Alternatives to Linear, Jira and ClickUp

Why the three usual options do not cover this case

Linear, Jira and ClickUp were designed for people to work in. The board, the permissions, the reports and the automations all revolve around a user with a seat and an email address. An AI agent has neither: it does not ask for permission, it does not wait its turn and it never retires. When it enters one of those products, it comes in through the back door, as one more user with its own account.

That back door explains the three things that are most annoying in practice. The first is price: the agent takes a seat, so the bill grows with every process you automate. The second is identity: the agent credential exists until somebody deletes it, and process credentials do not expire on their own. The third is accounting: the agent calls get mixed with the human ones and nobody knows how much of the spend belongs to a robot. None of the three is fixed by a new feature: they are business model decisions, which is why they are worth comparing before migrating rather than after.

The six evaluation criteria

Kanban AI publishes a comparison with five criteria for choosing a kanban board with MCP: board fidelity, team sharing, AI planning, setup friction and MCP design. We reuse them as they are and add a sixth that this niche requires: governance. These six are what you use afterwards, with the table in front of you, to decide.

1. Board fidelity: the board behaves like a real kanban, with columns, cards and work-in-progress limits. If the agent cannot move a task between columns, somebody does it by hand and the board stops being shared.
2. Team sharing: the person and the agent see the same backlog and the same sprint. It is the criterion that fails most often: many tools share the product, but the agent works on its own list and somebody replicates the work.
3. AI planning: the tool proposes a prioritisation or a breakdown, instead of only writing text. Proposing is one use case; deciding with probabilities over a concrete state is another, and it is the one that lets you audit a plan.
4. Setup friction: how many steps stand between having the idea and having an agent writing on the board. An API key, an endpoint and a JSON configuration is a low-friction start; publishing a repository or learning a proprietary SDK is not.
5. MCP design: the MCP server is designed for the work instead of wrapped around it. A tool that does one thing can be read; forty tools that expose the whole database cannot.
6. Governance (the sixth): who can widen the limits of an agent, what budget it has and what happens to its identity when it stops working. Without governance, coordinating an agent turns into giving it permanent access to the team data.

Ten alternatives, with their official price and their MCP

The table collects the ten alternatives that come up when you look for a board for teams running AI agents, plus AI Tasker as an eleventh row so that the comparison is complete instead of a case built in favour of one product. The MCP column says whether a verifiable MCP server exists, not whether the tool uses AI. The last column is not a verdict on the product: it is the answer to a specific question about what is still unsolved for a team that puts agents on the board.

Price, MCP and gap for each option. Data read from the official page of each product on 20 and 21 October 2026; prices can change.

Tool	Official page	Price read	Documented MCP	The gap it leaves
Linear	https://linear.app/pricing	Free $0 · Basic $10/user/month (annual) · Business $16 (annual)	Yes (linear.app/docs/mcp), OAuth	Bridge MCP: it does not govern the agent lifecycle or its budget
ClickUp	https://clickup.com/pricing	Free $0 · Unlimited $7/user/month · Business $12 (annual)	Yes, in the upper tier range	It meters MCP calls per day (100/300/1.000/25.000), not the lifecycle of the actor
Asana	https://asana.com/pricing	Personal $0 · Starter $10,99/user/month (annual) · Advanced $24,99 (annual) · AI at $0,50/request	Not documented on its pricing page	No agent actor and no governance; AI is billed separately per request
Jira / Atlassian	https://atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing	Free $0 (10 users) · Standard $8,48/user/month · Premium $15,56	Yes (Rovo MCP, mcp.atlassian.com/v2/mcp)	Enterprise traceability, but the agent enters as a user with a seat
Trello	https://trello.com/pricing	Standard $5/user/month (annual) · Premium $10 (annual) · Enterprise $17,50	Yes (trello.com/mcp)	Pure kanban: no assisted planning and no per-agent budget
Notion	https://notion.com/pricing	Free $0 · Plus €9,50/member/month · Business €19,50 · AI $10 per 1.000 credits	No (its /mcp returns 404)	Not a sprint board; its AI is metered in credits
Monday.com	https://monday.com/pricing	Free €0 · Basic €9/seat/month · Standard €12 · Pro €19	No (its /mcp returns 404)	No MCP and no agent actor
Plane	https://plane.so/pricing	Free $0/seat/month · Pro $6 · Business $13	No (its /mcp returns 404)	No visible MCP and no lifecycle for agent identities
Taskade	https://taskade.com/pricing	Free $0 (2 users) · Pro $10/month · Business $25/month · Max $100/month · Enterprise $250/month · extra credits $5/pack	Yes (taskade.com/mcp)	Its AI writes text, it does not decide, and it charges 5× per unit
AgentTask	https://agent-task.com/pricing	Free $0 · Pro $7/month annual ($9 monthly) · Team $12/seat/month annual ($15)	Yes, remote (app.agent-task.com/v1/public/mcp, Streamable HTTP, OAuth 2.1 + API key with scopes)	It charges 5-6× per unit: 25 hosted agent actions per month on Free and 500 per seat on Team
AI Tasker	https://api.ai-tasker.theboomer.dev/api/plans	Free plan 0 € + billable unit of 2,00 €/month + one-off credit packs	Yes, remote (streamable-http), 40 tools, published in the official MCP registry	It closes the lifecycle gap (48 h warning, archive at 7 days, 7 more days of recovery) and the per-agent budget; in exchange it publishes no per-user base plan

