Upstash vs Momento vs Redis Cloud Pricing 2026

The most-linked head-to-head on serverless Redis pricing is Upstash's own blog, which is useful but sells one of the three products under comparison. This is a neutral, sourced version: what Upstash, Momento and Redis Cloud actually charge, where the per-request model beats a fixed plan, and where it stops. Every number traces to a vendor page fetched on 2026-10-11. For Upstash on its own, see the Upstash pricing 2026 breakdown.

1. How do Upstash, Momento and Redis Cloud bill in 2026?

Service	Primary model	Headline unit price	Fixed option
Upstash Redis	Per-request meter	$0.20 per 100K commands; storage $0.25/GB after 1 GB free; bandwidth free to 200 GB, then $0.03/GB[1]	Fixed plans from $10/mo (250 MB) to $1,500/mo (500 GB), no per-command billing[1]
Momento	Managed capacity	Cache Flex from $13 per GB-month; Cache Cluster from $0.0105 per instance-hour[3]	Capacity is the model[3]
Redis Cloud	Fixed hourly capacity	Essentials from $0.007/hour ($5/month); Pro from $0.014/hour ($200/month minimum)[5]	Fixed is the model: pick dataset size, pay a flat hourly rate[5]

The structural split matters more than the sticker prices. Upstash charges per command, so a quiet cache costs almost nothing and a busy one scales linearly; operational commands such as AUTH, PING and INFO are not charged^[2]. Redis Cloud and Momento charge for provisioned capacity, so the bill is flat within a plan's limits regardless of request count^[3][5]. Upstash is the one service that lets you switch models: start on the meter, move to a fixed plan when volume justifies it^[1].

2. Which service has the best free tier?

• Upstash: 250 MB of data, 500,000 commands a month and 10 GB of monthly bandwidth on one free database^[1]. The most generous of the three by command count.
• Redis Cloud: a free database of up to 30 MB on shared infrastructure with a best-effort SLA and community support^[5]. Smaller in memory, but always on with no monthly command cap.
• Momento: the current pricing page lists no free tier for Cache Flex or Cache Cluster; its free Basic Support plan is a support level, not a usage allowance^[3].

For a hobby project or a prototype, Upstash's 500,000 free commands go the furthest. Upstash also creates a free database with no signup via a POST request, deleted after three days unless claimed, which is handy for agent and CI workflows^[1]. For an always-on tiny cache, Redis Cloud's 30 MB free database is the steadier choice.

3. Where does per-request pricing stop being cheaper?

The break-even is arithmetic, derived only from published unit prices. Upstash Pay as you go is $0.20 per 100,000 commands, so monthly cost equals commands divided by 100,000, times $0.20^[1]. Compare that against two fixed reference points: Redis Cloud Essentials at a published $5 a month^[5], and Upstash's own Fixed 250 MB plan at $10 a month^[1].

Monthly commands	Upstash Pay as you go[1]	Redis Cloud Essentials[5]	Upstash Fixed 250 MB[1]
500,000	$1.00 (free on the free plan)	$5	$10
1,000,000	$2.00	$5	$10
2,500,000	$5.00 (ties Essentials)	$5	$10
5,000,000	$10.00 (ties Fixed 250 MB)	$5	$10
10,000,000	$20.00	$5	$10

Setting commands divided by 100,000, times $0.20, equal to $5 gives 2.5 million commands a month, the point where Redis Cloud Essentials starts undercutting the meter. Setting it equal to $10 gives 5 million commands, where Upstash's own Fixed 250 MB plan takes over^[1][5]. Below those thresholds the meter is cheaper; above them the fixed price is, provided your working set fits the plan's memory and throughput limits.

Two caveats. Storage and bandwidth ride on top of the command meter: Upstash adds $0.25 per GB beyond the first free gigabyte and $0.03 per GB of bandwidth past 200 GB, while its fixed plans bundle both up to a bandwidth cap (50 GB a month on Fixed 250 MB)^[1]. And Upstash lets you set a monthly budget on Pay as you go; past it, the database is rate limited rather than billed further^[2]. Fold the cache line into the AI stack cost calculator alongside the rest of your infrastructure.

