A free Mural alternative where the people you invite can write, and where Mural is better

When Mural is the better choice

• You run workshops. Mural's pricing page lists Facilitation Superpowers on every plan: summon and take control, timer, voting, private mode, outline and instructions, laser pointer, hide and reveal, and facilitator lock. If your sessions depend on those, Mural is built for them.
• You want templates. The pricing page lists "250+ expert Mural templates" and custom templates. Instaboard has far fewer templates.
• You need your tools connected. Mural's pricing page lists integrations including Microsoft Teams, Webex, Zoom, Jira Cloud, Google Workspace, Slack and Adobe Creative Cloud Library, and more. Instaboard has no integrations.
• You work with clients on a paid plan. The pricing table lists unlimited guests on Business and Enterprise.
• You want a lot of boards. Mural Free allows unlimited murals per workspace, even though only three are editable at once. Instaboard Free allows 5 boards.
• Your company already runs on Mural. Its pricing table lists SSO and 2FA on Business, chat and email support on Business, and self-serve support on Free. Instaboard's free plan is a shared board, not a managed workspace.

If that's how your team works, stay with Mural.

What Mural's own pages say about the Free plan

From Mural's help article "Introducing the Mural Free plan" (last published June 1, 2026; read November 8, 2026):

• "One Mural workspace."
• "Unlimited murals per workspace. However, only the three (3) most recently created murals are editable at any given time. Older murals remain visible and shareable, but become view-only."
• "Access to open rooms only (private rooms are not available on the Free plan). This means all murals created in the Free plan workspace will be visible to all members of the workspace."
• "Unlimited visitors and members in the Free plan."
• "Visitors have view-only access. To get edit access, they must become a member."
• "This plan is free forever - no trial period or credit card required."

Mural's help article "What is a visitor in Mural?" (published October 15, 2026) adds: "In the Free plan, visitors can request edit access from the mural owner and join as a member in order to collaborate." It also lists what visitors can't do, among them using Facilitation Superpowers, exporting murals and duplicating murals. A person with no Mural account who opens a visitor-enabled link can "Continue to view the mural as an unauthenticated visitor" ("Accessing a mural as a visitor", December 13, 2024).

Mural's pricing page (read November 8, 2026) lists Team+ at "$9.99 per month, billed annually" or "$12 per month, billed monthly" per member, and Business at $17.99 per member per month, billed annually. A team of six on Team+ with annual billing is $719.28 a year (our arithmetic: 6 × $9.99 × 12).

Mural Free and Instaboard Free side by side

Mural rows are from its own pages, read on November 8, 2026. Plans change, so check the page before you commit.

When Instaboard fits better

• You need an outsider to write, not watch. A client, a volunteer or a friend opens your link, signs in free and adds cards. They don't join a workspace, and they don't need a paid seat.
• You want one board, not a workspace. You send one link. What you share is that board, nothing else in your account.
• You want to talk while you work. Start a call right on the board; everyone signs in free to join.
• You don't want to pay per person. Pro is one price, and the people you invite join free. Six people on Mural Team+ is $719.28 a year at the annual price (our arithmetic); Pro is $59.99 a year.
• You draw as well as write. The pen is pressure-sensitive, and pen strokes don't count toward the 150 items.

What this retro board can't do

• No Mural import. Instaboard can't open a mural. To keep a retro, open the ready board and retype the cards you want.
• No integrations, and no reminders for cards with an owner's name on them. The "owner" is text on the card.
• Far fewer templates than Mural's 250+. There is the ready board here and a handful of others, not a library to browse.
• 150 items on the free plan, across your account. Each card and each list counts. The example board is 30 cards and 6 lists, 36 items. Four retros like it are 144, and a fifth passes 150 if you keep them all on the free plan (our arithmetic). Pro removes the limit.
• 5 boards and 3 images per board. Keep one board per team and clear old cards, or keep one per sprint until you reach the limit. The example board has no images.
• Writing needs a free sign-in. Someone who isn't signed in can read the board but can't change it.

How to run the retro on the board

1. 1Open the ready board and read the Start here card.
2. 2Share it. In the share menu, set "Anyone with the link can edit"; new boards start as "Anyone with the link can view". Send the link, or the 4-digit join code, which expires after 2 hours of inactivity.
3. 3Everyone signs in free (Google, Apple or email) and adds cards to Went well, Didn't go well and Ideas. What they add shows up on your board within a few seconds.
4. 4Draw an arrow from each problem to an action. An arrow between cards in different lists takes a caption and its own colour, and it stays attached when you reorder cards or move a list. Arrows don't count toward the 150.
5. 5Give every action an owner, in the card's title, like "Rosa: add a build check before merge".
6. 6Keep the board as the notes. The board counts as 1 of each person's 5 free boards, and the cards they add count toward their own 150. If someone is already at 5 boards, they can still open the link and write; the board just isn't added to their boards.

Selected cards or lists can be copied as an image with "Copy as image" and pasted into a doc or chat.

Coming from another tool?

See the comparisons for Miro, MindMeister, Milanote and Trello.

Questions