Cloudflare Queues vs Upstash QStash
A comparison of Cloudflare Queues and Upstash QStash built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- Pick Cloudflare Queues if
- Workers applications that want a queue with no egress or throughput charges and a retention window measured in days rather than hours.
- Pick Upstash QStash if
- HTTP-first workloads that want scheduling and delay measured in months rather than a day, without running a consumer process.
4 sourced criteria separate them:
- Included per month
- Cloudflare Queues: 1,000,000 operations a month on Workers Paid, then $0.40 per million. An operation is each 64 KB written, read or deleted, so a typical message costs three — Cloudflare's own formula is ((messages × 3) − 1,000,000) / 1,000,000 × $0.40. Workers Free allows 10,000 operations a day.
- Upstash QStash: 1,000 messages a day on the free plan. Pay as You Go is $1 per 100,000 messages with no daily cap; fixed plans run $180 a month for 1M a day and $420 for 10M.
- Maximum message size
- Cloudflare Queues: 128 KB per message, with roughly 100 bytes of that taken by internal metadata. Messages above 64 KB are billed as multiple operations.
- Upstash QStash: 1 MB on the free plan, 10 MB on Pay as You Go and 50 MB on the fixed plans.
- Message retention
- Cloudflare Queues: 4 days by default on Workers Paid, configurable up to 14 days. Workers Free is fixed at 24 hours.
- Upstash QStash: Dead letter queue retention of 3 days on the free plan, 7 days on Pay as You Go, 30 days and 3 months on the fixed plans.
- Maximum delay
- Cloudflare Queues: 24 hours, set with delaySeconds when sending or retrying.
- Upstash QStash: 7 days on the free plan; 1 year on Pay as You Go and unlimited on the fixed plans.
Pick the criteria you care about. The chart counts how many of them lean toward each provider — the same read as scanning the bars below, just totalled for the ones you chose.
Cloudflare Queues 0
Upstash QStash 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Cloudflare Queues | Upstash QStash |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Queues | ||
| Included per month | 1,000,000 operations a month on Workers Paid, then $0.40 per million. An operation is each 64 KB written, read or deleted, so a typical message costs three — Cloudflare's own formula is ((messages × 3) − 1,000,000) / 1,000,000 × $0.40. Workers Free allows 10,000 operations a day. | 1,000 messages a day on the free plan. Pay as You Go is $1 per 100,000 messages with no daily cap; fixed plans run $180 a month for 1M a day and $420 for 10M. |
| Maximum message size | 128 KB per message, with roughly 100 bytes of that taken by internal metadata. Messages above 64 KB are billed as multiple operations. | 1 MB on the free plan, 10 MB on Pay as You Go and 50 MB on the fixed plans. |
| Message retention | 4 days by default on Workers Paid, configurable up to 14 days. Workers Free is fixed at 24 hours. | Dead letter queue retention of 3 days on the free plan, 7 days on Pay as You Go, 30 days and 3 months on the fixed plans. |
| Maximum delay | 24 hours, set with delaySeconds when sending or retrying. | 7 days on the free plan; 1 year on Pay as You Go and unlimited on the fixed plans. |
| Dead letter queue | Supported | Supported |
Where they differ.
Included per month
- Cloudflare Queues
- 1,000,000 operations a month on Workers Paid, then $0.40 per million. An operation is each 64 KB written, read or deleted, so a typical message costs three — Cloudflare's own formula is ((messages × 3) − 1,000,000) / 1,000,000 × $0.40. Workers Free allows 10,000 operations a day.
- Upstash QStash
- 1,000 messages a day on the free plan. Pay as You Go is $1 per 100,000 messages with no daily cap; fixed plans run $180 a month for 1M a day and $420 for 10M.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Cloudflare Queues docs ↗
“1,000,000 operations/month included + $0.40/million operations [...] An operation is counted for each 64 KB of data that is written, read, or deleted. [...] In most cases, it takes 3 operations to deliver a message [...] 10,000 operations/day included”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
- QStash Pricing — Upstash ↗
“Free $0 [...] Messages per Day 1,000 [...] Pay as You Go $1 per 100K messages [...] Messages per Day Unlimited [...] $180 / month [...] 1M [...] $420 [...] 10M”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Maximum message size
128 KB per message, with roughly 100 bytes of that taken by internal metadata. Messages above 64 KB are billed as multiple operations.
1 MB on the free plan, 10 MB on Pay as You Go and 50 MB on the fixed plans.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Limits — Cloudflare Queues docs ↗
“Message size | 128 KB [...] Messages can include up to ~100 bytes of internal metadata that counts towards total message limits.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
- QStash Pricing — Upstash ↗
“Max Message Size 1 MB 10 MB 50 MB 50 MB Custom”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Message retention
4 days by default on Workers Paid, configurable up to 14 days. Workers Free is fixed at 24 hours.
Dead letter queue retention of 3 days on the free plan, 7 days on Pay as You Go, 30 days and 3 months on the fixed plans.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Pricing — Cloudflare Queues docs ↗
“Message retention | 24 hours (non-configurable) | 4 days default, configurable up to 14 days”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
- QStash Pricing — Upstash ↗
“Max DLQ Retention 3 days 7 days 30 days 3 months Custom”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Maximum delay
24 hours, set with delaySeconds when sending or retrying.
7 days on the free plan; 1 year on Pay as You Go and unlimited on the fixed plans.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- Limits — Cloudflare Queues docs ↗
“delaySeconds (when sending or retrying) | 24 hours”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
- QStash Pricing — Upstash ↗
“Max Delay 7 days 1 year Unlimited Unlimited Custom”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Which should you choose?
Choose Cloudflare Queues if…
Workers applications that want a queue with no egress or throughput charges and a retention window measured in days rather than hours.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose Upstash QStash if…
HTTP-first workloads that want scheduling and delay measured in months rather than a day, without running a consumer process.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- Cloudflare Queues: Billing is per 64 KB operation rather than per message, so a large payload or a chatty retry loop costs several times what the message count suggests.
- Upstash QStash: The free plan is capped per day rather than per month, so a single burst can exhaust it while a monthly allowance elsewhere would absorb the same volume.
Documented by only one.
These criteria are published by one provider and not the other. An absence here means we have not found a source, not that the feature is missing.
Questions this comparison answers.
Should I choose Cloudflare Queues or Upstash QStash?
Pick Cloudflare Queues if Workers applications that want a queue with no egress or throughput charges and a retention window measured in days rather than hours.
Pick Upstash QStash if HTTP-first workloads that want scheduling and delay measured in months rather than a day, without running a consumer process.