How Much Does Chromatic Cost After the Free Plan?
Chromatic Free includes 5,000 billed snapshots a month. Here are the current paid prices, overage rules, and what changes when you reach the limit.
Chromatic Free costs $0 and includes 5,000 billed snapshots per month. When you use them all, testing and review pause until the monthly allowance resets or you upgrade. The current self-serve paid plans are Starter at $179 per month for 35,000 billed snapshots, with additional Starter usage listed at $0.008 per snapshot, and Pro at $399 per month for 85,000 snapshots. Chromatic does not show a Pro overage rate on its current pricing page. Enterprise pricing is custom. Check Chromatic’s current pricing before budgeting because prices and plan details can change.
Chromatic plan prices at a glance
| Plan | Monthly price | Included billed snapshots | Beyond the allowance | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 5,000 | Testing and review pause until reset or upgrade | Chrome testing; unlimited projects, users, and collaborators |
| Starter | $179 | 35,000 | $0.008 per additional billed snapshot | Adds Safari, Firefox, and Edge testing |
| Pro | $399 | 85,000 | Not displayed on the current pricing page | Adds a custom domain to Starter features |
| Enterprise | Custom | Unlimited snapshots listed | Custom terms | Contact sales; includes Pro features and listed enterprise controls |
These are the prices and allowances shown on Chromatic’s pricing page when checked on October 3, 2026. The inspected page did not state regional currency qualifications. Starter’s listed overage rate is specific to Starter; do not assume Pro uses the same rate.
What happens when you use all 5,000 free snapshots?
On Free, review and testing pause when the account uses its 5,000 included billed snapshots. Work resumes when the allowance resets, or you can upgrade to a paid plan. Free is therefore a monthly cap rather than a pay-as-you-go plan.
There is a separate free publishing use case: Chromatic says publishing Storybook without UI Test and UI Review does not incur billed snapshots. That does not increase the allowance for visual testing.
How paid plan overages work
Paid accounts continue testing and review after using the included allowance. Additional billed snapshots are charged at the end of the billing period. The Starter page lists $0.008 per extra billed snapshot; the current page inspected does not publish a Pro rate, so check with Chromatic before estimating Pro overage spend.
Subscriptions are monthly and tied to the subscription date, according to Chromatic’s billing documentation. Plan changes are prorated by day. In other words, changing plans mid-cycle does not necessarily mean paying a full second monthly price for the remainder of that cycle.
What counts as a billed snapshot?
Your Storybook story count alone does not determine the bill. Usage depends on the tests you run, how often you build, browser coverage, modes, and applicable test types. Visual and accessibility tests incur billed snapshots; interaction tests do not. Chromatic sums project usage at the account level.
| Snapshot activity | Billed usage |
|---|---|
| Captured snapshot | 1 billed snapshot |
| Snapshot copied by TurboSnap | 0.2 billed snapshots |
| Bypassed snapshot | 0 billed snapshots |
TurboSnap identifies tests unaffected by code or dependency changes so it can reuse previous snapshots at the reduced copied rate. A build where no test dependency changed can be bypassed. The savings depend on the changes in your project and your test setup; they are not a fixed discount.
Estimate your monthly snapshot use
- Start with actual billed usage from your Chromatic account’s billing usage view, rather than multiplying the number of stories by a guessed build count.
- Account for the visual and accessibility tests you run, build frequency, browser coverage, and modes. These affect how many snapshots are captured.
- Check how many snapshots are copied or bypassed through TurboSnap. Copied snapshots count at 0.2 each and bypassed snapshots at zero.
- Compare the resulting monthly usage with the plan allowance: 5,000 Free, 35,000 Starter, or 85,000 Pro.
- For paid plans, estimate Starter overage only using the published $0.008 rate. For Pro, ask Chromatic for the applicable rate because it is not shown on the current pricing page.
- Use the account’s usage information and alerts to catch a change in usage before it becomes an unexpected bill.
For example, a Starter account that has 36,000 billed snapshots in a month is 1,000 snapshots over its included allowance. At the listed Starter rate, those extra snapshots would add $8, making the subtotal $187 before any other applicable charges. This is arithmetic using the published rate, not a claim about taxes or other fees.