4. Why Momento is the hardest of the three to price

Momento has changed its pricing model twice in two years. Its pricing page now leads with Momento Cache Flex, fully managed Valkey billed from $13 per GB-month, which is $0.018 per GiB-hour on the Standard tier and $0.027 on the Performance tier, plus Momento Cache Cluster from $0.0105 per instance-hour^[3]. It also sells a self-hosted Valkey stack: $1.50 per GB-month for the Enterprise Image, $3.50 per GB-month for the Operator and $0.01 per GB of router data transfer^[3].

The original serverless Momento Cache still has documentation, now filed under Other, but its per-GB data-transfer rate is no longer published on the pricing page^[3][4]. At $13 per GB-month, 1 GB of Cache Flex capacity costs less than Upstash's Fixed 1 GB plan at $20 a month, but Momento lists no free tier, so its capacity pricing suits mid-sized caches more than tiny side projects^[1][3].

5. Which should you pick?

• Low or spiky traffic, or a scale-to-zero cache: Upstash Pay as you go. Under 2.5 million commands a month it is the cheapest, and the free tier covers 500,000 commands^[1].
• Steady, higher-volume traffic: a fixed plan. Redis Cloud Essentials at $5 a month, or Upstash Fixed 250 MB at $10 a month, stops the bill scaling with request count^[1][5].
• One vendor that grows with you: Upstash, the only one here that lets you start on the meter and move to a fixed plan without switching providers^[1].
• Multi-region and a higher SLA: Redis Cloud Pro from $200 a month, with active-active replication^[5].
• Managed Valkey at multi-gigabyte scale: Momento Cache Flex, priced per GB-month of capacity^[3].

Re-verify each pricing page before you commit. For the compute layer under your cache, see Railway vs Render vs Fly pricing; to fold the cache line into a monthly figure, use the AI stack cost calculator.

All pricing figures verified against official pricing pages and vendor documentation on 2026-10-11.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Upstash Redis free tier in 2026?

Upstash's free Redis plan includes 250 MB of data, 500,000 commands a month and 10 GB of monthly bandwidth on one database, verified on upstash.com/pricing/redis on 2026-10-11. Once you add a card, the database moves to Pay as you go at $0.20 per 100,000 commands, $0.25 per GB of storage after the first 1 GB, and free bandwidth up to 200 GB a month. Paid databases do not keep the free 250 MB and 500K commands.

Which is cheapest: Upstash, Momento or Redis Cloud?

It depends on volume. For low or spiky traffic, Upstash's meter wins: a cache doing 1 million commands a month costs $2 before storage, and the free tier covers 500,000 commands. For steady, higher traffic a fixed plan wins: Redis Cloud Essentials starts at $5 a month and stays flat within its memory and throughput limits. Momento now bills managed capacity per GB-month, from $13 per GB-month for Cache Flex, which suits larger enterprise caches more than small projects.

At what traffic does a fixed Redis plan beat per-request pricing?

Set Upstash's Pay as you go formula, commands divided by 100,000 times $0.20, equal to the fixed price. Against Redis Cloud Essentials at $5 a month, the two are equal at 2.5 million commands a month. Against Upstash's own Fixed 250 MB plan at $10 a month, the crossover is 5 million commands. Below those points the meter is cheaper; above them the fixed plan is, as long as your working set fits the plan's memory and throughput caps.

Is Momento still a serverless cache in 2026?

Momento's documentation still describes Momento Cache as serverless and scale-to-zero, but now lists it under Other. Its pricing page leads with Momento Cache Flex, fully managed Valkey billed from $13 per GB-month ($0.018 per GiB-hour on the Standard tier), and Cache Cluster from $0.0105 per instance-hour, plus a self-hosted Valkey stack. The older per-GB data-transfer rate is no longer published, so get a quote before modeling Momento on transfer volume.