Can I add users to private projects/issues on the Team plan without a paid seat?

[FlatulentFowl]

Hi everyone,

I have a question about user licensing on the GitHub Team plan.

Our organization is on the Team plan, and all our repositories are private. I want to add our Product Manager and a Support Agent to the org so they can access and collaborate only on a private project (for roadmapping) and its related issues.

They do not need any access to code or repositories.

Can I add these non-developer users to the organization and restrict their permissions to only projects and issues without them taking up a paid license/seat?

Thanks for the help!

[Ruberald]

No. On the GitHub Team plan, any user who needs access to private organization resources must occupy a paid seat.

GitHub does not support adding “project-only” or “issues-only” users for free.
Even adding someone as an outside collaborator to a private repo requires a license, regardless of permission level.

You could however use a public repo for roadmapping (then outside collaborators are free), or
use a separate tool (Notion, Linear, Trello, ClickUp).