Can open-source projects get more snapshots free?
Chromatic offers a sponsored free plan with 35,000 monthly snapshots and Chrome-only testing for qualifying open-source design systems or UI component libraries. Published community project criteria include exceeding one of these thresholds: 100 contributors, 40,000 weekly npm downloads, or 10,000 GitHub stars. Certain company-built and government design systems have separate contributor criteria. Sponsorship requires contacting Chromatic to check eligibility; it is not automatic. See Chromatic’s open-source sponsorship criteria.
Is Chromatic’s price right for your use case?
Free can be enough for a small project that stays within 5,000 billed snapshots and can tolerate testing pausing at the limit. Starter provides a published per-snapshot overage rate and adds Safari, Firefox, and Edge testing. Pro raises the included allowance to 85,000 and adds a custom domain, but its current page does not give a public overage rate. Enterprise is custom priced.
If your requirement is capturing website screenshots through an API rather than reviewing Storybook changes, ScreenshotNeo is an alternative to try first. It is a website screenshot API and MCP server: it returns PNG, JPEG, WebP, or PDF from a GET request. Its free plan includes 1,000 screenshots per month with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000. Its usage model and purpose differ from Chromatic’s billed-snapshot plans, so compare based on the job you need done.
Or skip the browser setup
For website screenshots, make one request to ScreenshotNeo. See the ScreenshotNeo API documentation for options and response details.
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://stripe.com -o shot.webpimport requests
r = requests.get("https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot", params={"access_key": "YOUR_API_KEY", "url": "https://stripe.com"}, timeout=90)
open("shot.webp", "wb").write(r.content)const q = new URLSearchParams({ access_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', url: 'https://stripe.com' });
const res = await fetch(`https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot?${q}`);ScreenshotNeo accepts cookie consent banners like a visitor and removes more than 60 known consent platforms, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before capture; each cleanup step can be turned off. Bot checks, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits cost nothing, and response headers say whether a page was clean and billed. Its MCP server provides screenshot, page information, and PDF capture tools for AI agents. Free includes 1,000 screenshots a month with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000, and every feature is on every plan.
Sign up free for 1,000 ScreenshotNeo screenshots a month, with no card required.
Troubleshooting billing questions
My Free project stopped testing before I expected
Free usage is based on billed snapshots across the account’s projects, not just the number of stories in one project. Check account-level usage and consider visual and accessibility tests, browsers, modes, and build frequency.
My estimate is higher than the number of stories
A story count is not a billing unit. Each captured snapshot counts as one; browser and mode coverage and applicable tests affect activity. Copied TurboSnap snapshots count as 0.2 and bypassed snapshots as zero.
I crossed the Free allowance and builds are paused
This is the Free limit behavior. Wait for the monthly allowance reset or upgrade to a paid plan to resume testing and review.
I need to know the Pro overage price
The current pricing page inspected for this article does not show a Pro extra-snapshot rate. Ask Chromatic for the current rate rather than applying Starter’s $0.008 figure to Pro.
My billed usage differs from total snapshots
Copied and bypassed snapshots have different weights from captured snapshots. Review the billing documentation and your usage breakdown to reconcile those categories.
I changed plans and the charge is not a full month
Chromatic says plan changes are prorated by the day. Compare the change date with the subscription billing date and the billing-period details in the account.
FAQ
Does Chromatic bill per user or per project?
The pricing page lists unlimited projects, users, and collaborators on Free. Billed snapshot usage is summed across projects at the account level.
Is the $179 Starter price annual?
Chromatic’s self-serve subscriptions are monthly according to its billing documentation. Confirm the current checkout details before subscribing.
Can I assume Pro costs $0.008 per extra snapshot?
No. That rate is listed for Starter; the current pricing page does not display a Pro overage rate.
Does an interaction test use a billed snapshot?
Chromatic’s billing documentation says interaction tests do not incur billed snapshots. Visual and accessibility tests do.
Sources
- Chromatic pricing — current plan prices, included usage, and Starter overage rate.
- Chromatic billing documentation — snapshot accounting, plan billing, and overages.
- Chromatic snapshot limit FAQ — behavior at the allowance.
- Chromatic open-source sponsorships — eligibility details.
