernetes with Helm, which OpenProject supports for horizontal scaling and Plane supports for high availability. Plane's Helm chart can point PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible object storage at external managed services, which shifts operational risk to those services but adds integration and networking work. OpenProject's sizing guide suggests 16 cores and 16 GB for about 1,500 users. Costs here are dominated by platform staff, infrastructure across environments, and enterprise licensing, rather than by the software itself.
- Compute: Sizing that grows from 4 cores and 4 GB at 200 users to 16 cores and 16 GB at about 1,500 users, plus headroom for staging and disaster recovery.
- Managed services: Fees for external PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and object storage, if you choose them.
- Platform staff: Engineers who own the Helm releases, upgrades, certificates and monitoring.
- Enterprise licensing: OpenProject Premium and Corporate tiers, with Corporate quoted on request for 250 or more users, and Plane Enterprise Grid priced on request.
- Compliance evidence: Logging, access reviews and change records that auditors will ask for.
Before committing, ask each vendor which features in your tier are needed for audit logs and LDAP, and request a written sizing review for your user count.
How to build the comparison with your own numbers
This sequence turns your ClickUp invoice and feature needs into a like-for-like comparison of licenses, hosting, staff time and migration effort over the term your contract defines.
Pull your current ClickUp seat count and plan
Finance or the account owner exports the latest ClickUp invoice and admin billing page to record the plan tier, the number of paid seats, any guest or add-on seats, and the billing period. Note whether you pay monthly or annually and the renewal date. You know this step is done when you have one line per plan or add-on with seat count and billing cycle, checked against the invoice total.
List the features your teams actually use
Team leads and the ClickUp admin list the features that daily work depends on, such as spaces, lists, automations, time tracking, dashboards, guest access, single sign-on, SCIM provisioning, audit logs and data residency. Mark which features are must-have and which are nice-to-have. The output is a short requirements table that names each feature and its owner. Done means every must-have has a named business reason.
Map each requirement to an edition
The platform owner checks each must-have against the feature lists for Plane's Community, Commercial and Airgapped editions and OpenProject's Community and Enterprise plans. For OpenProject, SSO, LDAP group synchronization, SCIM provisioning and portfolio and resource management sit in paid Enterprise plans, and the Jira Migrator is listed from Basic upward, though you will not need it for ClickUp. For Plane, check whether SAML, OIDC, LDAP and API-enabled audit logs are in the tier you need. Record any requirement that no edition covers, and confirm open items with each vendor in writing.
Price the self-hosted license lines
Use the published rates as the starting point. OpenProject Enterprise on-premises is priced per named user per month, with Basic at 5.95 euros and Professional at 10.95 euros (25-user minimum), Premium at 15.95 euros (100-user minimum) and Corporate on request for 250 or more users. Plane Pro and Business are listed per user per month, Pro at 6 to 8 US dollars and Business at 13 to 15 US dollars, and Enterprise Grid is on request. Multiply each rate by your named users or paid seats, and check the vendor's current page before you use it. Community editions have no license line but carry hosting and staff costs.
Add infrastructure and staff time from your own estimates
Infrastructure and people are your numbers, not the vendors'. Size the servers from OpenProject's published guide for your user count, and for Plane list PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ and S3-compatible object storage, whether you run them yourselves or use managed services. Add backup storage, monitoring, upgrade effort and an administrator's time from your internal rate. Label each line as an internal estimate with its assumptions written down. Done when every cost line has a stated source, either a vendor figure or your own assumption.
Separate one-time costs from recurring costs
Split the model into two groups. One-time costs include the data migration from ClickUp, configuration of single sign-on, testing, staff training and any implementation partner scope, which should be agreed in a written fixed scope. Recurring costs include licenses, hosting, backup, upgrades, support subscriptions and administration time. Keep the ClickUp Enterprise line separate, because its price is not published here and must come from a written quote. The output is two totals, one-time and annual recurring, for each option.
Compare the totals over your contract term
Set the comparison period to match your ClickUp renewal and any notice terms, then project the recurring totals across that period, adding the one-time costs once. Include a sensitivity line showing how the result moves if your seat count grows or shrinks. Check that ClickUp Enterprise is priced in the same currency, same seat basis and same billing cycle as the alternatives. Request written quotes from ClickUp Enterprise, from Plane for any paid tier you plan to buy, and from OpenProject for the Enterprise tier. The comparison is complete when the three quotes are attached and each assumption is traceable to a document.
