CircleCI
CircleCI is a cloud-native CI/CD platform automating software building, testing, and deployment across multiple execution environments for over 22,000 organizations globally, using a credit-based pricing model with PLG and enterprise field sales.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2012
- HeadquartersSan Francisco, United States
- Headcount251–500
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What CircleCI does
CircleCI is a cloud-native continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform founded in 2012 and headquartered in San Francisco. The platform automates building, testing, and deployment of software across multiple execution environments including Docker, Linux VMs, macOS, Windows, Arm, and GPU, and serves over 22,000 organizations across 149 countries. The product line spans the CircleCI Cloud Platform, CircleCI Server for on-premises enterprise deployments, and an ecosystem of tooling including CircleCI Orbs (reusable, semantically versioned configuration packages), Self-Hosted Runners, the VS Code extension, the CLI, the Config SDK, and the Release Agent for deployment orchestration. The company has repositioned around AI-era software delivery through the Chunk autonomous validation agent and the broader Autonomous Validation Platform launched in 2026.
Revenue is generated primarily through a credit-based consumption model in which compute resources are billed per second by machine type, with each credit priced at approximately $0.0006 and sold in packs of 25,000 for $15. Pricing is structured across four tiers: a Free tier for individuals and open source projects (with 400,000 monthly Linux and 25,000 monthly macOS credits for OSS), a Performance tier for growing teams, a Scale tier for large organizations requiring premium support and dedicated account teams, and a Server tier for enterprise on-premises deployments. Go-to-market combines product-led growth through self-serve signup with VCS-based OAuth onboarding, community-led acquisition via forums, documentation, and annual State of Software Delivery research, and direct enterprise field sales for Scale and Server plans. Additional revenue comes from per-user platform fees for access to features such as dependency caching and workspaces, premium support subscriptions, prepaid billing volume discounts, and usage-based add-ons such as Docker Layer Caching and IP Ranges.
CircleCI was last valued at $1.7 billion in its May 2021 Series F funding round of $100 million, which also funded the acquisition of Vamp, a Dutch release orchestration platform. The company has since acquired Ponicode (March 2022) and broadened its AI/agent capabilities, deepened partnerships with AWS, GitHub, and Cursor, and added regional general management for Japan/APAC and EMEA, indicating ongoing investment in product and geographic expansion without an intervening funding round.
CircleCI firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- CircleCI
- Legal name
- Circle Internet Services, Inc.
- Website
- https://circleci.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2012
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 251–500 employees
- Short description
- CircleCI is a cloud-native CI/CD platform automating software building, testing, and deployment across multiple execution environments for over 22,000 organizations globally, using a credit-based pricing model with PLG and enterprise field sales.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
Where CircleCI is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- San Francisco
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Markets served
CircleCI business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Personnel, Marketing or Sales, Operations
Revenue model
- Credit-based Compute Consumption: CircleCI's primary revenue stream is credit-based consumption. Credits are consumed by the second at varying rates per minute depending on machine type and resource class. Credits are sold in packages of 25,000 at $15 each (approximately $0.0006 per credit). Credits roll over each month and expire after one year on Performance plans. This model provides precise control over spending based on actual compute usage.
- Per-User Platform Fees: Additional platform features such as new machine sizes are paid with a monthly fee of 25,000 credits per active user. The first five active users are included on Free and Performance plans. Additional active users beyond this limit are charged at 25,000 credits per user per month. This covers access to platform features like dependency caching, artifact caching, and workspaces.
- Premium Support: Optional premium support plans offering 24/7 coverage with response times as low as 30 minutes. Standard support included with Performance plan through SLAs and global ticket-based system. Premium support adds expanded SLAs, dedicated account team, training, and onboarding options available with Scale plan.
- Prepaid Billing Discounts: Prepaid billing option for Performance Plan customers allows purchasing credits in bulk upfront with discounted pricing. Discounting starts at purchase volumes of 5 Million credits and up. Customers receive 30,000 bonus credits and 5 free user seats every month with prepaid billing.