Every third-party figure in this table was read on 20 and 21 October 2026 on the official page listed in each row, and prices can change at any time: the figure that does not change is the one on the official page on the day you read it. The AI Tasker figures come from the live API, which publishes the plans and the operations catalogue.

Two different units: per-person price and per-agent-unit price

These tools get misunderstood the moment two units that cannot be compared are mixed. Seven of the tools in the table charge per user, per member or per seat, and what you pay is the number of named accounts: Linear, ClickUp, Asana, Trello, Notion, Monday.com and Plane. The next two publish a team plan and add a charge per operation or per agent action: Taskade and AgentTask. And AI Tasker charges per approved billable unit, where an approved unit is an accepted human member, a created agent API key or an additional owner workspace: in that model the number you decide on is how many live actors there are, and the agent is counted as what it is.

• Linear: Basic $10 per user per month (annual) and Business $16.
• ClickUp: Unlimited $7 per user per month and Business $12 (annual).
• Asana: Starter $10,99 per user per month (annual) and Advanced $24,99, with AI at $0,50 per request.
• Trello: Standard $5 per user per month (annual), Premium $10 and Enterprise $17,50.
• Notion: Plus €9,50 per member per month and Business €19,50, with AI at $10 per 1.000 credits.
• Monday.com: Basic €9 per seat per month, Standard €12 and Pro €19.
• Plane: Pro $6 per seat per month and Business $13.
• Taskade: Pro $10 per month, Business $25, Max $100 and Enterprise $250, with extra credits at $5 per pack.
• AgentTask: Pro $7 per month annual ($9 monthly) and Team $12 per seat per month annual ($15).

On the other side, the AI Tasker price has two parts. The approved unit costs 2,00 € per month. Consumption is paid with one-off packs: 500 credits for 5 €, 1.600 for 15 €, 4.500 for 40 € and 12.000 for 100 €, with AutoRefill starting at 1.000 credits in the first month and growing by 20 % every month up to month 12. The free plan reaches 1 workspace, 1 human, 2 API keys, 100 agent operations per month, 100 hosted AI operations, 3 webhooks and 30 days of activity retention.

The arithmetic: three people and five agents

A team with three people and five agents working on the same backlog is the case that decides. If each agent needs a seat, that is eight seats; if you are charged per live actor unit, that is eight units. The fair comparison stays inside the same currency, because none of these pages publishes an exchange rate: in dollars, eight seats cost between $40 (Trello Standard) and $96 (AgentTask Team); in euros, they cost 72 € (Monday Basic) and 76 € (Notion Plus); eight AI Tasker units cost 16,00 €.

Monthly cost for 3 people and 5 agents. Per-person prices and per-unit prices are not the same unit: each row states which one is being applied.

Product	Unit being charged	Calculation	Monthly cost
Trello Standard	$5 per user/month (annual)	8 × $5	$40
Plane Pro	$6 per seat/month	8 × $6	$48
ClickUp Unlimited	$7 per user/month	8 × $7	$56
Monday.com Basic	€9 per seat/month	8 × €9	72 €
Notion Plus	€9,50 per member/month	8 × €9,50	76 €
Linear Basic	$10 per user/month (annual)	8 × $10	$80
Taskade Pro	$10/month; credits billed separately at $5 per pack	8 × $10	$80
Asana Starter	$10,99 per user/month (annual)	8 × $10,99	$87,92
AgentTask Team	$12 per seat/month (annual)	8 × $12	$96
AI Tasker	2,00 € per approved billable unit	3 humans + 5 agent API keys = 8 units × 2,00 €	16,00 €

The same scenario, ready to paste into a spreadsheet (prices read on 20 and 21 October 2026).

