Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Inngest

SEPT 2026 audit

A comparison of Google Cloud Pub/Sub and Inngest built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.

Updated September 202617 criteria comparedSources last checked 8 September 2026

The short answer

Choose Google Cloud Pub/Sub if…

Google Cloud systems that want messaging without capacity planning — throughput is metered rather than provisioned, and 10 GiB a month costs nothing.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Choose Inngest if…

Multi-step workflows that need durable execution and retries between steps, rather than a bare queue you write a consumer for.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Consider something else if…

Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Throughput counts bytes both in and out, so a message read once is billed twice, and retention is a storage charge rather than an included window — the headline $40 per TiB is not the whole bill.
Inngest: Every step is a billable execution, so a three-step workflow costs three times what the run count implies, and the free plan allows five concurrent steps.

6 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.

Visit Google Cloud Pub/Sub documentation Visit Inngest documentation

No affiliate links, sponsored placements or paid rankings appear on this site. Ordering follows the sourced data and the stated criteria.

01.

At a glance.

Criterion	Google Cloud Pub/Sub	Inngest
Pricing
Free tier	Yes	Yes
Pricing model	Three meters: throughput at $40 per TiB counting both publish and subscribe, storage at $0.27 per GiB-month for anything retained beyond a day, and data transfer when throughput crosses a zone or region boundary. Pub/Sub Lite is a separate product priced on reserved capacity rather than usage.	Per execution, where a step counts the same as a run, plus separate meters for events ingested, span data, scores and realtime connections. The pricing page ships a calculator because the execution count is not the run count.
Queues
Included per month	10 GiB of throughput free per billing account per calendar month, then $40 per TiB. Throughput counts bytes written to a topic plus bytes read from a subscription, so a message published once and read once is billed twice. BigQuery and Cloud Storage subscriptions are $50 per TiB and the 10 GiB does not apply to them; import topics run $50 or $80 per TiB by source.	50,000 executions a month on the free Hobby plan and 1,000,000 on Pro, pay-as-you-go to 20M. An execution is one function run or one step, so a run with two steps counts as three.
Maximum message size	Pub/Sub bills on bytes rather than message count; the pricing page states no per-message size ceiling and prices throughput and storage instead.	4 MiB per step-returned payload; 32 MiB total function run state; 10 MiB hard cap per event batch.
Message retention	Retention is configurable and charged rather than granted: $0.27 per GiB-month for messages a topic is configured to retain, for snapshots, and for a subscription's backlog older than one day. A subscription's default retention is 7 days.	Queue depth rather than a time window: 100,000 queued items on the free plan and 1,000,000 or more on Pro. Trace retention is 7 days on Pro and 90 on Enterprise.
Compliance
SOC 2	Covered under Google Cloud's core SOC 2 Type II reports, issued quarterly for Google Cloud and Google Workspace products generally.	SOC 2 Type II compliant; report available on request via the trust center.
HIPAA	Pub/Sub is listed as a Covered Product under Google Cloud's HIPAA Business Associate Agreement.	HIPAA BAAs offered as an add-on for healthcare compliance (Enterprise column of the pricing table).

Only criteria both providers publish appear here; a tinted cell marks a real difference. Criteria only one of them documents are listed below, and an absence there means we found no source — not that the feature is missing. How we source this.

The small bar above a value is inetGeek's own lean toward that side — computed from the same facts shown, never a number the provider published. See the picker below "The short answer" to weigh only the criteria you care about.

02.

Where they differ.

Pricing model

Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Three meters: throughput at $40 per TiB counting both publish and subscribe, storage at $0.27 per GiB-month for anything retained beyond a day, and data transfer when throughput crosses a zone or region boundary. Pub/Sub Lite is a separate product priced on reserved capacity rather than usage.
Inngest: Per execution, where a step counts the same as a run, plus separate meters for events ingested, span data, scores and realtime connections. The pricing page ships a calculator because the execution count is not the run count.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Google Cloud Pub/Sub ↗
“Throughput costs for message publishing and delivery [...] Data transfer costs associated with throughput that crosses a Google Cloud zone or region boundary [...] Storage costs associated with retaining messages [...] Pub/Sub Lite throughput and storage charges, by contrast, are based on reserved capacity.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Pricing — Inngest ↗
“TOTAL EXECUTIONS PER MONTH (30,000 runs × 2 steps per run) + 30,000 runs = 90,000 executions [...] 500 MB span data ingested [...] 10K scores [...] 500k events ingested [...] 50 realtime connections”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing

Included per month

Google Cloud Pub/Sub: 10 GiB of throughput free per billing account per calendar month, then $40 per TiB. Throughput counts bytes written to a topic plus bytes read from a subscription, so a message published once and read once is billed twice. BigQuery and Cloud Storage subscriptions are $50 per TiB and the 10 GiB does not apply to them; import topics run $50 or $80 per TiB by source.
Inngest: 50,000 executions a month on the free Hobby plan and 1,000,000 on Pro, pay-as-you-go to 20M. An execution is one function run or one step, so a run with two steps counts as three.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Google Cloud Pub/Sub ↗
“the first 10 GiB of throughput [...] is free. After that, the price is $40 per TiB in all Google Cloud regions. [...] BigQuery subscriptions cost $50 per TiB [...] Import topics (for Cloud Storage, Azure Event Hubs, AWS MSK, or Confluent Cloud) cost $80 per TiB”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Pricing — Inngest ↗
“50k executions [...] 1M executions included Pay as you go up to 20M [...] (30,000 runs × 2 steps per run) + 30,000 runs = 90,000 executions [...] A single durable function run or step execution”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing

