Mintlify's Starter Plan

At WeAreDevelopers World Congress this year, I spoke with teams that still write their documentation in Word and SharePoint.

I get why. For a long time, building your own docs was the cheap option. Render some Markdown, add a sidebar and a search bar, ship it.

That math no longer works. Here's why.

The reader changed. Your docs now serve people and agents. In July, agents accounted for 66% of measured docs traffic on Mintlify, according to our 2026 midyear report. Claude Code and Cursor don't browse until they find the right page. They retrieve an answer, drop it into a working session, and act on it. Today, the infrastructure behind your docs matters as much as the page a person sees.

Is building your own docs site actually cheaper?

Not after the first week. Shipping the MVP is the cheapest week your docs site will ever have.

None of the pieces are hard to build. The cost shows up after launch: dependency updates, search tuning, broken builds, authentication, redesigns, stale components, analytics, and the slow drift into an internal tool nobody owns.

So the real decision isn't open source versus paid documentation software. It's whether your team wants to own documentation infrastructure, or use a developer documentation platform that handles it. We've made this case before: Markdown is the easy part.

Docs as code doesn't change that math. Keeping content in Git and reviewing it in pull requests is the right workflow. It doesn't host the site, tune search, enforce access, or make your content readable by agents. The best documentation tools let you keep the docs-as-code workflow without owning every system behind it.

What does a documentation site need in 2026?

A docs site used to need pages, navigation, and keyword search. Today it has two readers: a developer trying to understand your API, and an agent trying to retrieve the right answer mid-session.

That raises the bar. If you build, this is what you own:

Requirement	What it takes to own it
Search	An index that stays current and understands intent, not only exact words
API reference	An API playground that tracks your OpenAPI spec, handles auth, and returns real responses with copyable code
Access control	Authentication for private content without a shared-password mess
Branding	Custom domain, reusable components, and CSS and JavaScript control
Agent access	A hosted MCP server and llms.txt, so Claude Code and Cursor search current docs instead of guessing
Discoverability	SEO and generative engine optimization (GEO), so your docs show up in Google and in AI answers

People work around weak search or a stale page. Agents don't. They use whatever context they can retrieve, then repeat it at machine speed.

That changes the cost of getting docs wrong.

Why docs infrastructure is not a weekend project

A login form is easy to build. Authentication is not.

A docs homepage works the same way. The visible layer looks simple because the hard systems sit underneath it. Search indexes have to stay current. API references have to track the spec. MCP retrieval has to return the right context. Every framework update, broken dependency, and production incident still needs an owner.

Most teams ship the MVP, then make the correct engineering call: spend the next week on the actual product.

The product keeps shipping. The docs stack ages in place.

That was tolerable when docs were a reference people could work around. It's a worse trade when developers and their agents depend on the same source of truth. In a 2,400-run benchmark, linking agents to llms.txt cut dead URLs by almost 90%. The maintenance surface now includes machine-readable routes, not only the rendered site.

When building your own docs still makes sense

Some teams should own the stack. If your docs must run in an air-gapped environment, need rendering or security behavior no platform supports, or are the product you sell, build. The same goes for a platform team that explicitly wants to own the system for years. We break down that trade in self-hosted vs managed documentation.

Most teams don't have those requirements. They need accurate, searchable, branded documentation that works for people and agents. Building the infrastructure around it doesn't make their product more differentiated. It gives their engineers one more system to maintain.

What Mintlify's free plan includes

We built Mintlify Starter as a free documentation platform for those teams.

Starter is not a trial on a countdown. It's $0 per month, requires no credit card, and includes five editor seats.

With Starter, you can:

• Publish on a custom domain with Git sync, built-in components, and custom CSS and JavaScript.
• Edit in the browser and collaborate with your team.
• Protect docs with Mintlify authentication.
• Give developers an interactive API playground.
• Give agents a hosted MCP server and llms.txt out of the box.
• Get found through built-in search, SEO, and GEO optimizations.

That's enough to put real documentation in production, point agents at it, and see what changes when the infrastructure is handled for you. Your agent can even set up Mintlify from the terminal, from account creation through preview, validation, and domain setup.

Pro and Enterprise add what larger teams need: the Assistant, the writing agent, automations, preview deployments, analytics, password and SSO authentication, unlimited editor seats, and migration support. The basics don't expire because you haven't upgraded.

We'd rather your team publish something real than spend another quarter rebuilding the systems around it.

Where to start with Starter

Move one useful part of your docs first.

Connect the repository. Publish the quickstart or API reference on your domain. Test one endpoint in the playground. Add the MCP server to Claude Code or Cursor and ask a question your developers ask every week.

Then decide whether owning the infrastructure would have made the answer better.

The teams that win the next few years won't be the ones that built the most internal tooling. They'll be the ones that spent that time on the product.

That's the bet behind Starter. Start free. No credit card required.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between Mintlify Starter and Pro?

Starter covers publishing: the web editor, Git sync, search, an API playground, an MCP server, a custom domain, built-in and custom components, custom CSS and JavaScript, SEO, GEO, and agent optimizations, and five editor seats. Pro adds the AI layer and team features: the Assistant, the writing agent, automations, preview deployments, platform and agent analytics, user feedback, password protection, and unlimited editor seats. See the full comparison on the pricing page.

Does the free plan include AI features like the Assistant?

No. The Assistant, writing agent, and automations run on credits, which come with Pro and Enterprise. Every new account can try them free for 14 days with 5,000 credits. Agents can still read your docs on Starter: the MCP server and agent optimizations are included, so Claude Code and Cursor can search your documentation from a coding session.

Can I put my docs behind auth on the free plan?

Yes, with Mintlify authentication, which is included on Starter. Password protection is on Pro, and OAuth, JWT, and SSO are on Enterprise. You can launch public docs on Starter and add authentication later without disrupting existing readers.

How many seats do I get on the free plan?

Starter includes five editor seats. Readers of your public docs don't count as seats. Pro and Enterprise include unlimited editor seats.

Can some people be viewers only?

Not on Starter or Pro. Everyone you add to the dashboard is an editor. Separate viewer and editor roles come with role-based permissions on Enterprise.

How long can I stay on the free plan?

As long as you want. Starter is an ongoing free plan, not a trial, and it doesn't expire. If a Pro trial ends without an upgrade, your site stays live on Starter.

Can I start free and upgrade later?

Yes. Most teams start on Starter and move to Pro month to month when they need the Assistant, automations, analytics, or password protection. Your content, domain, and Git setup carry over, so upgrading doesn't mean rebuilding anything.

Can I use my own domain on the free plan?

Yes. Every site starts on a mintlify.site subdomain, and you can point a custom domain such as docs.example.com at it on Starter. SEO and GEO optimizations are included, so your docs can be indexed by search engines and cited by AI answer engines.

What does it cost to maintain a homegrown docs site?

The build is rarely the expensive part. The ongoing cost is engineering time: framework and dependency upgrades, keeping search and the API reference in sync with your product, running authentication, and now maintaining llms.txt and an MCP server so agents get current answers. That work never ships as a feature, so it tends to go unowned.