3 people + 5 agents = 8 units

AI Tasker    : 8 x 2,00 EUR = 16,00 EUR/month
Trello       : 8 x $5      = $40/month
Plane        : 8 x $6      = $48/month
ClickUp      : 8 x $7      = $56/month
Monday Basic : 8 x 9 EUR   = 72 EUR/month
Notion Plus  : 8 x 9,50 EUR = 76 EUR/month
Linear       : 8 x $10     = $80/month
Taskade Pro  : 8 x $10     = $80/month
Asana Starter: 8 x $10,99  = $87,92/month
AgentTask    : 8 x $12     = $96/month

What changes with the per-unit model is not the price: it is the object being charged. In the per-seat model, every automated process adds an invoice and one more account to administer on the board. In the per-unit model, the agent is paid once, is given a budget in operations and can be expired. AI Tasker consumption is measured with a public catalogue that separates agent read and mutation (1 unit), the three hosted AI operations (1 unit each) and, with 0 units, webhook delivery, platform-error retries and human reads on the dashboard.

When not to migrate

The honest answer to whether you should leave Linear, Jira or ClickUp is that in many cases you should not, and you do not need a comparison to see it. If what you need is a backlog shared between people and an agent that posts updates at the end of the day, a summary, a status comment or a link to a result, those tools do that job with a documented MCP server and a per-seat price you already know. The cost of switching tools — migrating the history, the permissions, the automations, the integrations and explaining the flow to everyone again — is not justified by a difference of a few euros per month.

There is a second, more awkward reason: if the agent is a small piece of the process and its identity is not exposed to anybody else, the governance that a lifecycle and a per-agent budget bring is a problem you do not have. Paying for an expiry mechanism that will never fire is paying for a feature you do not use.

• Stay if the agent only posts updates and nobody asks it to take a task on its own: there is no actor to govern.
• Stay if your team already has the history, the permissions and the integrations set up in the current product: the friction of migrating is larger than the annual saving.
• Stay if the real cost of the agent is measured in model requests and paid to the provider: the board only stores the result and its job is the same as always.

Migrating because of a comparison table is a mistake. Migrate when the table shows a gap your current product cannot close with one day of work, not because another vendor price list has a smaller number on it.

Checklist for evaluating an alternative without committing

• Read the official pricing page and note the unit: per user, per seat, per operation or per approved unit. A price without a unit is not a price.
• Look for the MCP endpoint in the official documentation (linear.app/docs/mcp, trello.com/mcp, mcp.atlassian.com/v2/mcp, taskade.com/mcp, app.agent-task.com/v1/public/mcp) and check how it authenticates: OAuth, API key with scopes or token.
• Check whether agent identities expire: find out what happens after a few days without activity. AI Tasker warns at 48 hours, archives at 7 days and keeps 7 more days of recovery with a single-use token.
• Compute the monthly cost with your real number of agents, not with the one on the pricing page: units × 2,00 € plus the credit packs that match that number of operations.

The coordination gap, in figures

After the table, the conclusion is narrow and it is better stated with figures. Seven of the eleven rows have a verifiable MCP server: Linear, ClickUp, Jira through Rovo MCP, Trello, Taskade, AgentTask and AI Tasker. The other four do not document one or do not have one: on Asana it does not appear on the pricing page, and on Notion, Monday.com and Plane the /mcp path returns 404. Seven charge per user, per member or per seat; Taskade and AgentTask also add a charge per operation or per agent action, of 5× and of 5 to 6× per unit; and AI Tasker charges 2,00 € per approved unit and expires the identities nobody uses: a warning at 48 hours, archive at 7 days, 7 more days to reclaim and a purge when the window ends.

That is the gap that is left: coordination. Not the board, which exists in many versions with public prices. The governance of an actor that is not a person: who widens its limits, with what budget, and what happens to its credential when it stops working.

How to evaluate an alternative without committing

The fifteen-minute route that decides with data: price unit, MCP endpoint, identity expiry and the real cost with your number of agents.

1. Open the official pricing page and note the unit

   Do not copy the headline number: copy the unit. Linear reads $10/user/month, Notion reads €9,50/member/month and AgentTask reads $12/seat/month annual. With the unit and the figure you can compare two products without converting currencies or assuming anything.

2. Check the MCP endpoint and how it authenticates

   Look in the official documentation for a /mcp path or a remote server and note the authentication model: OAuth (Linear), API key with scopes (AgentTask) or token (AI Tasker, with an Authorization: Bearer atkr_… header). An endpoint that requires a human account per agent is already telling you that you are going to pay for a seat.

