Free Plan Limits: Zapier, Figma, ElevenLabs and MailerLite
All four of these tools have a free plan you can stay on indefinitely. That settles less than it seems. The useful question is where each free plan stops, and what the first paid step costs once you reach that point.
Each tool meters something different. Zapier counts tasks. Figma counts AI credits and charges by seat type. ElevenLabs counts credits. MailerLite counts subscribers and emails sent. Knowing which meter applies tells you how fast you will hit the ceiling. The prices below come from each vendor’s own pricing page, checked in September. Where a price only applies to yearly billing, it says so.
Zapier: capped by tasks
Free: $0/month, 100 tasks per month. Zaps, Tables, and Forms are included.
A task is one action a Zap completes, so the cap depends on how many steps run and how often. A single Zap that fires a few times a day can use up the monthly allowance well before the month ends.
First paid step: Professional, starting from $19.99/month. That is the rate shown with yearly billing selected on Zapier’s pricing page.
Next step for teams: Team, starting from $69/month, also on yearly billing.
What grows your bill here is task volume, not people.
Figma: capped by AI credits and seat type
Free (Starter): unlimited drafts, and AI credits of 150 per day, up to 500 per month. Figma describes Starter as “limited access to Figma products”. Its pricing page lists unlimited files and projects as a Professional feature.
First paid step: Professional, Full seat at $16/month, billed yearly.
Figma prices by seat type, so the Professional bill depends on who needs what:
- Full seat: $16/month, billed yearly.
- Dev seat: $12/month, billed yearly.
- Collab seat: $3/month, billed yearly.
What grows your bill here is the number of people and the kind of seat each one needs. Seat pricing has its own traps, covered in what per-seat pricing really costs.
ElevenLabs: capped by credits
Free: $0/month, 10,000 credits per month.
First paid step: Starter at $6/month with 30,000 credits, on monthly billing.
Next step: Creator at $22/month, with the first month at $11.
Credits are the only meter on this ladder, so the question is how much audio you generate each month. Paying for Starter triples the monthly credits of the free plan.
MailerLite: capped by subscribers and sends
Free: up to 250 subscribers, 2 user seats, and 2,500 emails per month.
First paid step: Comfort, starting at $12/month. MailerLite positions it as the full toolset for solopreneurs and small teams.
Two meters apply on the free plan: list size and monthly sends. A small list that gets several emails a month can hit the send cap before it hits the subscriber cap. The word “starting” matters here: the pricing page gives a starting price for Comfort, not a fixed one.
Side by side
| Tool | Free plan | First paid step | Billing shown |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zapier | $0/month, 100 tasks/month | Professional from $19.99/month | Yearly |
| Figma | Starter: unlimited drafts, up to 500 AI credits/month | Professional Full seat $16/month | Yearly |
| ElevenLabs | $0/month, 10,000 credits/month | Starter $6/month, 30,000 credits | Monthly |
| MailerLite | 250 subscribers, 2 user seats, 2,500 emails/month | Comfort from $12/month | Not stated on the plan summary |
When the free plan has run out
The free plan has run out when the meter, not the feature list, starts shaping how you work. A few signs:
- You ration runs, sends, or generations to stay under the monthly cap.
- You wait for the monthly reset before finishing work.
- A second person needs access that the free plan does not give.
At that point, compare the first paid step against the cost of working around the cap. Before you build real setup into any free plan, check whether it is a permanent tier or a trial. The difference is explained in what “free plan” actually means.