# Amazon SQS vs Zeplo

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/compare/amazon-sqs-vs-zeplo/

Every value below is read from Amazon SQS's and Zeplo's own documentation. See https://inetgeek.com/methodology/ for how.

## At a glance

| Criterion | Amazon SQS | Zeplo |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Entry paid plan | No paid plan or minimum fee; billed per request after the free 1 million requests a month. | $39/month for Company, including 1,000,000 requests and three team members. Additional members are $15 each. |
| Pricing model | Per request, not per message: every API action counts, and a 1 MiB payload is billed as 16 requests. FIFO queues cost $0.50 per million against standard's $0.40 in us-east-1, and fair queue requests add $0.10 per million on top of the standard rate. | Per HTTP request rather than per message or per execution, with unlimited jobs on every tier and team size as a separate axis — three members included on Company, $15 for each beyond. |
| Regions | 34 commercial AWS Regions plus 2 AWS GovCloud (US) Regions listed in the SQS service endpoints table. | Hosted on Google Cloud Platform; no selectable region is offered and data may be transferred between countries. |
| Included per month | 1,000,000 requests a month free, permanently and across all regions. Beyond that, standard queues are $0.40 per million in us-east-1, falling to $0.30 above 100 billion and $0.24 above 200 billion. | 500 requests free, then $20 per 100,000. The Company plan includes 1,000,000 requests and charges $10 per million beyond — five times cheaper per request than the free plan's overage rate. |
| Maximum message size | 256 KB per message. A single request carries 1 to 10 messages up to 1 MiB total, and each 64 KB chunk of payload is billed as one request. | 256 KB inline request body (unlimited via S3 offload); plan payload caps are 64 KB on Developer and 1 MB on Company. |
| Message retention | 4 days by default; configurable from 60 seconds up to 14 days per queue. | 30 days of log retention on every plan — free, Company and Enterprise alike. The longest window in this category by a wide margin. |
| Maximum delay | 15 minutes maximum per-message delay (message timer) or per-queue delay; default is 0 seconds. | 30 days (2,592,000 seconds) maximum delay_seconds per request. |
| Concurrency | Approximately 120,000 in-flight messages per standard queue (received but not yet deleted); API call rate on standard queues is nearly unlimited. | API rate limit rather than a concurrency figure: 100 requests/min on Developer (Free) and 2,000 requests/min on Company ($39/mo). |

## Where they differ

### Entry paid plan

- Amazon SQS: No paid plan or minimum fee; billed per request after the free 1 million requests a month. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/sqs/pricing/))
- Zeplo: $39/month for Company, including 1,000,000 requests and three team members. Additional members are $15 each. ([source](https://www.zeplo.io/pricing))

### Pricing model

- Amazon SQS: Per request, not per message: every API action counts, and a 1 MiB payload is billed as 16 requests. FIFO queues cost $0.50 per million against standard's $0.40 in us-east-1, and fair queue requests add $0.10 per million on top of the standard rate. ([source](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AWSQueueService/current/us-east-1/index.json))
- Zeplo: Per HTTP request rather than per message or per execution, with unlimited jobs on every tier and team size as a separate axis — three members included on Company, $15 for each beyond. ([source](https://www.zeplo.io/pricing))

### Regions

- Amazon SQS: 34 commercial AWS Regions plus 2 AWS GovCloud (US) Regions listed in the SQS service endpoints table. ([source](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/sqs-service.html))
- Zeplo: Hosted on Google Cloud Platform; no selectable region is offered and data may be transferred between countries. ([source](https://zeplo.io/privacy/))

### Included per month

- Amazon SQS: 1,000,000 requests a month free, permanently and across all regions. Beyond that, standard queues are $0.40 per million in us-east-1, falling to $0.30 above 100 billion and $0.24 above 200 billion. ([source](https://pricing.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/offers/v1.0/aws/AWSQueueService/current/us-east-1/index.json))
- Zeplo: 500 requests free, then $20 per 100,000. The Company plan includes 1,000,000 requests and charges $10 per million beyond — five times cheaper per request than the free plan's overage rate. ([source](https://www.zeplo.io/pricing))