3. See whether agent identities expire

   Look in the terms or the documentation for what happens to an agent that stops working. In AI Tasker: a warning at 48 hours without activity, archive at 7 days, 7 more days to reclaim with a single-use recovery token (900 seconds of validity, maximum 3 per hour) and a purge when the window ends. Archiving and purging never touch the transactions ledger.

4. Compute the monthly cost with your own numbers

   Multiply your units by the unit price and add the credit packs you are going to need according to the operations catalogue. In AI Tasker: units × 2,00 € plus the packs (500 for 5 €, 1.600 for 15 €, 4.500 for 40 €, 12.000 for 100 €). Repeat the calculation with 8 seats on the per-person tables and put both figures in the same column, in the same currency.

Frequently asked questions

Which alternatives to Linear, Jira or ClickUp have a documented MCP server?

Seven of the eleven rows in the table do: Linear (linear.app/docs/mcp, with OAuth), ClickUp (in its upper tier range), Jira through Rovo MCP (mcp.atlassian.com/v2/mcp), Trello (trello.com/mcp), Taskade (taskade.com/mcp), AgentTask (app.agent-task.com/v1/public/mcp, Streamable HTTP, OAuth 2.1 and API key with scopes) and AI Tasker (streamable-http, 40 tools, published in the official MCP registry). The other four do not: on Asana it is not documented on the pricing page, and on Notion, Monday.com and Plane the /mcp path returns 404.

Is per-user pricing or per-agent-unit pricing the better deal?

It depends on whether the agent needs a seat. With the per-seat model, a team of three people and five agents pays for eight seats: between $40 (Trello Standard) and $96 (AgentTask Team), or 72 € (Monday Basic) and 76 € (Notion Plus). With the AI Tasker per-unit model, the same team pays eight units of 2,00 €, that is 16,00 € per month, plus the credit packs it consumes.

What does a month with agents cost in AI Tasker?

Each approved unit costs 2,00 € per month (accepted human member, created agent API key or additional owner workspace) and consumption is paid with one-off packs: 500 credits for 5 €, 1.600 for 15 €, 4.500 for 40 € and 12.000 for 100 €. The free plan covers 1 workspace, 1 human, 2 API keys, 100 agent operations and 100 hosted AI operations per month.

Do you have to migrate away from Linear, Jira or ClickUp?

No, if what you need is a backlog shared between people and an agent that only posts updates. All three have a documented MCP server and the cost of migrating history, permissions and integrations is not offset by a few euros per month. Migration makes sense when the table shows a governance gap: who can widen the limits of an agent, with what budget, and what happens to its identity when it stops working.

Sources

• Linear — pricing
  https://linear.app/pricing
• ClickUp — pricing
  https://clickup.com/pricing
• Asana — pricing
  https://asana.com/pricing
• Jira (Atlassian) — pricing
  https://atlassian.com/software/jira/pricing
• Trello — pricing
  https://trello.com/pricing
• Notion — pricing
  https://notion.com/pricing
• Monday.com — pricing
  https://monday.com/pricing
• Plane — pricing
  https://plane.so/pricing
• Taskade — pricing
  https://taskade.com/pricing
• AgentTask — pricing
  https://agent-task.com/pricing
• Kanban AI — comparison and criteria
  https://kanbanai.dev
• AI Tasker — plans and operations catalogue
  https://api.ai-tasker.theboomer.dev/api/plans

Figures verified against the live API and each product’s official page on 21 October 2026. Third-party prices can change: check the official page before you commit.

Related guides

• All guides — How to choose a task manager, MCP and agent lifecycle tooling for AI agents.
• Task manager for AI agents: 2026 guide — How to choose a task manager for AI agents: MCP, lifecycle, credits and human supervision. A comparison and a checklist.
• MCP for task management: guide and comparison — What a task-management MCP server is, which tools each one exposes and how to choose. A table with the real price of every server.
• AI agent lifecycle: registration, archive, purge — How to register an autonomous agent, link it to a human and what happens when it stops working: 48 h notice, 7-day archive, purge on day 14.
• AI sprint planning: why a probability engine — How a decision engine with probabilities differs from an LLM that writes a plan, and how it fits into real sprint planning.
• Agent credits and budget: how it is billed — How AI Tasker measures and bills agent usage: the 2 € billable unit, operations, credit packs and auto-refill. No surprises.
• Pricing — Real prices: free plan and a 2.00 €/month billable unit.
• MCP integration — https://mcp.ai-tasker.theboomer.dev/mcp
• /llms.txt — Machine-readable contract.