Last night a founder friend told me his team’s shared online whiteboard had quietly stopped doing anything smart. Turns out the credits that power the AI had run dry weeks earlier, on a plan nobody realized was metered. That is the moment you notice the price of a whiteboard is not the list price. It is what the AI costs plus the seat math plus whatever the free tier was hiding. Miro, FigJam, and Whimsical all promise the same sticky-note magic, and all three charge for it in different shapes: credit drips, bundled seats, and one-time packs.
Here is the exact math, pulled from the live pricing pages on October 22, 2026, for the scenario most small teams actually face: picking one whiteboard, paying once a month, and not getting quietly cut off mid-brainstorm.
What I checked and how
No vendor tours, no sponsored anything. I pulled each company’s live pricing page this week (Whimsical’s directly, on October 22, 2026), cross-checked limits against Miro’s and Figma’s own help centers, and built the numbers into a team-of-three model. When a specific figure comes from a third-party price tracker instead of the vendor, I say so in the text. The feature claims are the vendors’ own; the arithmetic is mine. There are no affiliate links in this piece, because none of these companies runs a public whiteboard affiliate program to begin with. That makes it a rare 2026 article: written the way I would brief a friend.
The prices, checked this week
Miro’s pricing page lists Free at $0 with three editable boards, formats that include docs, tables, slides, and kanban, plus 250+ integrations. Starter runs $8 per member per month billed yearly, and Business runs $20 with what Miro now bundles as AI workflows and agent capabilities. The headline numbers are annual-billing figures; monthly runs higher.
FigJam is no longer something you buy separately. It rides on Figma’s 2026 seat model: a Full seat is $20 monthly or $16 billed annually, a Dev seat is $15 or $12, and a Collab seat, the line item that gives non-designer teammates full FigJam access, is $5 monthly or $3 annually. The Figma pricing page now sells each seat type as its own line on the page, so you can mix seat types in one workspace.
Whimsical quotes everything per editor: a Free plan with 50 board objects and 50 doc blocks per month, Pro at $10 per editor per month when billed annually, and Business at $20 per editor with SAML single sign-on and unlimited version history. The pricing page’s toggle shows annual saves 17% over monthly, which pegs the monthly-only figure around $12 per editor, matching what independent price trackers reported for October 2026.
| Tool | Free tier | Paid entry (annual billing) | How the AI is sold | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miro | 3 editable boards, unlimited members, 250+ integrations | Starter $8 per member per month | Monthly AI credit allowance per member, top-up add-ons extra | PM-heavy teams that want boards, docs, and slides in one hub |
| FigJam | Free Starter access with limited files and features | Collab seat $5 monthly / $3 annual per person | Figma AI credits bundled with paid seats | Existing Figma orgs mixing design and engineering |
| Whimsical | 50 board objects + 50 doc blocks per month, watermark on exports | Pro $10 per editor per month | 10 AI credits per member on Free, one-time packs sold on any plan | Small teams that want fast flowcharts over platform depth |
The credits math that actually decides this
The list prices above hide the real story, because all three vendors charge for AI in different shapes.
Miro bundles a drip. Paid plans include a monthly AI credit allowance per member. Miro’s own help center documents the credits model across Free, Starter, and Business, and independent trackers put the Starter allowance around 25 credits per member per month, with Business at roughly double and top-up packs sold as add-ons. I would not treat the exact 25 as gospel, but the shape is what matters: a small monthly drip that a credit-hungry session can drain in a week. Image generation and agent actions burn more than simple text prompts.
Figma bundles by seat. AI usage runs through credits that ship with paid Figma seats rather than a separate meter. Among the three, this is the only one where the AI cost is genuinely folded into per-seat pricing you would pay anyway, though you should still check which seat type each teammate actually gets, because a $3 Collab seat is not the same product as a $16 Full seat.
Whimsical sells packs. The free plan starts every member with 10 AI credits per month, the FAQ confirms additional AI credits are purchasable separately on any plan, and Pro or Business upgrades remove the object ceilings. No drip to plan around and no forced seat upgrade: you buy packs when the team actually uses the AI.
Team-of-three arithmetic on annual billing: Miro Starter costs $24 a month. FigJam on Collab seats costs $15 a month. Whimsical Pro costs $30 a month. FigJam wins on seats, Whimsical is the middle option whose AI you can meter precisely, and Miro costs $9 to $15 a month more than a small team needs to spend if whiteboarding is the only job at hand.
Where each one actually wins
Miro wins on ecosystem. It stopped being a plain whiteboard a while back. The free tier alone carries docs, tables, slides, and kanban formats, plus 250+ integrations, and the Business tier layers AI agents and workflow features on top. If your whiteboard doubles as a project-management surface, with sprint boards, timelines, and sync into tools like Jira, Miro is the all-in-one bet and the boards compound in value the longer the team lives in them.
