Does Firebase cost money? Pricing secrets unlocked.

Firebase is one of the premier cloud platforms for creating mobile and web applications. Google Acquired the platform from Firebase Inc in 2018. It has since grown to become one of the leading backend services for developers worldwide.

This article will compare Firebase’s plans and explain the differences between free and paid products. Reading this article you find answers for questions like:

• Is Firebase free of cost?
• Is Firebase expensive?
• What Firebase services are paid?

Keep reading to know more.

Is Firebase free of cost?

The answer depends. It depends on the features you will use and the size of your application. Small apps with a limited feature set may use Firebase for free or at low pricing. On the other hand, the larger and more sophisticated application will need to run on the pay-as-you-go Firebase plan.

The Google Firebase monthly cost will depend on variables like cloud storage, network egress, database size, etc. Details of Firebase pricing are below:

Firebase Plans

Spark

This is a free plan. The resources available to Spark users include 1GB of data storage, 20,000 writes per day, 50,000 reads per day, and 20,000 delete per day.

Blaze

This is the paid plan of Firebase that uses the pay-as-you-grow pricing model. The server usage costs are $0.18 per GB for database storage and $0.026 per GB storage. The platform also prices for database operations and data transfer.

Firebase Always-Free Products

Firebase offers some services entirely free for both the Spark and Blaze plans.  These services are:

• Analytics
• In-App Messaging
• Application delivery
• App Indexing
• A/B Split Test
• Cloud Messaging
• Performance Monitoring
• Dynamic Links
• CrashLytics
• Remote Configuration

Firebase Paid Products

Next, we shall look at the Firebase services attracting costs under the Blaze plan. However, these services will only attract fees after exhausting the free resources of the Spark plan.

Firebase ML

Firebase also offers the Google Machine Learning Kit, which is valuable for performing image processing tasks in an app project. Users can use the machine learning kit for up to 1,000 images in a project.

Test Lab

Firebase also offers the Google Machine Learning Kit, which is valuable for performing image processing tasks in an app project. Users can use the machine learning kit for up to 1,000 images in a project.

Real-Time Database

Firebase users can enjoy the unlimited free read and write operations on the Firebase Realtime Database. The table below displays the free Spark plan’s limits and the pricing structure for the Blaze plan.

Cloud Firestore Database

Firebase provides up to 1GB of Storage for free on Firestore, the latest Google realtime database. After exhausting the free storage, users will pay for storage space and database operations. The table below displays the pricing structure. 

Firebase Hosting 

Every Google Hosting user is entitled to the free one-gigabyte storage that the Spark plan offers. After exceeding the free tier, users must pay for additional data storage and transfer within the month. All plans provide SSL and support multiple sites per project. Here is the Firebase storage pricing summary:

Authentication

Firebase users enjoy up to 10,000 free authentications per month. The charges that apply after exceeding the limits are based on location, as shown in the table below.

Cloud Functions 

The Google Cloud function, also referred to as Google Function, is part of Firebase plans. The resources available in the free tier and the cost of the paid plans are displayed below:

Cost computed in GB-seconds and CPU-seconds would apply after exhausting the free server resources. Kindly check the pricing page for the details. You can also see the Google Cloud costs for all Google services here.

Forecasting Your App Costs

Firebase users can access important resource usage data and payment status from the Firebase console.  Here are the various sections of the console that displays different service usage.

• The Storage Tab: This section only shows the volume of data stored in the database.

• Connection Tab: It displays the number of realtime connections, such as WebSockets.

• Load Tab: Presents a graphical display of application loads and the data usage over a specific time frame. 

• Download Tab: The volume of data downloaded from the database is displayed here.

Summary

Firebase has two pricing models: the free Spark plan and the Blaze plan that uses a pay-as-you-go pricing structure that charges users based on the app’s server resource usage.

The Spark plan is recommended for developing personal and small apps, while the Blaze plan is excellent for production apps. 

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