- Docker Layer Caching Add-on: DLC is paid for with credits per usage (200 credits per job run), similar to compute credits. This is an add-on feature for customers building Docker images regularly.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Usage-based | Monthly | Free plan with limited compute credits for individuals and small teams getting started with CI/CD |
| Usage-based | Monthly | Performance plan for growing teams with additional compute options and higher concurrency |
| Usage-based | Annual | Scale plan for large organizations with advanced compliance and customization requirements |
| Usage-based | Annual | Server plan for enterprise customers requiring on-premises CI/CD within private network or firewall |
| Hybrid | Multi-year contract | Prepaid billing option offering volume discounts for credit purchases |
Go-to-market motion3 records
Distribution channels4 records
Marketing channels10 records
CircleCI product offering
Product offeringCore offering
CircleCI provides a cloud-native continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform that automates the building, testing, and deployment of software across multiple execution environments including Docker, Linux VMs, macOS, Windows, Arm, and GPU. The platform uses a credit-based consumption model with self-serve onboarding for individual developers and enterprise sales for larger organizations requiring on-premises deployment, compliance, and dedicated support.
Product overview
CircleCI is a continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) platform offering cloud-hosted and on-premises deployment options. The core CircleCI Cloud Platform and CircleCI Server products support multiple execution environments (Docker, Linux, macOS, Windows, Arm, GPU) for building, testing, and deploying code. The platform's primary modules include CircleCI Orbs for reusable configuration, Self-Hosted Runners for custom infrastructure, and the Release Agent for advanced deployment management. CircleCI has expanded into AI-driven development with Chunk, an autonomous validation agent that addresses bottlenecks in software delivery pipelines. Additional tooling includes the VS Code Extension for IDE integration, CircleCI CLI for command-line management, and the Config SDK for programmatic configuration generation. The platform integrates with major cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure), VCS systems (GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket), and provides specialized features like IP Ranges for security, Docker Layer Caching for build optimization, and extensive monitoring integrations (Datadog, New Relic, Sumo Logic).
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- CircleCI Cloud Platform Cloud-hosted CI/CD platform that automates building, testing, and deploying software across Docker, Linux VMs, macOS, Windows, Arm, and GPU execution environments for software development teams.
- CircleCI Server On-premises CI/CD platform for enterprise customers requiring compliance or security operations within a firewall, private cloud, or data center. Includes custom credit options, user seat configuration, storage retention controls, and expanded support.
- Autonomous Validation Platform AI-powered validation platform that accelerates software testing and deployment for AI-first development teams. Includes autonomous validation agents addressing bottlenecks such as test failure triage, flaky test detection, dependency management, and config fixes.
- Chunk CLI CLI-based autonomous validation agent that handles test failure triage, flaky test detection, dependency management, incident support, auto-generated tests, config fixes, and cross-stage correlation for AI-generated code validation.
- CircleCI API v2
Quantifiable outcome
- 50% reduction in deployment time using CircleCI's AWS DPRA reference architecture
- +4 more outcomes
Companies that use CircleCI
Customer profileSegments4 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
CircleCI technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration23 records
AI capability8 records
Feature11 records
CircleCI partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Three partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.
- VampcoreCircleCI acquired Vamp, a Dutch release orchestration platform provider, as part of its Series F funding announcement. The acquisition was intended to enhance CircleCI's CI/CD platform capabilities for improving software release and rollback processes, data insights, and developer support.
- Amazon Web Services (AWS)coreCircleCI announced a reference implementation of the AWS Deployment Pipeline Reference Architecture (DPRA), integrating CircleCI's CI/CD platform with AWS services including CodeDeploy, CloudWatch, Amazon ECS, and Aurora. The implementation includes third-party security tools for container vulnerability scanning, secrets detection, and infrastructure compliance.
- ThoughtworksminorThoughtworks sponsored CircleCI's seventh annual 2026 State of Software Delivery report, which analyzed nearly 28 million CI workflows across over 22,000 organizations in 149 countries.
Scale indicators10 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights4 records
CircleCI competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- GitHub Actions: GitHub Actions is CI/CD built directly into GitHub, the dominant VCS. It is the most direct substitute for CircleCI for any team already on GitHub, with generous free tiers and deeply integrated triggers/status updates — putting structural pricing pressure on CircleCI's credit model.