Maximum message size

Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Pub/Sub bills on bytes rather than message count; the pricing page states no per-message size ceiling and prices throughput and storage instead.
Inngest: 4 MiB per step-returned payload; 32 MiB total function run state; 10 MiB hard cap per event batch.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Google Cloud Pub/Sub ↗
“Throughput is the total number of bytes written (publish throughput) to a Pub/Sub topic or read (subscribe throughput) from a subscription to a topic over an interval of time.”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
Inngest usage limits - Inngest Documentation ↗
“Step-returned payload size 4MiB Applies to data returned by a step. Function run state size 32MiB Includes event data, step data, function return data, and internal metadata.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official docs

Message retention

Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Retention is configurable and charged rather than granted: $0.27 per GiB-month for messages a topic is configured to retain, for snapshots, and for a subscription's backlog older than one day. A subscription's default retention is 7 days.
Inngest: Queue depth rather than a time window: 100,000 queued items on the free plan and 1,000,000 or more on Pro. Trace retention is 7 days on Pro and 90 on Enterprise.

Sources (2) →

Pricing — Google Cloud Pub/Sub ↗
“Storage costs of $0.27 per GiB-month are charged for the following: A topic is configured to retain messages [...] an attached subscription with message retention duration set to the default of 7 days”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Pricing — Inngest ↗
“100k queue depth [...] 1M+ queue depth [...] Granular tracing, metrics, alerts + 7 day trace retention [...] Advanced tracing, metrics, alerts + 90 day trace retention”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing

SOC 2

Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Covered under Google Cloud's core SOC 2 Type II reports, issued quarterly for Google Cloud and Google Workspace products generally.
Inngest: SOC 2 Type II compliant; report available on request via the trust center.

Sources (2) →

SOC 2: compliance — Google Cloud ↗
“Google Cloud regularly undergoes third-party audits for our products, systems, and infrastructure related to this standard. [...] The core Google Cloud and Google Workspace SOC 2 Type II reports are issued quarterly.”
Read 2026-09-12 · official site
Security | Inngest ↗
“Inngest is SOC 2 Type II compliant. [...] Read our announcement , request a copy of the report or contact us for additional questions.”
Read 2026-09-13 · official site

HIPAA

Google Cloud Pub/Sub: Pub/Sub is listed as a Covered Product under Google Cloud's HIPAA Business Associate Agreement.
Inngest: HIPAA BAAs offered as an add-on for healthcare compliance (Enterprise column of the pricing table).

Sources (2) →

HIPAA Compliance on Google Cloud ↗
“Covered Products [...] The Google Cloud BAA covers Google Cloud's entire infrastructure [...] and the following products: [...] Pub/Sub [...]”
Read 2026-09-12 · official site
Pricing | Inngest ↗
“Dedicated slack channel Direct P0 support from our team HIPAA BAAs for healthcare compliance Add-on”
Read 2026-09-13 · official pricing

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03.

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.

Entry paid planInngest: $99/month for Pro, described as a starting price with usage above the included allowance billed on top.

RegionsInngest: All customer data hosted on AWS databases located in the United States; no other region offered on the security page.

Ingest price per GBGoogle Cloud Pub/Sub: $40 per TiB, which is $0.039 per GiB, for standard publish and subscribe throughput in every Google Cloud region.

Maximum delayInngest: Step sleeps up to 1 year on paid plans; the free plan supports sleeps up to 7 days.

ConcurrencyInngest: 5 concurrent steps on the free plan, 100 or more on Pro, custom on Enterprise.

ISO 27001Google Cloud Pub/Sub: The Google Cloud Services ISMS holds an accredited ISO/IEC 27001 certification, audited by an independent third party.

PCI DSSGoogle Cloud Pub/Sub: Pub/Sub is listed among the individual Google Cloud products certified against PCI DSS via annual third-party audit.

Encryption at restInngest: All data in Inngest databases is encrypted at rest and in transit; optional encryption middleware lets you bring your own key.

Customer-managed keysInngest: Bring-your-own-key via SDK encryption middleware that encrypts payloads client-side before they reach Inngest; not a server-side KMS option.

Role-based access controlInngest: SAML, RBAC and audit trails listed as Enterprise plan features.

04.

Questions this comparison answers.

Should I choose Google Cloud Pub/Sub or Inngest?

Pick Google Cloud Pub/Sub if Google Cloud systems that want messaging without capacity planning — throughput is metered rather than provisioned, and 10 GiB a month costs nothing.

Pick Inngest if Multi-step workflows that need durable execution and retries between steps, rather than a bare queue you write a consumer for.

Provider pages

Google Cloud Pub/SubGoogle Cloud's messaging service, billed per TiB of throughput with message storage charged separately by the GiB-month.InngestDurable execution platform where the billable unit is a function or step execution rather than a queued message.

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