# Pusher Channels

Canonical: https://inetgeek.com/realtime/pusher/

Hosted websockets sold as fixed plan tiers with pre-built ceilings rather than a usage meter.

## Who it suits

A bill that cannot surprise you. Fixed tiers with pre-built ceilings and no usage metering at all, so $49 buys a million messages a day and 500 connections and that is the whole invoice.

Consider something else if Traffic is spiky. The ceilings are daily rather than monthly, so one busy day can hit a limit a monthly allowance would have absorbed — and exceeding a plan rate-limits you rather than billing you.

## iScore

68 / 100 (80% interval 59–77), rank 4 of 4 in realtime.

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.
Method: https://inetgeek.com/iscore/. Full output with every criterion's basis: https://inetgeek.com/scores.json. Every realtime peer ranked: https://inetgeek.com/realtime/pusher/alternatives/

- Price: 80 (74–87), weight 45%, 3 of 4 criteria scored; scored for peers, not here — undocumented or stated without a number or a yes/limited/no: free_card_required
- Capacity and limits: 37 (14–60), weight 36%, 1 of 1 criteria scored
- Evidence: 100 (100–100), weight 18%, 4 of 4 criteria scored

## What the documentation says

### Pricing

- Free tier: Yes ([source](https://pusher.com/channels/pricing/), read 2026-09-15)
- Kind of free offer: Free tier ([source](https://pusher.com/channels/pricing/), read 2026-09-15)
- What the free plan includes: 200,000 messages a day and 100 concurrent connections on the Sandbox plan, with standard support. A daily message ceiling rather than a monthly one, which is the harder limit to plan around. ([source](https://pusher.com/channels/pricing/), read 2026-09-15)
- Entry paid plan: $49 a month for Startup, which buys 1 million messages a day and 500 concurrent connections. Nothing is metered on top — the plan is the ceiling and the whole bill. ([source](https://pusher.com/channels/pricing/), read 2026-09-15)
- Pricing model: Fixed plan tiers with pre-built ceilings and no usage metering at all — $49, $99, $299, $499, $699, $899 and $1,199 a month, each raising the daily message count and the concurrent connection count together. The page sells this as spending control, and the trade is explicit: you are rate-limited rather than invoiced when you exceed a plan. ([source](https://pusher.com/channels/pricing/), read 2026-09-15)

### Observability

- Events included: 200,000 messages a day free, rising to 1 million at $49, 4 million at $99, 10 million at $299 and 20 million at $499. Counted per day rather than per month, so a single busy day can hit a ceiling a monthly figure would have absorbed. ([source](https://pusher.com/channels/pricing/), read 2026-09-15)

### Queues

- Concurrency: 100 concurrent connections free, 500 at $49, 2,000 at $99, 5,000 at $299 and 10,000 at $499. The ceiling moves only when the plan does. ([source](https://pusher.com/channels/pricing/), read 2026-09-15)

### Support

- Support on entry paid plan: Standard support up to the $99 Pro plan and Premium support from $299 Business upward. Support level is a plan attribute here rather than an add-on. ([source](https://pusher.com/channels/pricing/), read 2026-09-15)

## Compared with

- [Pusher Channels vs Ably](https://inetgeek.com/compare/ably-vs-pusher/)
- [Pusher Channels vs PubNub](https://inetgeek.com/compare/pusher-vs-pubnub/)
- [Pusher Channels vs Liveblocks](https://inetgeek.com/compare/pusher-vs-liveblocks/)