How much does it cost for message storage / to store messages?

Ably operates a straightforward pricing policy that allows you to use our message storage feature and only pay when you store or retrieve messages via our history API.

 

In order to understand how it works, please consider the following:

  • Channels, by default, do not persist messages to disk.  If you want your messages to be persisted, then you can explicitly enable this feature using our channel rules for either an individual channel or a group of channels using namespaces.  See channel namespaces for more information on how to configure persistence for channels.
  • All messages that are stored to disk are retained on average for 24 to 72 hours depending on your account type.  Ably is intended to be a realtime system with an option to retrieve short to medium term message history.  It is our belief that for long term message storage where you may need messages to be indexed or to exist in a relational / object database, that you should find the right solution for your requirements.  Find out more about how long messages are stored.
  • We do not charge for message storage directly, but instead we charge you for an extra message every time you store a message to disk, and then charge you each time a message is retrieved from history.  Find out more about how Ably counts messages