The short version

This comparison is built from the two vendors’ own pricing pages, both captured on 2026-09-14 — Figma’s page was captured in USD after manually switching its currency control away from the geo-default JPY (see the Figma terms check for how that works), and Penpot’s cloud and self-host sections were captured in the same session (full numbers in our Penpot terms check). It is a terms comparison: we did not create a team or design a file on either platform.

Three structural differences decide the bill:

  1. Figma sells three different seats; Penpot sells one kind of member. On Figma Professional a Full seat is $16/mo yearly ($20 monthly), a Dev seat is $12 ($15), a Collab seat is $3 ($5). On Penpot everyone on a cloud plan gets the same fully featured access; the only question is free tier vs paid.
  2. Developer handoff is the sharpest price gap. Figma’s full Dev Mode lives on a paid Dev seat ($12–15/mo); Penpot lists Inspect mode and Devtools (code inspector, properties, measurement, production-asset export) under “included in every plan,” including free.
  3. Free ceilings are shaped differently. Figma’s Starter is per-designer (unlimited personal drafts, 150 AI credits/day); Penpot’s free Professional is a team tier — up to 8 members plus unlimited viewers, 10 GB, unlimited files and teams. Above 8 people, Penpot’s $7/seat bill is hard-capped at $175/month; Figma bills every seat with no team-size cap.

Pricing side by side

Figma (USD, captured 2026-09-14):

Starter Professional (Full / Dev / Collab) Organization Enterprise
Yearly per seat $0 $16 / $12 / $3 $55 / $25 / $5 $90 / $35 / $5
Monthly per seat $0 $20 / $15 / $5 annual-only annual-only
Access shape unlimited personal drafts; 150 AI credits/day (500/mo cap) all Figma products on Full; Dev Mode on Dev; FigJam/Slides/Buzz + view-only design on Collab SSO, org-wide libraries, multi-team admin SCIM, advanced security, enterprise support

Penpot (captured 2026-09-14):

Professional (cloud) Unlimited (cloud) Enterprise (cloud) Self-host
Price $0 $7/user/mo, bill capped at $175/mo $25/user/mo free forever / Enterprise self-host $25 / Private Server $50k/yr
Members up to 8, unlimited viewers unlimited unlimited your infrastructure
Storage / history 10 GB / 7 days 25 GB / 30 days unlimited / 90 days n/a
Core features “no file limits,” Inspect + Devtools, prototypes, libraries, plugins, API, Webhooks same, plus early features + SSO, audit logs, org admin, SCIM same software, you run it

What the seat model does to a real team bill

Worked example, yearly USD, a product team of 4 designers + 6 developers + 2 stakeholders who only comment:

  • Figma: the designers need Full seats (4 × $16 = $64); developers using full Dev Mode need Dev seats (6 × $12 = $72); the two stakeholders can be free viewers if they only view and comment (Figma: “let others view and comment on your files without purchasing extra seats”), otherwise Collab is 2 × $3 = $6. The paid floor here is $136/mo once developers need Dev Mode — and every additional developer adds $12.
  • Penpot: all 12 people — but the free Professional tier covers 8 members with the same editor and Devtools everyone else gets. Four members go on Unlimited at $7 = $28/mo, and the bill stops growing at $175/mo regardless of headcount. Developers cost nothing extra because Devtools is in the free feature set.

The asymmetry is the business model: Figma monetizes per role (a viewer is free, but a developer inspecting code is a seat), while Penpot monetizes per team size / governance (the software is the same at every tier; you pay for more members, storage, history, SSO and audit).

Where Figma still wins on the terms

  • Mature platform breadth. AI credits are priced per seat type (3,000/mo on a Professional Full seat vs 500 on Dev/Collab), and Figma’s current products span Design, Make, Draw, Sites, Dev Mode, FigJam, Slides and Buzz — the two betas (Motion, Sites) are Full-seat only. Penpot lists AI Workflows via any Agent/LLM, but the feature surface on the pricing page is narrower.
  • No self-management at any paid tier. Every Figma plan is hosted; Penpot’s “free forever at scale” route requires running Docker/Kubernetes yourself (Enterprise self-host and the $50k Private Server exist for teams that want open-source deployment without operating it).
  • Enterprise governance is older and deeper in the market (SCIM, audit logs, multi-brand systems), though Penpot’s Enterprise lists the same headline items at $25/seat vs Figma’s $90/seat for Full.

Where Penpot wins on the terms

  • Free is a team tier, not a trial. 8 real members, unlimited viewers, unlimited files and teams, 10 GB, and the same Inspect/Devtools the paid plans include.
  • The Devtools wall does not exist. Code inspector, properties, distances, component annotations, production-asset export — free. On Figma, that workflow is a $12–15/seat/month Dev seat per developer.
  • Price predictability. $7/seat with a written $175/month ceiling; open-source with no vendor lock-in (“You own your designs and code,” printed on every plan card); self-host for free if you can run it.
  • One honest caveat we observed: Penpot’s live pricing page carried the same stray string askjdkjdhlkjdhldskjhasldjhdfsl inside four plan descriptions on our 2026-09-14 capture (visible in our Penpot review evidence) — a page-maintenance blemish, not a pricing issue, but exactly the kind of thing worth checking before you quote the page to a procurement team.

Who should pick which (terms-level)

  • Pick Penpot if your team is ≤8 people, developers need inspect/export and you want that at $0; you value open-source/self-hosting and data ownership; or you want a bill with a hard cap.
  • Pick Figma if the team already runs on Figma’s ecosystem (Make, FigJam, Slides, AI credits at volume), stakeholders need polished Collab-only seats, or you need the incumbent’s mature enterprise procurement story — and accept that every developer with full Dev Mode is a paid seat.

This is terms-level analysis with no star rating on either side (we built no files in either product). For the full single-tool breakdowns see our Figma review and Penpot review.

Methodology & sources

  • figma.com/pricing — captured 2026-09-14 in a real Chrome session, USD yearly and monthly states after manually switching the page currency control from its geo-default JPY (aria-label verified both billing states); evidence in /reviews/figma-review/.
  • penpot.app/pricing — captured 2026-09-14 in the same session: Cloud tab (all four plans), free-card crop, and the self-host section; evidence in /reviews/penpot-review/.
  • Cross-references: our single-product terms checks for Figma and Penpot. Team-bill math above is computed from per-seat prices on those captures, not quoted from a third-party calculator.
  • Checked 2026-09-14. Pricing pages change; re-verify before committing a budget.