# Google Cloud Pub/Sub

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/queues/google-pubsub/

Google Cloud's messaging service, billed per TiB of throughput with message storage charged separately by the GiB-month.

## Who it suits

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

Consider something else if 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.

## iScore

71 / 100 (80% interval 63–79), rank 3 of 10 in queues — interval overlaps the next rank, so this is an ordering, not a finding.

inetGeek's own reading, computed from sourced facts against category peers by disclosed rules. Not a provider claim. Intervals are 80%; a provider with few documented facts is pulled toward the category middle rather than scored on what little is known.
Read this score with care:
- Capacity and limits is thin: 1 of 5 criteria are scored, so it sits near the category middle with a wide interval (46–59). Read the interval, not the point.
- Capabilities is thin: 0 of 1 criteria are scored, so it sits near the category middle with a wide interval (4–100). Read the interval, not the point.
- Adoption is thin: 0 of 1 criteria are scored, so it sits near the category middle with a wide interval (10–90). Read the interval, not the point.
- Documented but not scored, because the page states it as text with no comparable number or a yes/limited/no (a one-time, usage-based or other-vendor price, or a per-site choice): max_message_size. Read them on the provider page; the score neither rewards nor penalises what it could not compare.

Method: https://inetgeek.com/iscore/. Full output with every criterion's basis: https://inetgeek.com/scores.json. Every queues peer ranked: https://inetgeek.com/queues/google-pubsub/alternatives/

- Price: 86 (64–100), weight 31%, 2 of 4 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: free_card_required, minimum_paid_price
- Capacity and limits: 53 (46–59), weight 25%, 1 of 5 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: concurrency_limit, max_delay, max_message_size, regions
- Capabilities: 58 (4–100), weight 6%, 0 of 1 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: dead_letter_queue
- Trust and compliance: 81 (67–96), weight 18%, 6 of 12 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: customer_managed_keys, dedicated_infrastructure, encryption_at_rest, private_networking, rbac, support_included
- Evidence: 78 (78–78), weight 10%, 4 of 4 criteria scored
- Adoption: 50 (10–90), weight 10%, 0 of 1 criteria scored

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: Yes ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/pricing), read 2026-09-06)
- Kind of free offer: Free tier ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/pricing), read 2026-09-06)
- What the free plan includes: The first 10 GiB of Message Delivery Basic throughput per billing account each calendar month. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/pricing), read 2026-09-13)
- 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. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/pricing), read 2026-09-06)

### Infrastructure

- Uptime SLA: 99.95% or better for Pub/Sub. Pub/Sub Lite is 99.95% for regional topics and 99.5% for zonal topics. Published as an SLO. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/sla), read 2026-09-14)

### Observability

- Ingest price per GB: $40 per TiB, which is $0.039 per GiB, for standard publish and subscribe throughput in every Google Cloud region. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/pricing), read 2026-09-06)

### 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. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/pricing), read 2026-09-06)
- 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. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/pricing), read 2026-09-06)
- 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. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/pubsub/pricing), read 2026-09-06)

### Compliance

- SOC 2: Covered under Google Cloud's core SOC 2 Type II reports, issued quarterly for Google Cloud and Google Workspace products generally. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/soc-2), read 2026-09-12)
- ISO 27001: The Google Cloud Services ISMS holds an accredited ISO/IEC 27001 certification, audited by an independent third party. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/iso-27001), read 2026-09-12)
- HIPAA: Pub/Sub is listed as a Covered Product under Google Cloud's HIPAA Business Associate Agreement. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/hipaa), read 2026-09-12)
- PCI DSS: Pub/Sub is listed among the individual Google Cloud products certified against PCI DSS via annual third-party audit. ([source](https://cloud.google.com/security/compliance/pci-dss), read 2026-09-12)

## Compared with

- [Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Amazon SQS](https://inetgeek.com/compare/amazon-sqs-vs-google-pubsub/)
- [Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Cloudflare Queues](https://inetgeek.com/compare/cloudflare-queues-vs-google-pubsub/)
- [Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Upstash QStash](https://inetgeek.com/compare/google-pubsub-vs-qstash/)
- [Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Azure Queue Storage](https://inetgeek.com/compare/azure-queue-storage-vs-google-pubsub/)
- [Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Hatchet](https://inetgeek.com/compare/google-pubsub-vs-hatchet/)
- [Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Inngest](https://inetgeek.com/compare/google-pubsub-vs-inngest/)
- [Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Temporal](https://inetgeek.com/compare/google-pubsub-vs-temporal/)
- [Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Trigger.dev](https://inetgeek.com/compare/google-pubsub-vs-trigger-dev/)
- [Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs Zeplo](https://inetgeek.com/compare/google-pubsub-vs-zeplo/)