Pinata IPFS
IPFS pinning service with a friendly UI and API for uploading and managing files, offering a free 1GB plan.
- Card required
- No
Pinata IPFS scores 6.2/10 for free value in Storage. The main constraint: Free $0/month: 1 GB storage, 500 files, 10 GB bandwidth, 10K requests, 1 gateway.
Free value score
6.2 / 10Show the math
Key metrics
What you get
Verified free 1GB plan with API access
Simple IPFS pinning UI and gateway
500 files and 10GB bandwidth free
Easy upload and management of IPFS content
Gotchas
- 1GB storage monthly
Free tier is capped at 1GB of total pinned storage, renewable each billing cycle.
- 500 file count limit
No more than 500 individual files can be pinned on the free plan.
- 10GB bandwidth per month
Bandwidth for serving files through the gateway is capped at 10GB per month.
- 10K requests per month
API and gateway requests are capped at 10,000 per month on the free plan.
- 1 gateway only
Free tier is limited to a single IPFS gateway; additional gateways require a paid plan.
- No CDN on gateway
The free gateway does not include CDN acceleration; CDN is only available on paid plans.
- No agents (0 agents)
Autonomous file storage agents are not available on the free plan; the entry paid tier ($20/month) includes 1 agent.
- No custom gateway domains
Custom gateway domain configuration is not available on the free tier.
- Basic image optimization only
Image optimization is available at a basic level on free; Standard and Advanced tiers are paywalled.
- No multi-user workspaces
Workspace collaboration with multiple users is not supported on the free plan.
- No advanced analytics
Free tier only has monthly usage reporting; gateway traffic analytics, per-country/referrer breakdowns, and granular reporting require paid plans.
- No IPFS Pinning Services Spec
Standard IPFS Pinning Services API spec compatibility is not available on the free tier.
- No priority support or SLA
Free tier receives email support only; priority support, uptime SLA, and Slack/Discord/Telegram connects are paywalled.
Sources
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"1GB ... 500 files ... 10GB ... 10K"
https://www.pinata.cloud/pricing -
"Free ## $0 ## /month ... 0 agents 1GB storage 1 gateway Select plan"
https://www.pinata.cloud/pricing -
"The Pinata API has a rate limit of 180 requests per minute, which aligns with web3 industry standards. Although we do not increase this limit, you can implement a bottlenecking mechanism in your code to manage the traffic."
https://knowledge.pinata.cloud/en/articles/8314011-pinata-api-faqs -
"we have over 240,000 creators worldwide who use Pinata ... we are excited to announce our latest $21.5M funding round co-led by our friends at Greylock, Pantera, and Offline Ventures"
https://pinata.cloud/blog/funding-announcement/
