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Ably

iScore68–86 · #1/4
ably.com · Realtime and websockets
SEPT 2026 audit

Realtime messaging metered on three axes at once — messages, channel-minutes and connection-minutes — on top of a package fee.

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Entry paid plan$29 a month for Standard, and the "+ usage" matters: the package fee buys capacity ceilings and every message, channel-minute and connection-minute is billed on top of it.
Free tierYes
CategoryRealtime and websockets

Updated 7 criteria comparedSources last checked

01.Evaluation guide

Who it suits

Workloads where the ceiling has to move without a plan change: 50,000 concurrent connections at $399, three meters that scale with what you actually send, and volume rates falling to $0.50 per million messages.

Consider something else if…

You need to know the bill in advance. Three meters run at once — messages, channel-minutes and connection-minutes — and an idle connection still accrues connection-minutes, so time connected costs money whether or not anything is sent.

Editorial · Palash Bagchi · approved

Each value below links to the page it was read from, with the sentence it came from. Criteria Ably does not publish are not listed.

Pricing
5 criteria
Free tierYes
Sources (1) →
  • Ably Pricing ↗

    “Free Build a proof of concept. $0 Start for free”

    Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing

Kind of free offerFree tier
Sources (1) →
  • Ably Pricing ↗

    “Free Build a proof of concept. $0 Start for free Capacity”

    Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing

What the free plan includes200 concurrent connections, 500 messages a second and 6 million messages a month, with community and best-effort email support. No commitment, and no time limit stated.
Sources (1) →
  • Ably Pricing ↗

    “200 concurrent connections 500 messages / second 6M messages / month”

    Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing

Entry paid plan$29 a month for Standard, and the "+ usage" matters: the package fee buys capacity ceilings and every message, channel-minute and connection-minute is billed on top of it.
Sources (1) →
  • Ably Pricing ↗

    “Standard Roll-out into production. $29 / month + usage”

    Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing

Pricing modelThree meters at once on top of a package fee: $2.50 per million messages, $1.00 per million channel-minutes and $1.00 per million connection-minutes, each falling to $0.50 or $0.20 with volume. A per-MAU model is offered as an alternative. A connection that sits idle still accrues connection-minutes, so time connected is billable whether or not anything is sent.
Sources (1) →
  • Ably Pricing ↗

    “Messages $2.50 / million As low as $0.50/M with volume discount Channels $1.00 / million mins”

    Read 2026-09-15 · official pricing

Observability
1 criteria
Events included6 million messages a month on the free package, with a 500-per-second rate ceiling alongside it. Paid packages raise the rate ceiling — 2,500 a second on Standard, 10,000 on Pro — and bill message volume as usage rather than including it.
Sources (1) →
Queues
1 criteria
Concurrency200 concurrent connections on Free, 10,000 on Standard at $29 and 50,000 on Pro at $399, alongside matching concurrent-channel ceilings of 10,000 and 50,000.
Sources (1) →
  • Ably Pricing ↗

    “10k concurrent channels 10k concurrent connections 2.5k messages / second”

    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.

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