Upstash QStash
Upstash QStash: A flexible HTTP message broker for scheduled, retried, and fan-out serverless tasks. Ranked #16 of 39 in Message Broker Software by our editors (7.7/10); pricing: Free plan; best for serverless HTTP task delivery.
At a glance
- Editor score7.7 / 10
- PricingFree plan
- Best forServerless HTTP task delivery
- Free planYes
- Paid from$180/mo
- Deployment modelCloud
- Facts checked20 Sep 2026
Where it wins
- Automatic retries with at-least-once delivery
- FIFO queues, scheduling, fan-out, and flow control
- Dead-letter queues, deduplication, and signature verification
Where it doesn't
- Delivery is at-least-once, not exactly-once
- The service is cloud-hosted and HTTP-based
- The cheapest paid tier uses usage-based billing
Our verdict on Upstash QStash
Upstash QStash is a cloud-hosted, HTTP-based messaging and scheduling service for developers building background jobs, webhook systems, service-to-service messaging, and scheduled tasks. It publishes messages to public API endpoints, so it fits serverless applications and other platforms that expose HTTP-accessible consumers without requiring persistent consumer infrastructure. Its web and API access model keeps the product focused on delivering work between services rather than operating a general-purpose messaging environment.
Pricing scales from a Free plan with 1,000 messages per day to Pay as You Go at $1 per 100K messages, with unlimited messages per day and usage-based billing. Fixed 1M costs $180 per month for 1 million messages per day and 1 TB monthly bandwidth, while Fixed 10M costs $420 per month for 10 million messages per day and 5 TB monthly bandwidth. The $200-per-month Prod Pack add-on adds an uptime SLA, SOC 2, encryption at rest, and Prometheus and Datadog integrations. Enterprise includes 100M+ messages daily, unlimited bandwidth, SAML SSO, professional support with SLA, and dedicated resources.
The standout capability is controlled HTTP task delivery: QStash combines automatic retries and callbacks with delayed or cron-based scheduling, FIFO queues, URL Groups for fan-out, flow control for rate and parallelism limits, and dead-letter queues with manual republishing. Message deduplication and signature verification add controls for delivery handling. Choose QStash if your workloads are API-driven and need scheduling, ordering per queue, retries, or fan-out. It is a weaker fit when exactly-once delivery or protocols beyond HTTP are required.
Your product? Our editors can test Upstash QStash in depth and publish a review, labelled as paid · from $149/mo →
Upstash QStash pricing
All 6 Upstash QStash plans and prices →
Upstash QStash fact sheet
| Free plan | Yes |
|---|---|
| Paid from | $180/mo |
| Deployment model | Cloud |
| Delivery guarantees | At_least_once |
| Dead-letter queues | Yes |
| Ordering guarantees | Per_queue |
| Maximum message size | 10 MB |
| Supported protocols | HTTP |
| Deployment | Cloud |
| Platforms | Web |
| Compliance & security | SOC 2, SSO/SAML |
| Support | Email, Community, Docs |
| Built for | Small business, Mid-market, Enterprise (editorial estimate) |
| Integrations | 4 integrations: OpenAI-compatible LLM providers, Anthropic, Prometheus, Datadog |
| Pricing | Free plan (source) |
| Website | upstash.com |
| Facts checked | 20 Sep 2026 |
Upstash QStash integrations
Upstash QStash lists 4 integrations on its own site.
- OpenAI-compatible LLM providers
- Anthropic
- Prometheus
- Datadog
Alternatives to Upstash QStash
- RabbitMQA broad, open-source broker for queues, routing, streaming, and hybrid deployments.9.4
- Solace PubSub+ Event BrokerA broad hybrid event broker for teams connecting applications, services and devices.9.2
- Google Cloud Pub/SubA managed cloud pub/sub service with strong delivery controls and usage-based pricing.9.1
See all Upstash QStash alternatives →
Also Ranked In
Upstash QStash is ranked in 2 of our directories.
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Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
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