Inngest
Durable execution platform with native cron scheduling, event-driven workflows, retries, and built-in observability — no queues or workers to manage.
- Card required
- No
Inngest scores 3.7/10 for free value in Schedulers. The main constraint: Hobby plan ($0/mo, no card): 50,000 executions/month, 500k events/month, 5 concurrent steps, 100k queue depth, unlimited serverless cron functions, and 24h trace/log retention.
Free value score
3.7 / 10Show the math
Key metrics
What you get
Native cron schedules with timezone support (TZ= prefix, automatic DST handling)
50,000 executions and 500k events per month at $0 with no credit card
Durable execution: per-step automatic retries, state persistence, and failure recovery
Unlimited serverless workers/functions plus built-in tracing, metrics, and alerts
Gotchas
- 50,000 executions/month
Hobby plan includes 50k executions (durable function runs + each step) per month. Each step.run() counts separately, so a run with 5 steps consumes 6 executions. Resets monthly.
- 500k events/month
Up to 500,000 events received/processed per month on the free tier. Resets monthly.
- Executions pause when quota exhausted
On Hobby, execution pauses once the free 50k/month quota is exhausted — there is no metered overage; you must upgrade to Pro to keep running until the next monthly reset.
- 5 concurrent steps
Maximum of 5 concurrent step executions on the free tier (Pro starts at 100), limiting parallel throughput.
- 100k queue depth
Maximum 100,000 events queued awaiting execution at any time on the free tier.
- 50 realtime connections
Free tier allows up to 50 concurrent realtime connections (Pro allows 1000).
- 250k realtime messages/day
Realtime messaging is capped at 250,000 messages per day on the free tier (Pro is 1M/day).
- 256 KiB max event size
Each individual event payload is limited to 256 KiB on the free tier (Pro raises this to 3 MiB).
- 3 users / 3 always-on workers
Hobby includes up to 3 team members and 3 low-latency always-connected workers (serverless workers are unlimited).
- 24h trace/log retention
Tracing and logs for each function run are retained for only 24 hours on the free tier (Pro: 7 days, Enterprise: 90 days).
- 30-minute metrics granularity
Real-time function metrics are aggregated at 30-minute granularity on the free tier (Pro: 15 min, Enterprise: 1 min).
- Basic tracing/metrics/alerts only
Free tier provides only basic tracing, metrics, and alerts. Granular observability, trace/log exports, and integrations (Datadog, etc.) require Pro/Enterprise or paid add-ons.
- Batch capacity capped at 5
Event batching is limited to 5 events per batch with a 30-second batch timeout on the free tier (Pro: 100 events / 5 min).
Sources
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"$0/mo No credit card required ... + 50k executions + 5 concurrent executions + 500k events + 100k queue depth + 50 realtime connections + Basic tracing, metrics, and alerts"
https://www.inngest.com/pricing -
"Trace and log history ... 24 hours [Hobby] / 7 days [Pro] / 90 days [Enterprise]"
https://www.inngest.com/pricing -
"Hobby plans pause execution once the free quota is exhausted; upgrade to keep running."
https://www.inngest.com/pricing -
"we raised a $21M Series A to help companies ship and iterate faster ... This round was led by Altimeter, with continued participation from A16z, Notable, Afore, and Guillermo Rauch."
https://www.inngest.com/blog/announcing-inngest-series-a
