Is Excalidraw free — including for commercial work?

Short answer

Yes, on both counts. Excalidraw is open source under the MIT licence, which explicitly permits commercial use: you can use it at work, in client deliverables, and in a commercial product without paying or asking. The free version has no feature lock and no watermark. Excalidraw+ is a separate paid, hosted product for teams that want persistent workspaces and managed collaboration — it is an addition, not an unlock.

What the MIT licence actually allows

MIT is one of the most permissive licences in wide use. It allows you to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute and sell the software, including inside a commercial product. The single obligation is to keep the copyright notice with any substantial copy of the source you redistribute.

Using excalidraw.com in your day job, exporting a diagram into a client presentation, or embedding the open-source editor in your own tool are all permitted. You do not need a licence, a seat, or permission.

Mentioned here: ✏️ Excalidraw, ✏️ Penpot, 🔐 CryptPad

Where Excalidraw+ fits

Excalidraw+ is a hosted subscription aimed at teams: persistent boards, shared workspaces, user management. It exists to fund the project, and the free editor is not degraded to push you toward it — there is no watermark, no export limit and no time limit.

For a solo user or someone drawing occasionally, the free version genuinely is the whole product. Teams that need boards to persist server-side across members are the ones the paid tier is built for.