ImageKit vs Uploadcare
SEPT 2026 auditA comparison of ImageKit and Uploadcare built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
Choose ImageKit if…
Costs you can predict per resource, at the cheapest paid entry here. Bandwidth, storage, video units and extension units are four separate meters with published rates, so a workload heavy on one is not charged against the others — and the bandwidth overage falls from $0.50 to $0.45 a GB as the plan grows.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Choose Uploadcare if…
Upload-heavy products where the work is done TO files rather than served from them. An operation is every upload, API request, transformation, video job and document conversion, so the meter follows the pipeline — and traffic and storage are billed on their own meters rather than drawn from it.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- ImageKit: You are running the free plan in production. Its limits are hard stops in ImageKit's own words: media delivery stops at 20 GB and new uploads stop at 3 GB. The failure is images not loading rather than a larger bill, and overage only becomes possible from Lite at $9 a month.
- Uploadcare: You serve a lot and process little. Three meters run at once and Pro is $66 a month for 5,000 operations, 25 GB of traffic and 10 GB of storage, with $1.60 per further thousand operations. The free plan is personal use only, and SOC 2 and HIPAA appear only on Enterprise.
7 sourced criteria separate them — see where, with sources, below.
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.
ImageKit 0
Uploadcare 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | ImageKit | Uploadcare |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Kind of free offer | Free tier | Free tier |
| What the free plan includes | 20 GB bandwidth, 3 GB of DAM storage, 500 video units and 650 extension units a month. Both of the first two are hard stops, not overages. | 1,000 operations, 5 GB of traffic and 1 GB of storage a month, with a 500 MB file ceiling — and marked personal use only, which is a licence restriction the other three do not place on their free plans. |
| Entry paid plan | $9 a month for Lite, plus pay-as-you-go on every meter above its allowance. | $66 a month for Pro, which includes 5,000 operations, 25 GB of traffic and 10 GB of storage. |
| Pricing model | Four separate meters rather than one. Bandwidth, DAM storage, video units and extension units each carry their own monthly allowance and their own overage rate, so a workload heavy on one is unaffected by the others. The video unit is itself two rates: one unit is a second of SD or half a second of HD. | Operations, plus traffic and storage on their own meters. An operation is any action taken on a file — uploading, an API request, an image transformation, video processing, document conversion — so the count tracks how much you do to the media rather than how much of it you serve. |
| Egress over allowance | $0.50 per GB above the 40 GB on Lite, and $0.45 per GB above the 225 GB on Pro — the rate falls as the plan rises. | $0.35 per GB of traffic above the 25 GB on Pro, and $0.25 above the 125 GB on Business. |
| When you exceed a cap | On the free plan there is no overage — media delivery stops when the bandwidth limit is hit and uploads stop at the storage limit. From Lite upward, overage is allowed on bandwidth and storage and billed per GB. | Every meter continues past its allowance at a published per-unit rate rather than stopping — operations, traffic and storage alike. |
| Limits | ||
| Included bandwidth | 40 GB a month on Lite, rising to 225 GB on Pro. ImageKit puts a figure on what that buys: roughly 2 million images, or 2,000 minutes of HD video. | 25 GB of traffic a month on Pro, and 125 GB on Business. |
| Storage | ||
| Storage price | $0.10 per GB above the 10 GB of DAM storage included with Lite. | $0.35 per GB above the 10 GB included on Pro, and $0.25 above the 50 GB on Business. |
Where they differ.
What the free plan includes
- ImageKit
- 20 GB bandwidth, 3 GB of DAM storage, 500 video units and 650 extension units a month. Both of the first two are hard stops, not overages.
- Uploadcare
- 1,000 operations, 5 GB of traffic and 1 GB of storage a month, with a 500 MB file ceiling — and marked personal use only, which is a licence restriction the other three do not place on their free plans.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- ImageKit Pricing ↗
“20 GB bandwidth monthly limit [...] 3 GB DAM storage fixed limit [...] 500 video units monthly limit”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Uploadcare Pricing ↗
“1,000 operations per month [...] 500 MB max file size uploading widget, api basic image transformations adaptive bitrate streaming delivery through a cdn signed uploads webhooks personal use only”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
Entry paid plan
- ImageKit
- $9 a month for Lite, plus pay-as-you-go on every meter above its allowance.
- Uploadcare
- $66 a month for Pro, which includes 5,000 operations, 25 GB of traffic and 10 GB of storage.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- ImageKit Pricing ↗
“lite $9 / mo + pay-as-you-go for websites and apps that require image optimization, transformation, and storage with no limits.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Uploadcare Pricing ↗
“pro $66 / mo for production apps and websites with the option to scale”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
Pricing model
- ImageKit
- Four separate meters rather than one. Bandwidth, DAM storage, video units and extension units each carry their own monthly allowance and their own overage rate, so a workload heavy on one is unaffected by the others. The video unit is itself two rates: one unit is a second of SD or half a second of HD.
