Is Postman free? What it actually costs in 2026
Postman’s Free plan is $0 for one user, with 1,000 monitoring requests a month. A second person on the same collection means a paid plan.
Free gives you the API client, collections, mock servers, native Git and unlimited Collection Runner performance runs. What it does not give you is other people.
What the free tier actually includes
- 1 user — collaboration is the paywall
- 1,000 API monitoring requests per month
- 10,000 monthly calls to the Postman API
- Up to 5 integrations
- 1 day of collection recovery
- 50 or 100 AI credits a month — Postman’s page shows both
Where the wall is
Seat count, and it arrives on day one of working with anybody else. Every other limit here is generous enough to ignore; the single-user cap is not a limit you grow into, it is one you hit the moment a second person needs the same collection. The one-day recovery window is the quieter trap — delete a collection on Friday and it is unrecoverable by Monday.
After that: Solo is $9 a month billed annually and still one user; Team is $19 per user per month billed annually, with unlimited users; Enterprise is now priced by sales. Postman’s page shows only annual prices. Priced per user, so a five-person team collaborating on one API is $95 a month on annual billing.
Can you self-host Postman? No — cloud only
Postman is cloud-first and its collaboration features require their sync service. This is precisely why Bruno, Hoppscotch, Insomnia and Yaak exist: Bruno in particular stores collections as plain files in your own Git repository, which turns a seat-based collaboration paywall into an ordinary pull request.
Questions people ask
- Is Postman free for commercial use?
- Postman’s pricing page puts no non-commercial condition on the Free plan — its limits are about scale, not purpose: one user, 1,000 monitoring requests and 10,000 Postman API calls a month, up to 5 integrations and 1 day of collection recovery. A business can use it until a second person needs the same collection.
- What is the difference between Postman Free and paid?
- People and headroom. Free is one user. Solo ($9 a month, billed annually) is still one user but raises monitoring to 10,000 requests, Postman API calls to 100,000 and recovery to 30 days. Team ($19 per user a month, billed annually) adds unlimited users, up to 50 integrations and 90-day recovery. Enterprise is priced by sales.
- How many AI credits does Postman Free include?
- Postman’s own pricing page gives two numbers on 14 Oct 2026: the Free plan card says 100 AI credits, the comparison table says 50 a month. Solo and Team list 400 a month (per user on Team). Until Postman settles it, plan on the lower figure.
What it actually takes to run one yourself
Real RAM against the documented minimum, monthly cost, setup time, and the one thing that catches people out.
Self-hosting Bruno
Self-hosting Hoppscotch
Self-hosting Insomnia
Self-hosting API Dash
What you are locked into
By default, collections and request history live in Postman's cloud tied to an account, and the platform steers toward its hosted workspaces. Export and newer Git integration exist, but the account requirement and proprietary collection format can make fully local or vendor-neutral workflows less straightforward.
If you would rather not pay: Bruno
Bruno
A fast, git-native API client that stores collections as plain files.
Free and open-source core; optional Pro ($6/user/mo) and Ultimate ($11/user/mo) for advanced Git, SSO, and support
See all 4 Postman alternatives comparedCompare the free options head-to-head
Read from Postman, Inc.'s own pricing and documentation on 2026-10-14 — 13 days ago. Vendors change prices without notice; confirm before you commit.