Missive Pricing in 2026: Plans, the Unadvertised Free Tier, and Five Years of History
Every Missive plan priced for 2026, the 5-user cap on the $14 tier, and the unadvertised free plan with a 15-day memory its pricing page no longer shows.
- Current Missive plans run $14 to $36 per user per month billed annually; the $14 Starter carries a 5-user cap and leaves out rules, AI, integrations, and API access.
- A free plan still exists but is not advertised: $0, up to 3 users, and only 15 days of email history, documented in Missive's own billing docs rather than on its pricing page.
- Entry pricing rose from $10 in 2021 to $14 by 2023 and has held; like-for-like on monthly billing, the entry rate went from $10 to $18. For comparison, Drag runs $12 to $24, and $24 is the most it ever costs, everything included.
Table of contents
Missive pricing in 2026 runs from $14 to $36 per user per month on annual billing, with a 30-day trial. And one thing its pricing page will not tell you: a free plan still technically exists, de-listed from the public plans in 2024, still reachable in-product, $0 for up to 3 users with just 15 days of email history. Whether a plan the vendor stopped advertising, with a two-week memory, is something to build on is a different question, and this page covers it honestly.
What Missive costs in 2026
Three published plans, billed annually, plus the unadvertised free tier below them. The number that matters as much as the seat price is the seat count: Starter stops at five people.
| Plan | Annual | Monthly | Users | What it adds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (unadvertised) Free | $0 | $0 | up to 3 | Email, SMS, social; 15-day history; 2 shared accounts |
| Starter | $14 /user/mo | $18 | up to 5 | Unlimited history, team spaces and inboxes, SOC 2 Type II |
| Productive | $24 /user/mo | $30 | up to 50 | Rules, AI assistant, integrations, basic analytics, API access |
| Business | $36 /user/mo | $45 | unlimited | SAML SSO, IP restriction, advanced analytics, onboarding |
Paid figures from Missive's own pricing page, captured December 2025 and re-checked live in July 2026. Monthly rates are Missive's published month-to-month figures; the annual rate is the 20 percent discount off them. The trial is 30 days and takes no card.
Missive's structural difference holds: chat, SMS, and email in one product at one per-seat price. But the tier map matters more than the headline: the $14 Starter is capped at 5 users and excludes rules, AI, integrations, and the API, and the working feature set concentrates at the $24 Productive tier. Price Productive, not Starter, and the comparison changes.
The free plan Missive stopped advertising
In 2024, Missive quietly took its free plan off the pricing page without killing it. The tier still exists, $0 for up to 3 users with 15 days of email history and 2 shared accounts, and the billing docs still explain how to downgrade onto it. This is a pattern worth naming: a free plan kept as a retention valve rather than shown as a front door.
Two archived captures, six months apart, bracket the change. In February 2024 the pricing page still showed four columns, the first of them Free at $0 with a 3-user limit and 15 days of history. By August 2024 there were three columns and the free one was gone. Nothing announced it. Missive's billing documentation, read in July 2026, still lists the Free plan at $0 for up to 3 users, still limits it to 15 days of history and 2 shared accounts, and still tells paying customers they can "switch to the Free plan instead" of cancelling. Its pricing page even contradicts itself: the December 2025 capture answers "Can I try Missive first?" with "Everyone starts on Missive's free plan," three columns above a card layout that offers no such thing. That is why roundups disagree about Missive: the ones calling it free are describing a tier that is real but hidden, and the ones calling it paid-only are describing the page.
The honest read: 15 days of history means the free tier cannot be your team's record of anything. It is a demo that doesn't expire, not a plan. If free is genuinely what you need, the genuinely free options are covered in our free shared inbox guide; and if you are pricing Missive's real tiers, they start at $14 with a 5-user cap.
The history: a quiet line with one loud year
Missive's seat prices tell a quiet story, a modest early climb and then flat, with one basis note: annual billing did not exist before April 2024, so the early figures are monthly rates, marked as such. The louder story is the tier moves around the prices: the free plan de-listed in 2024, the Starter cap, and a top tier that went from $15 to $26 to $36.
Capture by capture, the entry seat and the top of the range went:
- $10 entry, $15 top in 2021, when the lineup was Free, Starter, and Productive, and Productive was the most expensive plan Missive sold.