FigJam wins on org gravity. Go where your organization already lives. Designers in Figma Design, engineers in Dev Mode, PMs walking through prototypes, everyone sharing the same permission model, plus FigJam’s standing as the landing pad teams migrate to after Google retired Jamboard. For mixed design-and-engineering shops, nothing else removes as much coordination work.
Whimsical wins on speed. Sticky-note keyboard shortcuts that actually respect your hands, flowcharts that snap into shape, wireframe components that do not look hand-drawn by accident, and docs that live beside the boards. It is the recommendation for someone who says they just want a clean diagram or a fast brainstorm without adopting a subscription platform around it.
The traps worth naming
Every pricing page has quiet corners. Here is where each one bites:
- Miro’s free tier is a sandbox, not a workspace. Three editable boards is enough to test the tool and nothing else. The moment a second project needs a board, you are in Starter.
- Miro’s credits recharge monthly, not daily. A heavy planning week can drain the allowance, and the refill is a paid add-on. Model your usage before buying packs in bulk.
- Figma’s seat types are a fork in the road. The $3 Collab seat is the cheapest route to full FigJam, but it only holds if teammates never need Design or Dev Mode. Audit what each person actually opens before checkout, because seat upgrades mid-contract are just budget creep with a receipt.
- Whimsical’s free tier counts objects, not sessions. Fifty board objects per month can evaporate in a single real planning session, exports carry a watermark until Pro, and version history is only seven days on the free plan.
- Viewers are free across all three; editors are the cost. Every vendor prices generous guests and viewers on purpose, because the money is in editor seats. Count heads who draw, not heads who watch.
- SSO sits on the Business tier of all three. The moment procurement demands single sign-on, the $8 and $10 plans stop being the answer and you are into $20-per-head territory.
Who should pull the trigger
Buy FigJam if your org already runs on Figma. There is no decision here, just seat math: Collab seats at $3 monthly-billed-annual per person for non-designers, Full seats where needed for AI-heavy work. This is also the only pick that keeps slides, prototypes, and whiteboards under one vendor’s permission roof.
Buy Miro if you need the hub, not the board. Teams that live in Miro use it for retros, sprint planning, roadmaps, and documentation in one connected space. Start on Starter at $8 per member, and move to Business at $20 only when the AI agents and advanced permissions earn their keep. For a wider read on the project-management layer this competes with, our ClickUp vs Monday.com small-team comparison covers the tools whiteboards get measured against.
Buy Whimsical if you want the shortest distance to a good diagram. Pro at $10 per editor per month, metered AI packs on top, and a tool that respects keyboard speed. Solo founders and small product teams, this is my default recommendation in 2026. And if your Figma org drifts toward presentations as well, our AI presentation tools roundup covers that job separately.
Key takeaways
- Miro: $0 free with a 3-board cap, Starter $8 per member annual, Business $20 with agents; AI rides on monthly credit allowances with paid top-ups.
- FigJam: $20/$5/$15 monthly or $16/$3/$12 annual for Full, Collab, and Dev seats; AI comes bundled with paid seats, the cleanest per-seat value in 2026.
- Whimsical: Free with 50 objects monthly, Pro $10 per editor annual, Business $20 with SSO; AI starts at 10 credits per member, extra packs sold one-time on any plan.
- Team of three on annual billing: $24 Miro, $15 FigJam, $30 Whimsical before AI overages.
- Count editor seats, not viewers; that is where every one of these bills.
FAQ
Is there a genuinely free AI whiteboard?
Sort of. Whimsical’s free plan includes 10 AI credits per member per month, Miro’s help center documents AI credits on its free and paid plans alike, and all three let you experiment without a card. The catch is the ceilings: Miro caps the free tier at three editable boards and Whimsical at 50 objects per month. Free works for trying AI, not for running a team on it.
Is FigJam included with a Figma subscription?
FigJam ships inside Figma’s plan structure, and the 2026 seat model means what you actually get depends on the seat type. A Collab seat covers full FigJam use, Full seats add the broader Design and AI credit bundle, and the pricing page sells each seat as its own line item, so mixed teams can pay only for what each person needs.
Which is cheapest for a team of five?
On annual billing: Miro Starter, $40 a month for five members. FigJam on Collab seats, $15. Whimsical Pro, $50. FigJam’s $3 Collab seat is the cheapest outlay, but if none of those five people touch Figma Design otherwise, Whimsical costs only $10 more than Miro while keeping AI costs predictable through packs. The cheap headline is not always the cheap total.
Can I try Miro’s AI without paying?
Yes. Miro’s help center documents AI credits across free and paid plans, so you can test AI features on the Free tier, with the three-board cap and the small allowance as your only constraints. If the AI is the reason you upgrade, confirm the credit math on the day you buy: Miro adjusts allowances and add-on prices more often than its seat prices.