- GitLab CI/CD: GitLab's integrated CI/CD ships with the broader DevOps platform, including SCM, security, and planning. Comparable to CircleCI in pipeline functionality but bundled into a single-vendor lifecycle suite, making it a frequent head-to-head competitor for enterprise evaluations.
- Jenkins: Jenkins is the long-standing open-source CI/CD server with a vast plugin ecosystem. It is CircleCI's primary competitor for self-hosted, highly customizable enterprise pipelines, especially in regulated industries and teams with deep customization needs.
- Buildkite: Buildkite offers hybrid CI/CD with cloud orchestration and customer-run agents, similar to CircleCI's self-hosted runners. It is a direct competitor for engineering teams wanting precise control over where builds execute while still getting managed scheduling.
- Travis CI: Travis CI is an older cloud-based CI service with overlapping target customers (open source and SMB engineering teams). It competes head-to-head on hosted CI pricing and free open-source support, particularly for smaller teams.
- Drone.io: Drone is a container-native CI/CD platform, with both cloud and self-hosted options. It overlaps CircleCI on Docker-first pipelines and developer-led adoption, serving as a comparable choice for teams standardizing on containers.
Emerging players
- Harness: Harness provides CI/CD alongside continuous delivery, feature flags, and security testing — overlapping with CircleCI's pipeline and Vamp-acquired release orchestration capabilities. It is an emerging enterprise-focused competitor that bundles CI with adjacent DevOps modules.
- Spinnaker: Spinnaker is an open-source multi-cloud continuous delivery platform originally from Netflix. It overlaps with CircleCI's deployment and release orchestration (Vamp) capabilities, particularly for enterprises managing releases across cloud environments.
- JFrog Pipelines: JFrog Pipelines is the CI/CD module within the JFrog DevOps platform, focused on artifact and binary management. It overlaps with CircleCI for software delivery workflows, particularly where artifact lifecycle management is a priority.
Broad incumbents
- Atlassian Bamboo: Bamboo is Atlassian's CI/CD server product, sold as part of the broader Atlassian DevOps suite. It competes with CircleCI Server for enterprises standardized on Atlassian tooling, especially via Jira and Bitbucket integrations.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat5 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
CircleCI social profiles
Digital presenceCircleCI compliance and trust
Trust signalCompliance1 record
CircleCI financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
CircleCI leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles12 records
CircleCI subsidiaries and ownership
Company hierarchySubsidiaries1 record
CircleCI funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds9 records
Investors19 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
CircleCI M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A3 records
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about CircleCI
What does CircleCI do?
CircleCI provides a cloud-native continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) platform that automates the building, testing, and deployment of software across multiple execution environments including Docker, Linux VMs, macOS, Windows, Arm, and GPU. The platform uses a credit-based consumption model with self-serve onboarding for individual developers and enterprise sales for larger organizations requiring on-premises deployment, compliance, and dedicated support.
Is CircleCI a public or private company?
CircleCI is a private company. It is classified as venture growth investor backed and is currently operating.
When was CircleCI founded?
CircleCI was founded in 2012. It employs 251 to 500 people.
Where is CircleCI based?
CircleCI is headquartered in San Francisco, United States, in the North America region.
How does CircleCI make money?
Five revenue lines are on record. Credit-based Compute Consumption is the primary driver. The others are per-User Platform Fees, premium Support, prepaid Billing Discounts and docker Layer Caching Add-on.
Who are CircleCI's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD, Jenkins, Buildkite, Travis CI and Drone.io. Emerging players are Harness, Spinnaker and JFrog Pipelines. Atlassian Bamboo is listed as a broad incumbent.
Does CircleCI have an API?
Yes. CircleCI offers API v2, a REST API that enables developers to build integrations and automate CI/CD workflows. The API supports triggering pipelines, managing projects, retrieving build data, and interacting with CircleCI resources programmatically. Developer documentation is at circleci.com/docs/reference/api-homepage.