What the one-time migration costs depend on
The one-time cost of moving from ClickUp is driven less by the license and more by the volume and shape of what you move: the number of tasks, the attachments on them, the custom fields in use, and the Docs that sit alongside projects. Each of these adds review, mapping and cleanup effort, and the work is paid for either internally or through an implementation partner's fixed-scope engagement. A quote should break the effort down by these four inputs, so you can see which ones your environment will push up. Plane's ClickUp importer needs the self-hosted Commercial Edition, not the Community Edition, so a team that starts on Community will need to plan the edition switch into its budget before importing. Docs and some other data are not covered by that importer and need separate export, which is handled one piece at a time. The export pieces, including the task CSV, attachment links and the API rate limits that apply per plan, are covered on the sibling pages on exporting from ClickUp and on migrating to Plane, so this section does not repeat them. Before you commit budget, run a trial import of a representative project in a non-production environment and compare the result against the source. Check task counts, dates, assignees, custom field values, attachment links and comments, and record every field that does not map. Ask the vendor or your implementation partner to confirm the current import coverage for your ClickUp plan and your target edition in writing, because importer scope changes between releases. The gaps you find in that trial are the best basis for a realistic scope and quote.
Questions buyers ask about ClickUp and self-hosted cost
Is self-hosting Plane or OpenProject cheaper than ClickUp?
It can be, but the answer depends on seat count and on costs beyond the software fee. The Community editions of Plane and OpenProject carry no license fee, while paid tiers are priced per user: Plane's pricing page lists Pro at 6 to 8 US dollars and Business at 13 to 15 US dollars per user per month, and OpenProject Enterprise on-premises starts at 5.95 euros per named user per month with a 25-user minimum on Basic. Your recurring costs also include servers or cloud capacity, PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, RabbitMQ, object storage, backups, and the internal or partner time to run upgrades. Confirm current ClickUp per-seat prices for your plan, then model both sides over three years using your real headcount, including the Enterprise features you need.
How long does a migration from ClickUp take and what drives it?
No researched figure exists for the duration of a ClickUp migration, so treat any number from a vendor or partner as a claim to verify against your own export. The main drivers are the number of spaces, lists and tasks, how many custom fields and task types need a clean mapping, how much attachment and comment history must come across, and whether Docs move separately. Plane's ClickUp importer runs on the Commercial Edition, so a Community install must switch editions first. OpenProject does not list a ClickUp importer among the sources in its supplied documentation, so confirm the supported route before planning. Ask for a written scope that names the mapping rules and a test import on a copy of your data.
Can our team run Plane or OpenProject without outside help?
Yes, if you have people who already run Docker or Kubernetes, PostgreSQL and object storage in production. Plane documents Docker Compose for small and mid-size teams and Kubernetes with Helm for high availability, and OpenProject supports Docker-based installation, .deb and .rpm packages, and Helm charts. The harder parts are the first deployment, identity integration, backup and restore testing, and a repeatable upgrade routine. OpenProject's sizing guide suggests 4 cores and 4 GB RAM for up to 200 users, which is a starting point rather than a guarantee for your workload. Teams without this skill set usually buy a fixed-scope implementation and then decide whether to keep support in a retainer.
What does running either tool need from internal staff?
Plan for a named owner who manages the platform, plus backup and recovery responsibilities that someone can prove works. Day-to-day tasks include user and group administration, reviewing release notes, applying minor upgrades, watching database and storage growth, and handling access requests. Plane's Community and Commercial editions release on their own cycles, and OpenProject published 17.7.0 on August 5, 2026, 17.8.0 on September 2, and 17.9.0 on September 30, so upgrade reviews should be a recurring calendar item. Confirm with your vendor or partner how many hours per month the platform will take at your user count, because no researched figure covers that.
Do the free editions of Plane and OpenProject include SSO?
No. Plane Community matches the feature set of Plane Cloud's Free tier, and on self-hosted Plane, SAML and OIDC are available from the Pro plan upward, with LDAP support listed under Enterprise. OpenProject's free Community edition does not include single sign-on, and its SSO options (SAML, OIDC, CAS, Kerberos and Okta) and LDAP group synchronization sit in Enterprise plans. If your security baseline requires centralized sign-in with multi-factor authentication, budget for a paid tier from the start. Before you choose, check which identity provider you use and confirm with each vendor that the required protocol is in the tier you select.