- Uploadcare
- Operations, plus traffic and storage on their own meters. An operation is any action taken on a file — uploading, an API request, an image transformation, video processing, document conversion — so the count tracks how much you do to the media rather than how much of it you serve.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- ImageKit Pricing ↗
“500 video units monthly limit required for only new video processing. this can process 500 seconds of SD video or 250 seconds of HD video every month.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Uploadcare Pricing ↗
“operations total number of actions performed with your files through uploadcare apis, including everything from file uploading, image optimization, and transformations to video processing, document conversion, and more.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
Egress over allowance
- ImageKit
- $0.50 per GB above the 40 GB on Lite, and $0.45 per GB above the 225 GB on Pro — the rate falls as the plan rises.
- Uploadcare
- $0.35 per GB of traffic above the 25 GB on Pro, and $0.25 above the 125 GB on Business.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- ImageKit Pricing ↗
“40 GB bandwidth $0.5/gb after that [...] 225 GB bandwidth $0.45/gb after that”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Uploadcare Pricing ↗
“traffic deliver your media anywhere as if it was cached next door. 5 gb / mo 25 gb / mo included then $ 0.35 per gb”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
When you exceed a cap
- ImageKit
- On the free plan there is no overage — media delivery stops when the bandwidth limit is hit and uploads stop at the storage limit. From Lite upward, overage is allowed on bandwidth and storage and billed per GB.
- Uploadcare
- Every meter continues past its allowance at a published per-unit rate rather than stopping — operations, traffic and storage alike.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- ImageKit Pricing ↗
“media delivery stops when you hit this limit. [...] new file uploads stop when you hit this limit. [...] everything in forever free, plus: overage allowed for bandwidth and storage”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Uploadcare Pricing ↗
“5,000 / mo included then $ 1.6 per 1000 [...] 25 gb / mo included then $ 0.35 per gb [...] 10 gb included then $ 0.35 per gb”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
Included bandwidth
- ImageKit
- 40 GB a month on Lite, rising to 225 GB on Pro. ImageKit puts a figure on what that buys: roughly 2 million images, or 2,000 minutes of HD video.
- Uploadcare
- 25 GB of traffic a month on Pro, and 125 GB on Business.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- ImageKit Pricing ↗
“40 GB bandwidth $0.5/gb after that this base inclusion is sufficient for delivering approximately 2 million images per month, or streaming 2000 minutes of HD video per month”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Uploadcare Pricing ↗
“5 gb / mo 25 gb / mo included then $ 0.35 per gb 125 gb / mo included then $ 0.25 per gb”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
Storage price
- ImageKit
- $0.10 per GB above the 10 GB of DAM storage included with Lite.
- Uploadcare
- $0.35 per GB above the 10 GB included on Pro, and $0.25 above the 50 GB on Business.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- ImageKit Pricing ↗
“10 GB DAM storage $0.1/gb after that this base inclusion should be sufficient for storing approximately 30000 files. excess storage beyond the base inclusion is charged at $0.1 per gb.”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
- Uploadcare Pricing ↗
“storage fast and secure integrated storage that just works. 1 gb 10 gb included then $ 0.35 per gb 50 gb included then $ 0.25 per gb”
Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
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.
Entry paid plan: ImageKit or Uploadcare?
ImageKit: $9 a month for Lite, plus pay-as-you-go on every meter above its allowance.
Uploadcare: $66 a month for Pro, which includes 5,000 operations, 25 GB of traffic and 10 GB of storage.
Egress over allowance: ImageKit or Uploadcare?
ImageKit: $0.50 per GB above the 40 GB on Lite, and $0.45 per GB above the 225 GB on Pro — the rate falls as the plan rises.
Uploadcare: $0.35 per GB of traffic above the 25 GB on Pro, and $0.25 above the 125 GB on Business.
When you exceed a cap: ImageKit or Uploadcare?
ImageKit: On the free plan there is no overage — media delivery stops when the bandwidth limit is hit and uploads stop at the storage limit. From Lite upward, overage is allowed on bandwidth and storage and billed per GB.
Uploadcare: Every meter continues past its allowance at a published per-unit rate rather than stopping — operations, traffic and storage alike.
Should I choose ImageKit or Uploadcare?
Pick ImageKit if Costs you can predict per resource, at the cheapest paid entry here. Bandwidth, storage, video units and extension units are four separate meters with published rates, so a workload heavy on one is not charged against the others — and the bandwidth overage falls from $0.50 to $0.45 a GB as the plan grows.
Pick Uploadcare if Upload-heavy products where the work is done TO files rather than served from them. An operation is every upload, API request, transformation, video job and document conversion, so the meter follows the pipeline — and traffic and storage are billed on their own meters rather than drawn from it.