### Maximum message size

- Amazon SQS: 256 KB per message. A single request carries 1 to 10 messages up to 1 MiB total, and each 64 KB chunk of payload is billed as one request. ([source](https://aws.amazon.com/sqs/pricing/))
- Zeplo: 256 KB inline request body (unlimited via S3 offload); plan payload caps are 64 KB on Developer and 1 MB on Company. ([source](https://zeplo.io/docs/limits/))

### Message retention

- Amazon SQS: 4 days by default; configurable from 60 seconds up to 14 days per queue. ([source](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSSimpleQueueService/latest/SQSDeveloperGuide/quotas-messages.html))
- Zeplo: 30 days of log retention on every plan — free, Company and Enterprise alike. The longest window in this category by a wide margin. ([source](https://www.zeplo.io/pricing))

### Maximum delay

- Amazon SQS: 15 minutes maximum per-message delay (message timer) or per-queue delay; default is 0 seconds. ([source](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSSimpleQueueService/latest/SQSDeveloperGuide/quotas-messages.html))
- Zeplo: 30 days (2,592,000 seconds) maximum delay_seconds per request. ([source](https://zeplo.io/docs/limits/))

### Concurrency

- Amazon SQS: Approximately 120,000 in-flight messages per standard queue (received but not yet deleted); API call rate on standard queues is nearly unlimited. ([source](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AWSSimpleQueueService/latest/SQSDeveloperGuide/quotas-queues.html))
- Zeplo: API rate limit rather than a concurrency figure: 100 requests/min on Developer (Free) and 2,000 requests/min on Company ($39/mo). ([source](https://zeplo.io/docs/limits/))

## Which should you choose?

Pick Amazon SQS if AWS-resident systems that want a queue with a permanent free million requests a month and no capacity to plan — SQS scales without a throughput setting to choose.

Pick Zeplo if Turning an HTTP endpoint into a queued, retried job without running a consumer — and keeping a month of logs while doing it, which nothing else here offers on a free plan.

Consider something else: Amazon SQS — Billing is per request rather than per message, and a 1 MiB payload counts as sixteen, so chatty polling or large messages cost far more than the message count suggests.

Consider something else: Zeplo — The free tier's overage is $20 per 100,000 requests, twenty times the Company plan's rate, so staying free past 500 requests is the most expensive way to use it.

## Documented by only one

- Dead letter queue: Amazon SQS: Supported
- SOC 2: Amazon SQS: Listed as SOC-compliant on AWS's own compliance scope page.
- ISO 27001: Amazon SQS: Covered under AWS's account-wide ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification — not scoped per-service the way SOC, HIPAA and PCI DSS are on AWS's own site.
- HIPAA: Amazon SQS: Listed as a HIPAA-eligible service on AWS's own reference page.
- GDPR / data residency: Amazon SQS: AWS customers can process personal data on all AWS services in compliance with GDPR, and choose the storage type and geographic region for their data.
- PCI DSS: Amazon SQS: Listed as PCI DSS-compliant on AWS's own compliance scope page.
- Encryption at rest: Amazon SQS: Server-side encryption of queue contents with SQS-managed keys (SSE-SQS) or AWS KMS keys (SSE-KMS).
- Customer-managed keys: Amazon SQS: Supported via SSE-KMS: queues can use a customer managed KMS key created and policy-controlled in AWS KMS.
- Role-based access control: Amazon SQS: IAM identity-based policies on users, groups and roles plus resource-based queue policies control access to queues and actions.
- Private networking / VPC: Amazon SQS: Interface VPC endpoints (AWS PrivateLink) let a VPC reach SQS privately, including FIPS endpoints; HTTPS endpoints only.

## Questions this comparison answers

**Entry paid plan: Amazon SQS or Zeplo?**

Amazon SQS: No paid plan or minimum fee; billed per request after the free 1 million requests a month.
Zeplo: $39/month for Company, including 1,000,000 requests and three team members. Additional members are $15 each.

**Should I choose Amazon SQS or Zeplo?**

Pick Amazon SQS if AWS-resident systems that want a queue with a permanent free million requests a month and no capacity to plan — SQS scales without a throughput setting to choose.
Pick Zeplo if Turning an HTTP endpoint into a queued, retried job without running a consumer — and keeping a month of logs while doing it, which nothing else here offers on a free plan.