What does upgrading a self-hosted install cost in effort?
Upgrade effort is recurring and depends on how far you fall behind and how much customization you carry. Each upgrade needs a backup, a test in a staging copy, a check of database extensions and version requirements, and a rollback plan. OpenProject's system requirements call for PostgreSQL 16 or later and the pg_trgm, btree_gist and unaccent extensions, so a database upgrade may run alongside the application upgrade. Plane publishes releases such as v1.4.0 in July 2026 and v1.4.2 in August 2026, so minor updates can arrive several times a year. Ask any implementer for a written upgrade runbook, an agreed frequency, and the hours included in a retainer.
What should we ask for in a quote for a self-hosted replacement?
Ask for a fixed-scope document that lists deliverables, timelines, exclusions and acceptance criteria before work starts. Request separate line items for planning, deployment in your own cloud account or data center, identity integration, data migration, testing, backup and restore verification, documentation, and training. Also ask what recurs after go-live, such as retainer hours, upgrades and continuous testing, and what drives those hours up. Confirm which software editions the quote assumes, because Plane's importers and paid identity features sit in the Commercial or Enterprise tiers, and ask for the license cost to appear as its own line. DeployOpen does not publish a price list, and a quote follows from the written scope.
When self-hosting Plane or OpenProject makes financial sense
The business case for self-hosting holds in three situations: a data residency or self-hosting requirement that a per-seat cloud plan cannot meet, a free edition that already covers most of the features your teams use, or a renewal that moves your team into a higher tier just to keep features you need. The cost gap is usually widest when the free edition is enough for most work, because the recurring line item shifts from per-user licenses to hosting, backups and the time your platform staff spend on upgrades. For OpenProject, the Community edition covers work packages, Gantt charts, agile boards, time tracking and dashboards. For Plane, the Community Edition matches the feature set of Plane Cloud's Free tier. Confirm with each vendor which features your current ClickUp plan uses that the free edition does not include.
The case weakens when you need paid single sign-on and have no team to run the platform. On self-hosted Plane, SAML and OIDC start at the Pro plan, and LDAP and API-enabled audit logs sit in Enterprise. OpenProject places SSO, LDAP group synchronization and SCIM provisioning in its Enterprise plans, priced per named user per month. Once you add a license to the hosting bill, the savings against ClickUp Enterprise may shrink or disappear for a small team. Ask each vendor for a written quote for the exact feature set and user count you need, and compare it with your current ClickUp renewal line by line. Count the staff hours for installation, upgrades, backups and monitoring as a recurring cost, not a one-time one.
Before you decide, run a short test: list the features your teams rely on, mark which ones sit in the free edition, and price the paid items at your real seat count. Then estimate platform effort honestly. Plane's self-hosted paths range from Docker Compose for small and mid-size teams to Kubernetes with Helm for high availability, and both need PostgreSQL, object storage and a queue or cache. OpenProject requires PostgreSQL 16 or later and sizing grows with user count. If nobody on your team will own those components, a fixed-scope implementation and a support retainer may cost less overall than hiring. Make the decision on the total of licenses, infrastructure and people, not on the license line alone.
How DeployOpen works on this
DeployOpen plans, implements and supports self-hosted Plane or OpenProject inside your own cloud account, data center or air-gapped network, so the cost comparison turns into a written scope. Engagements are fixed-scope, with scope, deliverables and timelines agreed in writing before work starts.
How we scope
- We confirm which ClickUp spaces, lists and automations are in scope for migration
- We agree which Plane or OpenProject edition and Enterprise features the written scope needs
- We size hosting for PostgreSQL, Redis or Valkey, object storage and users before any quote
How we build
- We install the chosen platform in your environment, using Docker, Kubernetes or packages
- We configure single sign-on, user provisioning and access rules to match your identity setup
- We test the ClickUp export, import and reconciliation steps against a copy of your data
How we hand over
- We document the deployment, configuration, backup and upgrade procedures for your team
- We deliver a record of what was migrated, what was left behind and why
- We walk your administrators through daily operations and the edition and license decisions
How we support
- Ongoing support, upgrades and continuous testing are available as a retainer
- We can apply vendor releases and security updates to the platform on a scheduled basis
- Support scope and response expectations are set in the written agreement before work begins
