PubNub
- Free allowance
- Free: 200 monthly active users or 1 million transactions a month, whichever is reached first, with 1GB data storage kept 7 days, no credit card
- Verdict
- caveatusable, with a named limit or an unprobed read path
- Cost
- free tier
- Identity
- emailno card, no phone
- Binding limit
- request-rate1 million transactions per month, a payload above 2,048 bytes counting once per 2 KiB part
- Evidence
- documented30 sources; a first-party page was read and the sentence quoted
- Freshness
- stale on 2026-12-03checked 2026-11-02 (live); stale on 2026-12-03
| Free tier | Free: 200 monthly active users or 1 million transactions a month, whichever is reached first, with 1GB data storage kept 7 days, no credit card unit mixed; metered on ; The two units are monthly active users and transactions. A transaction is one API request, and a payload above 2,048 bytes is billed as one transaction per 2 KiB part. A Free account creates only Testing keysets, which are rate-limited and not meant for live traffic; a Production keyset needs the Starter plan. A Free account holds up to 10 active keysets. A Function deployed on Free pauses 7 days after deployment. Past a Free limit PubNub emails a request to upgrade or reduce usage. |
|---|---|
| Price | none stated |
| Limits |
200 monthly active users, 10 active keysets, and Testing keysets only, which are rate-limited at a rate no page states; concurrent users, channels and devices are not capped on any plan. The vocabulary has no kind for a user count. |
| Binding | request-rate 1 million transactions a month is about 33,000 a day (1,000,000 / 30), and a 32 KiB payload is 16 transactions (32 / 2), so payload size moves this cap more than the 200-user limit does for a single-user workload. |
| Identity | email The registration form asks for a first name, a last name, an email, a contact email and a password, or a Google sign-in, behind reCAPTCHA; the pricing and registration pages state no credit card is required. |
| Egress | The pricing page lists storage and bandwidth as included in the plan; usage is counted in transactions, 1 million a month on Free free allowance: 1 million transactions a month; a payload above 2,048 bytes counts once per 2 KiB part |
| Per-object cap | 32 KiB default message payload, channel name and metadata included (up to 2 MB for contract customers); 5 MB per file (32768 bytes) |
| Retention | Message Persistence 1 or 7 days on Free, capped at 7 days; files kept 1 or 7 days (7 days) |
| Interface | rest REST API over HTTP GET with a publish and subscribe key pair from the Admin Portal; PubNub delivers realtime messages over ordinary HTTPS and uses no WebSocket, so subscribe is an HTTP long-poll. The time endpoint at ps.pndsn.com answered 200 without a key. endpoint: https://ps.pndsn.com |
| Tooling | PubNub SDKs, or any HTTP client against the REST API with a publish key and a subscribe key. |
| Composes with | A fan-out layer for a prototype with few users, with 7 days of message history for a consumer that reconnects. |
| Reliability | Free accounts create only Testing keysets, which are rate-limited at an unpublished rate; abnormal traffic on a keyset can draw a temporary rate limit. |
| Notes | Beyond Free, pricing is per monthly active user: the Starter plan is USD 98 a month for 1,000 MAU. |
| Evidence note | documented Every limit is quoted from first-party pricing and documentation pages; the REST host was probed and its time endpoint answered 200 without a key. No message was published, because publishing needs a keyset. A publish and history read on a Testing keyset would move it to measured and could measure its rate limit. |
| Parsed numbers |
|
Evidence 30
| date | source | what it proved |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/pricing/ | the Free plan is free forever with no credit card |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/pricing/ | the Free plan includes 1GB of data storage kept 7 days |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/pricing/ | the pricing page lists storage and bandwidth as included |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/pricing/ | part of the text of Notes, above |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/pricing/quotas | Free covers 200 MAU or 1 million transactions, whichever comes first |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/pricing/quotas | Free accounts create only Testing keysets, capped at 7 days of retention |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/pricing/quotas | a Production keyset needs Starter and Testing keysets are rate-limited |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/pricing/quotas | a Free account holds up to 10 active keysets |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/pricing/quotas | a Function on Free pauses 7 days after deployment |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/architecture/limits | the default message payload is 32 KiB |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/architecture/limits | a file is at most 5 MB |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/architecture/limits | files are kept 1 or 7 days on Free |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/architecture/limits | abnormal traffic can draw a temporary rate limit |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/architecture/limits | subscribe holds an HTTP long-poll |
| 2026-10-30 | support.pubnub.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051974051-What-happe | a payload above 2,048 bytes is billed per 2 KiB part |
| 2026-10-30 | support.pubnub.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051974051-What-happe | past a Free limit PubNub emails a request to upgrade or reduce usage |
| 2026-10-30 | admin.pubnub.com/register | registration needs no credit card |
| 2026-10-30 | admin.pubnub.com/register | the form asks for a first name, last name, email, contact email and password |
| 2026-10-30 | admin.pubnub.com/register | the form is protected by reCAPTCHA |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/sdks/rest-api/publish-message-to-channel | publish is an HTTP GET in the REST API |
| 2026-10-30 | www.pubnub.com/docs/sdks/rest-api/publish-message-to-channel | a publish needs the publish key from the Admin Portal |
| 2026-10-30 | probe: https://ps.pndsn.com/time/0 | the REST host answers its time endpoint without a key |
| 2026-11-01 | www.pubnub.com/docs/architecture/data-transport-and-delivery | PubNub delivers realtime messages over ordinary HTTPS and does not use WebSocket |
| 2026-11-01 | www.pubnub.com/docs/pricing/quotas | no PubNub plan caps channels, devices or concurrent users; only monthly active users are capped |
| 2026-11-01 | probe: https://ps.pndsn.com/time/0 | the REST host answers its time endpoint without a key |
| 2026-11-01 | admin.pubnub.com/register | registration needs no credit card |
| 2026-11-01 | admin.pubnub.com/register | the form asks for a first name, last name, email, contact email and password |
| 2026-11-01 | admin.pubnub.com/register | the form is protected by reCAPTCHA |
| 2026-11-01 | admin.pubnub.com/register | the registration page lists unlimited concurrent users, channels and devices |
| 2026-11-01 | www.pubnub.com/docs/pricing/quotas | Free tier keysets are capped at 7 days of retention, unchanged |