Upstash QStash vs Amazon SQS
A comparison of Upstash QStash and Amazon SQS built from values read directly from each provider's own documentation, with the source recorded against every figure.
The short answer
- Pick Upstash QStash if
- HTTP-first workloads that want scheduling and delay measured in months rather than a day, without running a consumer process.
- 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.
3 sourced criteria separate them:
- Pricing model
- Upstash QStash: Per message rather than per operation, metered against a daily ceiling on the free plan and priced at $1 per 100,000 on Pay as You Go, with monthly bandwidth caps alongside — 50 GB on the smaller plans, 1 TB and 5 TB above.
- 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.
- Included per month
- 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.
- 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.
- Maximum message size
- Upstash QStash: 1 MB on the free plan, 10 MB on Pay as You Go and 50 MB on the fixed plans.
- 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.
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.
Upstash QStash 0
Amazon SQS 0
At a glance.
| Criterion | Upstash QStash | Amazon SQS |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing model | Per message rather than per operation, metered against a daily ceiling on the free plan and priced at $1 per 100,000 on Pay as You Go, with monthly bandwidth caps alongside — 50 GB on the smaller plans, 1 TB and 5 TB above. | 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. |
| Queues | ||
| Included per month | 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. | 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. |
| Maximum message size | 1 MB on the free plan, 10 MB on Pay as You Go and 50 MB on the fixed plans. | 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. |
| Dead letter queue | Supported | Supported |
Where they differ.
Pricing model
- Upstash QStash
- Per message rather than per operation, metered against a daily ceiling on the free plan and priced at $1 per 100,000 on Pay as You Go, with monthly bandwidth caps alongside — 50 GB on the smaller plans, 1 TB and 5 TB above.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- QStash Pricing — Upstash ↗
“$1 per 100K messages [...] Max Messages per Day 1,000 Unlimited 1 M 10 M 100M+ [...] Max Monthly Bandwidth 50 GB 50 GB 1 TB 5 TB Unlimited”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- AWS Price List API — AWSQueueService, us-east-1 ↗
“"$0.50 per million Amazon SQS FIFO requests in Tier1 in US East" [...] "$0.40 per million Amazon SQS standard requests in Tier1" [...] "$0.10 per million Amazon SQS fair queue requests in US East"”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Included per month
- 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.
- 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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- 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
- AWS Price List API — AWSQueueService, us-east-1 ↗
“"First 1,000,000 Amazon SQS Requests per month are free" [...] "$0.40 per million Amazon SQS standard requests in Tier1 in US East" [...] "$0.30 per million ... Tier2" [...] "$0.24 per million ... Tier3"”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
Maximum message size
1 MB on the free plan, 10 MB on Pay as You Go and 50 MB on the fixed plans.
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.
Sources (2) →Sources ↓
- QStash Pricing — Upstash ↗
“Max Message Size 1 MB 10 MB 50 MB 50 MB Custom”
Read 2026-09-06 · official pricing
- Amazon SQS Pricing — AWS ↗
“A single request can have from 1 to 10 messages, up to a maximum total payload of 1 MiB. [...] Each 64 KB chunk of a payload is billed as 1 request (for example, an API action with a 1 MiB payload is billed as 16 requests).”
Read 2026-09-06 · official docs
When these numbers change, hear about it. Sources are re-checked monthly; a repricing goes out as a short note.
Which should you choose?
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
Choose 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.
Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved
Consider something else if…
- 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.
- 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.
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 Upstash QStash or Amazon SQS?
Pick Upstash QStash if HTTP-first workloads that want scheduling and delay measured in months rather than a day, without running a consumer process.
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.