Miro is hired as an online whiteboard: a shared canvas for workshops, planning and sketching. The tool is simple to adopt, so the savings usually sit in seats nobody uses. Below: what the plans cost as published, the realistic replacement, and the checks that keep boards from being lost on the way out.
A whiteboard gets bought for a moment: a planning offsite, a product workshop, a client session. The board from that day becomes a reference, someone links it in a ticket, and the account outlives the workshop.
Seats then follow people around the company. Guests become members, a contractor is added for a week, and nobody removes them. The charge scales with members, so quiet growth shows up on the card before anyone notices.
Only alternatives we have checked. An open-source project is listed with the license its repository reports, on the date shown; one whose license could not be read as a single standard id is not offered as open source. Read the license guide before running any of them.
| Alternative | Kind | License | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Excalidraw | Open source | MIT | Excalidraw repositoryChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
Each feature below is what the product's own page or README says, linked to where we read it on the date shown. Pros and cons are limited to what those pages state and to what the path itself changes. We do not rank products on quality.
| Plan | Price as published | Includes | Read from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miro Free | $0 | 3 editable boards | Miro pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Miro Starter | $8 per member per month, billed yearly | Unlimited editable boards; 25 AI credits per member per month | Miro pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Miro Business | $20 per member per month, billed yearly | Unlimited editable boards; 50 AI credits per member per month | Miro pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
| Miro Enterprise | Custom pricing | Unlimited editable boards; the page lists it from 30 members | Miro pricingChecked Oct 25, 2026 |
List prices as printed on the vendor's page on the checked date, per member per month and excluding tax. Prices at checkout, promotions and what a plan includes can differ.
A whiteboard is hired for thinking together: shapes, sticky notes and arrows on a big canvas, often in a live session. The product is easy to try and easy to forget, so the usual savings come from seats that were bought for a workshop and never removed.
Before choosing a replacement, find out whether the team needs live co-editing or mostly needs a place to sketch and share. The first is a bigger change than the second. A lighter whiteboard tool covers the sketching case; live sessions with many participants should be tested in a real meeting before you commit.
Samples are made up and are not Miro's prices. Type in the figures from your own invoice or order form.
The honest yearly cost of running open-source software yourself, set against the bill it replaces, with the seat count where it stops paying.
Paid seats against seats in use: what the idle ones cost a year, and what you save by right-sizing at renewal.
Arithmetic only, not tax, accounting or legal advice. Check the figures against your own order form.
Boards are visual, so the work is mostly deciding which ones are worth moving and testing the export on real ones.
List the boards, who edited them and when, and the number of billed members compared with the number who edited anything this year. Archive boards nobody has touched in a year.
Decide what you must be able to keep: a picture for a deck, a PDF for a client, or an editable file for the next workshop. Write the list down so the test has a pass mark.
Export three real boards, including the largest, from a copy of the account. Open each in the replacement and check text, connectors, images and frames. Note what has to be rebuilt.
Boards can contain images, templates and fonts you do not own outright. Check that you have the right to use them outside the old tool and replace any you do not.
Run the next real workshop on the replacement with the people who normally join. Count what they could not do.
Move the boards that pass, replace links in tickets and decks, and tell guests where the new link is.
Wait a full month, keep a dated export, then end the plan inside the contract's notice window and keep the confirmation.
Run the vendor report for QuickBooks Online or Xero, then open the free audit.
General information, not legal advice. See cancelling without penalties. Last reviewed Oct 25, 2026. Product names belong to their owners and are used only to identify them.
Send us the export and see which lines are worth a second look. A connected version is planned. Miro is one of the lines worth a look.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
| Self-hosting, per year | Amount |
|---|---|
| Hosting, backups, tooling | 720.00 |
| Admin and restore-test time | 2,640.00 |
| Total | 3,360.00 |
| One-off set-up (not in the yearly total) | 1,200.00 |
The saving holds only if the time is real. Price the admin hours at what that person's time costs the company, not at zero.
Worked example. Type over it.
Result
“In use” is your call: last sign-in in the past 30 or 90 days from the vendor's admin report. A seat for someone on leave is not idle.