- $13 entry, $18 top in 2022, the largest single step the entry price has taken in the window.
- $14 entry, $26 top in 2023, by which point a Business tier had appeared above Productive.
- $14 entry, $36 top from 2024 onward, unchanged through 2025 and into 2026.
Read those together and the shape is clear. The entry price has not moved in three years, which is genuinely unusual on our charts. Everything else moved in one year: 2024 is when the free plan left the page, when Productive went $18 to $24, and when Business went $26 to $36, rises of 33 and 38 percent while the headline $14 sat still. If you priced Missive on its entry tier in 2023 and again today, you would conclude nothing had changed. The plan most teams actually need costs six dollars a seat more than it did.
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Missive vs Drag: the full range
Costed for a five-person team on annual billing, tier by tier:
| Plan | Per seat | 5-person team, monthly |
|---|---|---|
| Missive Starter | $14 | $70 |
| Missive Productive | $24 | $120 |
| Missive Business | $36 | $180 |
| Drag Starter | $12 | $60 |
| Drag Plus | $18 | $90 |
| Drag Pro | $24 | $120 |
One catch in that table: a five-person team sits exactly on Starter's 5-user limit, so $70 works today and a sixth hire moves you to Productive at $120. Five people on Missive Business cost $180 a month; the same team on Drag's most expensive plan costs $120, and there is no higher Drag tier to be moved up into.
When Missive is the better fit
Price is one axis, and it is not the only one. Missive is a genuinely good product, and there are teams it suits better than we would:
- You are not on Gmail. Missive works across email providers, including Outlook and plain IMAP. Drag is built for Gmail and Google Workspace, so if your team is not there, this is the whole decision.
- You need SMS and social in the same inbox. Missive puts email, SMS, and social messages in one product at one per-seat price. That is rare, and if you need all three it is worth paying for.
- Chat-style collaboration around each thread is the point. Missive's in-thread chat is its signature, and teams that work that way tend to love it.
We make the same concessions on our Missive alternative page.
The Drag comparison, plainly
If you got this far, you are pricing Missive seriously, so here is the direct version. Missive's working tier is $24, because the $14 Starter is capped at 5 users and leaves out rules, AI, integrations, and the API. Drag's working tier is $18, AI included, no caps, and $24 is the most expensive plan we have. Missive's multi-channel unification is real, and if chat and SMS in one thread is the job, it may be your answer. If the job is your team's email, shared inboxes in the Gmail you already use, with the AI and automation on from the start, Drag does it for less at every tier, and you can verify every number on this page against the archived pricing pages it cites. Seven days, no card, decide for yourself.
For the wider field, see the best Missive alternatives and the full five-year support tool pricing history this page draws its charts from.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Missive cost?
Missive has three published plans billed annually: Starter at $14 per user per month for up to 5 users, Productive at $24 for up to 50, and Business at $36 for unlimited users. On monthly billing the same plans are $18, $30, and $45, since the annual rate is the 20 percent discount off the monthly one. The trial is 30 days with no card.
Has Missive raised its prices?
The entry seat went from $10 in 2021 to $14 by 2023 and has not moved since, but that comparison mixes two billing bases. Missive had no annual billing until April 2024, so the early figures are month-to-month rates. Like-for-like monthly, the entry rate went from $10 to $18. The larger moves were higher up: the top plan went $15 to $26 to $36 across the window.
Is Missive free?
Yes and no, and the difference matters. A free plan still exists at $0 for up to 3 users, kept in the product after Missive removed it from the public plan cards in 2024 and still described in Missive's own billing docs. But it holds only 15 days of email history, so it cannot be your team's record of anything: treat it as a demo that does not expire rather than a plan to build on. Missive's paid tiers start at $14 with a 5-user cap.
What is the cheapest Missive alternative?
Drag is the cheapest Missive alternative for teams on Gmail, at $12 to $24 per user per month with AI included from $18 and no seat cap on the entry tier. Missive is the stronger pick if you need Outlook, IMAP, or SMS in one place. See our guide to the best Missive alternatives for the full field.
Co-founder
Building Drag for nearly ten years: shared inboxes, boards, and now the AI and agent layer, all on Gmail, plus HeyHelp for the personal inbox. Writes the honest versions of the comparisons.
