PubNub pricing
PubNub bills primarily on Monthly Active Users (MAUs), the count of unique User IDs that connect to your keyset at least once in a calendar month.
This page explains how that model works and what changes across the Free, Starter, and Pro plans. It also covers when a transaction-based model fits an application better than MAU billing does.
The MAU model
A MAU is one unique User ID, not one connection or one device. A User ID that connects once, disconnects, and reconnects ten times in the same month still counts as a single MAU. Several devices sharing the same User ID also count as one MAU.
This is why User ID is the anchor for billing as well as for Presence and Access Manager. Assign a stable User ID to each person or device, then reuse it across sessions. Otherwise the same user gets counted more than once. See User ID for the full identification model.
A free PubNub account covers up to 200 monthly active users (MAUs) or 1 million transactions at no cost, whichever limit you reach first.
MAU billing suits applications where the same users return repeatedly through the month. Cost tracks how many distinct people or devices use the application, not how much they use it.
Free, Starter, and Pro plans
The three account plans change what you can create as well as how much a MAU costs. Creating a Production keyset requires at least the Starter plan. Testing keysets are rate-limited and aren't suitable for live traffic. A Free plan account is limited to Testing keysets, so it can't carry live traffic.
The plans also differ in how you agree on MAUs:
- Starter. The PubNub Starter plan includes 1,000 monthly active users (MAUs). You can buy more MAUs by credit card, month to month.
- Pro. Your contract sets a custom MAU package, usage allowance, and rate.
Plan also changes keyset counts, message retention, and Events & Actions ingestion. These account and portal features also depend on plan:
- Production keysets
- Secret key rotation without downtime
- Audit Log
- Auto Moderation and Channel Monitor
- PubNub Insights, Illuminate, and Events & Actions
- Custom domain, SAML single sign-on (SSO), and an uptime service level agreement (SLA)
For which plan includes each one, see Plan comparison.
Features with their own billing unit
A few features bill on a quantity other than MAUs or API requests, such as stored data or active event listeners. Check them when you design an integration, because their cost doesn't follow your user count. Pricing by feature lists the rates:
- Events & Actions. A monthly tier fee plus a rate per million ingested events. Events & Actions calculates the billable count of ingested events by multiplying the messages published to a keyset by the number of active event listeners on that keyset, whether or not an event matches a filter or triggers an action.
- Data Persistence. Data that Message Persistence and App Context store on your keyset, billed per GB per month.
- Files. File transfer and file storage, billed by volume.
- Functions. On transaction-based pricing, each Function execution is its own transaction type.
Estimate your cost
The calculator estimates monthly Platform Pro cost for 1,000 to 49,999 monthly active users (MAUs); contact Sales for pricing at 50,000 MAUs or more.
When transaction-based pricing fits better
Some applications don't fit the MAU model well: many User IDs that each connect briefly and infrequently, or a mix of a few heavy-traffic clients and many light ones. For these, PubNub offers transaction-based pricing, billed per API request rather than per unique user.
See Pricing by feature for transaction units, classifications, rates, storage, file transfer, and Events & Actions pricing.
To move your account onto transaction-based pricing, contact PubNub Support.
Related resources
- Pricing by feature. The cost of each transaction type, storage, file transfer, and Events & Actions tier.
- Plan comparison. Which features, keysets, retention, and Events & Actions limits each plan includes.
- Set up your account. Create an app and keyset and choose Testing or Production.
- Full pricing details. PubNub's plan comparison and signup page.