Katalon Studio Free vs Professional vs Enterprise: Plans and Pricing Compared

Is Katalon Studio free?

Yes. The Free plan costs $0 and lets you author and run tests on your own machine. You get web, mobile, and API testing, record and playback for web and mobile, a built-in keyword library, scripting in Groovy, local execution, and reports in HTML, PDF, CSV, and JUnit formats.

The Free plan has limits. It doesn't include Windows desktop testing, parallel execution, self-healing, AI features, ALM integrations such as Jira, or command-line and CI execution. Test suites are capped at 10 static suites per project, and test runs that use data binding are blocked.

What happened to Katalon Studio Enterprise (KSE)?

Katalon Studio Enterprise (KSE) is the older name for the paid version of Katalon Studio. That paid version is now sold as two plans: Professional and Enterprise. Almost everything that used to be listed as "KSE only", such as desktop testing, self-healing, advanced data-driven testing, and ALM integrations, is in the Professional plan. Enterprise keeps all of that and adds security, deployment, licensing, and support options for larger organizations.

If you see "KSE" in older forum threads or docs, read it as "a paid plan (Professional or Enterprise)".

How much does Katalon Studio cost?

Katalon Studio pricing on the Katalon pricing page, as of November 2026:

• Free: $0. Author and run tests locally.
• Professional: $1,800 per seat per year, billed annually (about $150 per seat per month).
• Enterprise: custom pricing on an annual contract, tailored to your seats, deployment, and compliance needs.

You can try a paid plan with a 30-day free trial. Two products are priced separately as add-ons: Katalon Runtime Engine (KRE) for command-line and CI execution, and TestCloud for running tests on cloud browsers and devices. Katalon Studio is sold on its own; Katalon TestOps and TrueTest are separate products. Check the pricing page before you budget, since it's the source of truth for prices.

Katalon Studio Free vs Professional vs Enterprise at a glance

The table compares the three plans as of November 2026. Plan details come from the Katalon pricing page and the Katalon Studio feature comparison in the Katalon docs. Where the two differ, the table follows the docs.

What the Free plan includes

The Free plan suits individual testers, students, and small projects that run tests on one machine. It covers:

• Web, mobile, and API testing. Record web tests with Web Recorder Plus and mobile tests with the Smart Mobile Recorder, including hybrid apps that mix native screens and WebView content.
• Keyword-driven and scripted tests. Build tests from the built-in keyword library, then switch to the script view to edit them in Groovy.
• API testing. Create REST, SOAP, and GraphQL requests, validate them against JSON, XML, and GraphQL schemas, and import Postman collections and environments.
• Local execution. Run tests on your own machine, with Smart Wait to handle page load timing, and pause and resume a running suite to inspect the app.
• Reports. HTML, PDF, CSV, and JUnit reports, screenshots, videos for browsers with a GUI, Time Capsule snapshots of the app state when a test fails, and test suite reports by email.
• Git. Connect your project to GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket, or Azure Repos over HTTPS.

The main limits are the 10-suite cap, no parallel runs, no desktop testing, no self-healing, no AI features, and no CI execution. Data files from Excel, CSV, PostgreSQL, and MySQL can be read in scripts, but any test case, test suite, or test suite collection that uses data binding won't run on Free.

What the Professional plan adds

Professional covers almost everything the old Katalon Studio Enterprise edition did. It includes everything in Free, plus the features below.

Desktop testing

Test Windows desktop applications with the native Windows Recorder, alongside your web, mobile, and API tests in the same project.

Faster runs: parallel execution and dynamic test suites

Run several test suites at the same time, or run test cases in parallel within a suite, to cut execution time. Test suites are unlimited, and dynamic test suites add test cases automatically from a search query, so new tests join the right suite without manual updates. You can also schedule test suite collection runs and retry failed tests to spot flaky ones.

Data-driven and behavior-driven testing

Professional adds Oracle and SQL Server sources, any database with a JDBC driver, combinations of multiple data files, data binding at test case and dynamic suite level, and checkpoints to compare data snapshots. It also supports BDD with Cucumber feature files written in Gherkin.

Self-healing and AI

When a web test can't find an element with its default locator, self-healing tries the object's alternative locators so the run can continue. AI self-healing goes a step further for web and mobile tests, suggesting a working locator when the default and alternative locators all fail.

Paid plans also include Katalon AI Assistant, which generates test scripts from natural language, explains selected code, and in Agent mode plans and runs multi-step tasks in your project. AI failure analysis explains why a test failed and suggests a fix, AI keywords let test steps ask questions or check text and files in plain language, and the Katalon Studio MCP server lets external AI clients work with your project. AI-assisted recording in Web Recorder Plus, in beta, lets you describe a scenario in plain language and have the recorder capture the steps. It needs your own API key for a vision-capable model, which you add in Preferences > AI Configuration, and the docs describe it as for evaluation only, so review the steps before you save them.

Integrations, reports, and debugging

Professional connects Studio to Jira, Azure DevOps, qTest, TestRail, TestLink, and Rally to push and pull test artifacts and results, adds Slack report sharing, and supports Git over SSH. The docs also list Kobiton and Sauce Labs as cloud provider integrations on paid plans. Reports add headless browser videos, report history, and test suite collection reports, and the dual-mode debugger and test case tags help you fix and organize tests faster.

What the Enterprise plan adds

Enterprise includes everything in Professional and adds the controls larger and regulated organizations usually ask for:

• SSO with SAML and SCIM user provisioning
• Role-based access control and audit logs
• Private cloud or on-premises deployment, and a private SaaS environment
• Offline or air-gapped activation, and hybrid licensing that converts Studio and Runtime Engine licenses for machines with limited internet access
• Centralized license and usage management
• Bring your own AI provider for the whole organization
• A security review and custom terms
• A custom SLA, Premier Support, onboarding services, and a dedicated Customer Success Manager

On the pricing page, Enterprise adds few testing features over Professional. Choose it mainly for security, deployment, and support needs.

Add-ons: Katalon Runtime Engine and TestCloud

Two things that older versions of this comparison listed as part of the paid edition are separate add-ons:

• Katalon Runtime Engine (KRE) runs Studio tests from the command line, in a Katalon Docker image, and in CI pipelines such as Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Azure DevOps, and GitLab. It's licensed separately and works with Professional and Enterprise. The Free plan has no command-line or CI execution.
• TestCloud runs Studio tests on common desktop browsers, mobile browsers, and operating systems in the cloud, so you don't maintain your own grid or device lab. It's also priced separately. Per the docs, it works with any plan, including Free.

Studio is where you author and debug tests. If your team plans to run tests in CI, budget for KRE alongside your Studio seats.

Which Katalon Studio plan should you choose?

• Choose Free if you're learning test automation, evaluating Studio, or running a small number of web, mobile, or API tests on your own machine. It's a full IDE, but the 10-suite cap and the lack of CI and parallel runs show up quickly on a team project.
• Choose Professional if you're an individual or small automation team that needs desktop testing, parallel runs, self-healing, AI help, data binding, BDD, or Jira and Azure DevOps integration. Add KRE when tests need to run in CI.
• Choose Enterprise if you need SSO, role-based access, audit logs, offline or on-premises deployment, an organization-wide AI provider, or a custom SLA and dedicated support.
• Consider an open-source framework if license cost is the main constraint and your team is comfortable building and maintaining its own framework, reporting, and CI scripts. Our comparisons of Katalon vs Selenium and Katalon vs Cypress cover where each one fits.

The easiest way to decide is to try it with your own app. Start on the Free plan, or use the 30-day free trial to test the paid features against a real project. See the Katalon Studio product page for an overview of what Studio does.