Simple, Transparent Pricing

Start building for free, then scale with confidence. Our pay-as-you-grow pricing is based on one simple metric: Monthly Active Users.
No hidden fees, no surprises.

Choose Your Plan

All plans include unlimited channels, and all our core features. You only pay for what you use: MAU.


Free Plan

Free

Forever free • No credit card required
200 MAU or 1M transactions
Usage Allowance: Best for testing and prototypes.
What's included
  • 1GB data storage (7 days)
  • Community support
  • Up to 1M transactions monthly
Full Feature Breakdown

Starter Plan

$98/month

Pay as your grow
1,000 MAU included • $0.15 per additional MAU
Usage Allowance: Ideal for launching apps.
What's included
  • Includes add-on Bizops Workspace for user and channel management
  • Up to 6 months data storage
  • Standard support (24/5)
  • Insights into your users, channels and messages
Full Feature Breakdown

Pro Plan

Custom

The more you grow, the more you save
Custom MAU packages • Significant volume discounts
Usage Allowance: Built for production apps.
What's included
  • Unlimited data storage
  • Dedicated support team
  • Advanced analytcs & monioring
  • 99.999% uptime SLA
  • Custom integrations
Full Feature Breakdown

Pay-As-You-Go Pricing

Free Plan

$0/month

for up to 200 MAU

Starter Plan

$98/month

for 1,000 MAU

$698/month

for 5,000 MAU

Pro Plan

Volume Discounts

for 10,000+ MAU

Simple, Predictable Pricing — No Hidden Fees

Other providers have unexpected charges for concurrency, channels, and messaging, making costs unpredictable and difficult to budget for. With PubNub's MAU pricing, it's simple. You only pay for MAUs. That's it.

Billing Metric
Monthly Active Users (MAU)PubNub The only thing you pay forOther platform One of many potential charges
Peak Concurrent ConnectionsPubNub check_circle Included Other platform attach_money Extra Cost
Message & API Call VolumePubNub check_circle Included Other platform attach_money Extra Cost
Active Channel / Connection TimePubNub check_circle Included Other platform attach_money Extra Cost
Storage & BandwidthPubNub check_circle Included Other platform attach_money Extra Cost
Advanced Feature Add-onsPubNub check_circle Included Other platform attach_money Extra Cost

Pricing Calculator

Estimate your monthly costs based on your number of Monthly Active Users (MAU). The pricing shown is representative of most common use cases.

2001k5k10k25k50k+
Free Plan
Free
Our free plan is perfect for development and testing.
The pricing shown is representative of most common use cases.

Need more than 50,000 MAU?Contact sales for volume discounts

Compare Plans & Features

Scale & Performance
99.999% SLA
Advanced Network Tuning
<100ms latency worldwide
Unlimited concurrent users
Unlimited channels
Unlimited devices
Data Storage
Up to 7 days and up to 1 GB
Security & Compliance
SAML SSO
Custom Domain Origin
BAA signed for HIPAA Compliance
Network Access Control
Encryption
Unlimited devices
Real-Time Features
Pub/Sub Network
Message Reactions
Message Persistence
Message Filtering
Channels
Functions
Presence
Mobile Push Notifications
App Context
Access Manager
File Sharing
Premium Add-ons
Events & Actions

Manage events and send real-time data to third-party systems for storage, analytics, or AI without writing code.

Learn more

Trial
PubNub Insights

Access turnkey aggregated metrics and analytics built from your PubNub data to make evidence-based decisions.

Learn more

Trial
BizOps Workspace

UI tools for admins and moderators to manage users, channels, presence, and messages in PubNub applications.

Learn more

Trial
Illuminate

Real-time decisioning and analytics customizable to your unique use case.

Learn more

Trial

New premium add-on

PubNub Illuminate: Real-Time Intelligence

Go beyond messaging with AI-powered real-time decision making. Process live data streams and trigger instant actions across your entire application ecosystem.

Discover Illuminate

Watch how real-time intelligence transforms user experiences with instant, automated responses to live data.

Perfect for: Content moderation, fraud detection, personalization engines, real-time recommendations, and automated user engagement

Illuminate
auto_awesome

Turn live app data into real-time metrics and actionable insights

code_off

Decision rules had trigger alerts, rewards, and prompts—no coding required

bolt

Act instantly with real-time decisioning to boost engagement, personalization, and monetization

Try Illuminate Free

Get full access to all features for 2 weeks—no setup required. Instantly generate a custom demo tailored to your use case.

Illuminate is available as an add-on to any PubNub plan.

Support & Service Options

Get the support you need to build confidently. All plans include standard support, with premium options available for mission-critical applications.

Features
Support availability
Reasonable Effort
Guaranteed response time
1-2 Days
Support channel
Email & chat
Health check & business review
Custom origin setup
Dedicated live event monitoring
Real-time operational dashboards
Dedicated solution architect
Code review
Early product release access
Direct engineer access
Hosted customer certificates
Critical incident paging mechanism

Frequently Asked Pricing Questions

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What is MAU (Monthly Active Users)?

MAU stands for Monthly Active Users - the number of unique users who interact with your app each month. This includes users who send/receive messages, join channels, or use any PubNub features.

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How much does Platform Starter cost per MAU?

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What are the Free plan limitations?

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How much do messages cost?

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Are there any subscription fees for storing chats?

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Can I estimate costs for 100,000 MAU?

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Do I need a credit card to start?

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How do overages work?

Trusted by 3M+ Developers Worldwide

99.999%

Uptime SLA

<100ms

Global Latency

3M+

Developers

25M+

Concurrent Connections

GDPR

Compliant

HIPAA

Compliant

SOC 2 Type 2

Certified

ISO 27001

Certified

Enterprise-Grade Compliance

Compliance is handled out of the box, with support for GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2 Type 2, and ISO 27001. You can control how and where data is stored and routed—including locking it to U.S.-only data centers when needed. Access controls and audit logs are built in, so meeting requirements doesn't add extra overhead.

lock
Data Residency

Control where your data is stored and processed

assignment
Audit Logs

Complete audit trails built into the platform

security
Access Controls

Granular permissions and role-based access

Ready to Build Real-Time Apps?

Join millions of developers building the future of real-time experiences. Start free, scale as you grow.

What is MAU?

A Monthly Active User is a unique user who connects to PubNub at least once in a monthly billing cycle. Learn more in our FAQ

Our free plan is designed for you to build and test your application. When you're ready for production, you can seamlessly upgrade to a paid plan.