Upstash Pricing 2026: Redis Free Tier and Pay-as-You-Go

Upstash sells serverless Redis billed by usage, with an option to switch to fixed monthly pricing as traffic grows. Most searches for its pricing ask one of two questions: what the free tier really includes, and when the meter becomes more expensive than a flat plan. This page answers both from the published rates. For Upstash against Momento and Redis Cloud, see Upstash vs Momento vs Redis Cloud.

1. Upstash Redis plans

Plan	Price	Max data	Bandwidth	Commands
Free	$0	250 MB[1]	10 GB/mo	500K/mo included
Pay as You Go	$0.20 per 100K commands[1]	100 GB	Free to 200 GB/mo, then $0.03/GB	Metered
Fixed 250MB	$10/mo[1]	250 MB	50 GB/mo	No per-command billing
Fixed 1GB	$20/mo[1]	1 GB	100 GB/mo	No per-command billing
Fixed 5GB	$100/mo[1]	5 GB	500 GB/mo	No per-command billing
Fixed 10GB to 500GB	$200 to $1,500/mo[1]	10 to 500 GB	1 to 20 TB/mo	No per-command billing
Enterprise	Custom	Custom	Unlimited	Custom

All of these plans cap throughput at 10,000 commands per second, rising to 16,000 on Fixed 100GB and 500GB, and fixed plans add a per-read-region price for global replication: $5 a month per region on Fixed 250MB, $10 on Fixed 1GB^[1].

2. The free tier, exactly

• One database with 250 MB of data and 10 GB of monthly bandwidth^[1].
• 500,000 commands a month^[2].
• No credit card. Adding one upgrades the database to Pay as You Go, and paid databases do not keep the free allowance^[2].
• A no-signup option: a POST request to upstash.com/start-redis returns a working database that is deleted after 3 days unless you claim it^[2].

500,000 commands is roughly 16,000 a day, enough for a hobby project, a rate limiter on a small API or a session store with a few hundred daily users.

3. Pay-as-you-go cost by command volume

Commands only, with storage inside the free first gigabyte and bandwidth under 200 GB, computed at $0.20 per 100,000 commands^[1]:

Commands per month	Pay as You Go	Cheapest fixed alternative
500,000	$1.00	Pay as You Go is cheaper
1,000,000	$2.00	Pay as You Go is cheaper
5,000,000	$10.00	Pay as You Go is cheaper
10,000,000	$20.00	Fixed 250MB, $10, if data fits in 250 MB
50,000,000	$100.00	Fixed 250MB, $10, if data fits in 250 MB
100,000,000	$200.00	Fixed 250MB, $10, if data fits in 250 MB

Storage adds $0.25 per GB per month beyond 1 GB, measured as the daily average across all replicas and regions^[2]. A 5 GB cache at 10 million commands would cost $21 on Pay as You Go, against $100 on Fixed 5GB, so for large datasets with moderate traffic the meter can still win.

4. Fixed plans and when they win

A fixed plan charges for data size, bandwidth and throughput, not commands^[2]. The break-even against pay-as-you-go is the plan price divided by $0.20 per 100,000 commands:

Fixed plan	Price	Break-even commands per month	Data / bandwidth cap
Fixed 250MB	$10/mo	5,000,000	250 MB / 50 GB
Fixed 1GB	$20/mo	10,000,000	1 GB / 100 GB
Fixed 5GB	$100/mo	50,000,000	5 GB / 500 GB
Fixed 10GB	$200/mo	100,000,000	10 GB / 1 TB
Fixed 50GB	$400/mo	200,000,000	50 GB / 5 TB
Fixed 100GB	$800/mo	400,000,000	100 GB / 10 TB
Fixed 500GB	$1,500/mo	750,000,000	500 GB / 20 TB

On a fixed plan, hitting the bandwidth or storage cap either upgrades the database to the next tier (if auto-upgrade is on) or rate limits it: bandwidth overruns block traffic and storage overruns block writes^[2].

5. Billing details that change the bill

• Global replication multiplies writes. Each write is replicated to every read region and each replication counts as a command; with one primary and one read region, 100,000 writes cost $0.40^[2].
• Operational commands are free. AUTH, PING, INFO, SELECT and similar commands are not charged^[2].
• Budget caps exist on Pay as You Go. Set a monthly maximum; Upstash emails at 70% and 90%, and past the cap the database is rate limited rather than billed further^[2].
• Use EXPIRE on cache keys. Storage is billed on the daily average data size, so letting cache entries expire keeps the storage line down^[2].

6. Which Upstash plan fits?

• Prototype or hobby app: Free, up to 500,000 commands a month.
• Spiky or unpredictable traffic under 5 million commands a month: Pay as You Go with a budget cap.
• Steady traffic above 5 million commands with a small dataset: Fixed 250MB at $10, or Fixed 1GB at $20 above 10 million.
• Large dataset, modest traffic: compare Pay as You Go storage at $0.25 per GB with the fixed tier that fits your data.

Add the cache line to your monthly stack with the AI stack cost calculator, and re-check upstash.com/pricing/redis before committing.

All pricing figures verified against upstash.com/pricing/redis on 2026-10-11.

Frequently asked questions

Is Upstash Redis free?

Yes. Upstash's free Redis plan includes one database with 250 MB of data, 500,000 commands a month and 10 GB of monthly bandwidth, with no credit card needed. Once you add a card the database moves to Pay as You Go, and paid plans do not keep the free 250 MB and 500,000 commands. Verified on upstash.com/pricing/redis on 2026-10-11.

How much does Upstash Redis cost after the free tier?

Pay as You Go costs $0.20 per 100,000 commands, plus $0.25 per GB of storage beyond the first free gigabyte; bandwidth is free up to 200 GB a month and then $0.03 per GB. Fixed plans replace per-command billing with a monthly price: $10 for 250 MB, $20 for 1 GB, $100 for 5 GB and up to $1,500 for 500 GB.

When is an Upstash fixed plan cheaper than pay as you go?

Fixed 250MB at $10 a month equals Pay as You Go at 5 million commands a month (5,000,000 / 100,000 × $0.20). Above that, the fixed plan is cheaper as long as your data fits in 250 MB and bandwidth stays under its 50 GB monthly cap. Fixed 1GB at $20 breaks even at 10 million commands.

Does Upstash charge for every Redis command?

No. Operational commands such as AUTH, HELLO, SELECT, COMMAND, CONFIG, INFO, PING, RESET and QUIT are not charged. Reads and writes cost the same, but on a global database each write is also replicated to every read region and each replication counts as a command.