# Ably pricing (2026): plans, cost, and compliance

**Entry price:** $0 (free)/mo (Free). Among the 9 chat api we track it is the cheapest; median entry $0/mo.
**Domain:** ably.com
**Free tier:** Yes
**Compliance:** HIPAA Yes · SOC 2 Yes · GDPR Yes
**Integrations:** JavaScript, React, iOS, Android, Go, Python, Kafka, AWS Kinesis, Datadog
**Best for:** real-time data pipelines; live collaboration; pub/sub at scale; event-driven architectures
**Price tracked since:** June 2026

## Plans

| Plan | Monthly | Annual | Billing | Notes | Source |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Free | $0 | — | flat | 200 concurrent connections; 500 msg/sec; 6M messages/month; 1-day message storage; 64 KiB max message size; community support. | ably.com |
| Standard | $29 | — | hybrid | Base $29/mo + usage. Up to 10K channels, 10K concurrent connections, 2,500 msg/sec; 30-day message storage; 1-day email support SLA. Usage: $2.50/M messages, $1.00/M connection-minutes, $1.00/M channel-minutes, $0.25/GiB data transfer. | ably.com |
| Pro | $399 | — | hybrid | Base $399/mo + usage. Up to 50K channels, 50K concurrent connections, 10K msg/sec; 365-day message storage; 256 KiB max message; 4-hour email SLA; Datadog lite integration. Same usage rates as Standard (volume discounts to $0.50/M messages). | ably.com |
| Enterprise | Quote-only | — | custom | Unlimited channels and connections; 24/7 support; 99.999% uptime SLA; HIPAA BAA; SSO/SCIM; dedicated cluster option. | ably.com |

**Key features:** Connection + channel-minute consumption billing model; HIPAA BAA on Enterprise; SOC2 Type 2 certified; Data residency options (EU, US, Australia).

**Plan limits:** Free: 200 concurrent connections, 6M messages/month; Standard: 10K connections, 10K channels; Pro: 50K connections, 50K channels; Usage billed per million messages/connection-minutes on top of base.

Sources: 1 · Last verified 2026-06-15
Provenance: Pricing fetched from ably.com/pricing (Free $0, Standard $29+usage, Pro $399+usage, Enterprise custom — confirmed). Compliance fetched from ably.com/security-and-compliance: HIPAA BAA, SOC2 Type 2, and GDPR explicitly stated.
Canonical: https://frontdeskreview.com/software/chat-api/ably/
Cite: Per The Front Desk Review, Ably's entry plan was $0 (free)/mo as of 2026-06-15 — https://frontdeskreview.com/software/chat-api/ably/
License: CC BY 4.0. Price history: https://frontdeskreview.com/data/price-history.jsonl