ClickUp vs Outline
ClickUp and Outline are both note-taking & docs tools. ClickUp is aimed at small businesses and agencies, while Outline is aimed at developers and small businesses. Outline costs less, from $10/mo versus $12/mo for ClickUp. Both have a free plan.
| Pricing | Freemium · $12 | Freemium · $10 |
| Starting price | $12/mo | $10/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | 30 days |
| Built for | Small businesses, Agencies | Developers, Small businesses |
| Platforms | web, ios, android, macos, windows | web |
| Country | US · 2017 | US · 2017 |
| Rating | — | — |
Choose ClickUp if
Agencies and SMBs that want maximum functionality per seat and will invest in setup.
- Extremely feature-rich for the price
- Free plan is unusually generous
- Highly customizable hierarchy and fields
Look elsewhere if: Teams that want an opinionated, minimal tool (Linear, Basecamp) or enterprises needing predictable performance at scale.
Choose Outline if
Engineering-led teams and companies wanting a fast wiki with predictable pricing or self-hosting.
- Flat per-workspace pricing by team size
- Open source and self-hostable
- Very fast and clean
Look elsewhere if: Teams wanting all-in-one workspaces or non-technical setups.
ClickUp vs Outline pricing
ClickUp
- Free$060 MB storage, unlimited tasks and members, 500 AI credits per workspace
- Core$12/user/mo$9/user/mo billed yearly; unlimited storage, 1K AI credits per user
- Business$25/user/mo$17/user/mo billed yearly; 1K automations, Brain² trial
- EnterpriseCustomSAML SSO, HIPAA, data residency
- Max$120/user/mo$100/user/mo billed yearly; full Max AI engine, 10K pooled credits, white labeling
Outline
- Starter$10/moCloud, 1-10 team members; annual pricing available
- Team$79/moCloud, 11-100 team members
- Business$249/moCloud, 101-200 team members
- Community Edition$0Self-hosted, limited features, no support
- On-prem Business$4/user/moSelf-hosted, billed annually, 10 user minimum
ClickUp · Key features
- 15+ views including list, board, Gantt, calendar, mind map, workload
- Docs, whiteboards and chat inside the workspace
- Custom fields, statuses and templates per space or list
- Automations and ClickUp Brain AI for summaries and writing
- Time tracking, goals, dashboards and sprints
- Hierarchy: spaces, folders, lists, tasks, subtasks, checklists
Cons
- Complexity and clutter; onboarding takes effort
- Performance issues on large workspaces
- Frequent UI changes
Outline · Key features
- Markdown editor with slash commands and real-time collaboration
- Collections with nested documents and permissions
- SSO via Slack, Google, Microsoft, Okta and OIDC
- Fast full-text search and AI question answering
- Public sharing and publishing of docs
- Self-hosted or hosted; REST API and webhooks
Cons
- Wiki only; no databases or tasks
- Small team; features ship slower than big players
- Self-hosting requires Postgres, Redis and S3
ClickUp vs Outline: FAQ
Which is cheaper, ClickUp or Outline?
Outline starts at $10/mo and ClickUp at $12/mo. Both prices are checked on the vendors' own pricing pages.
Do ClickUp and Outline have a free plan?
Yes, both ClickUp and Outline have a free plan; paid plans add more usage and features.