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Paid plans start at $399/mo. There's also a free plan.
Stream’s Build Chat plan costs $0 per month and includes 1,000 MAU and 100 concurrent connections. Start costs $399 per month with annual billing or $499 monthly; Elevate costs $599 annually billed or $675 monthly. Enterprise pricing is custom. The listed plans focus on Chat, so confirm prices for video, feeds and moderation with Stream. Beyond plan allowances, the bill can grow with users, connections, messages, channels, API calls and bandwidth.
01Every plan, line by line
| Plan | Billed annually | Billed monthly | Built for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Build | $0 | $0 | Makers building with Chat |
| Start | $399 | $499 | Apps needing production chat features |
| Elevate | $599 | $675 | Teams needing multi-tenancy and HIPAA |
| Enterprise | — | Quote | Large-scale and enterprise deployments |
Add-ons and overages
- MAU overage: $0.09 per user; concurrent overage: $0.99 per connection.
- Stored-message overage: $5 per 1M messages; channel overage: $100 per 1M channels.
- API overage: $7 per 1M calls; query-channel API overage: $2.50 per 100K calls.
- API bandwidth overage: $0.40 per GB.
- CDN bandwidth: $0.17 per GB; CDN storage: $0.07 per GB; resized images: $5.80 per 1,000 images.
- Auto-translation: $30 per 1M characters on Elevate and Enterprise.
- AI moderation, Datadog integration, and the 99.999% SLA are listed as add-on upgrades; prices are not published.
- Image and file CDN is optional on paid plans; usage rates are listed above.
02What the plan grid doesn't tell you
Usage overages
MAU overage is $0.09 per user; concurrent connections are $0.99 each. Stored messages, channels and API calls have separate overage rates.
API and bandwidth
API overage is $7 per 1M calls, or $2.50 per 100K query-channel calls. API bandwidth costs $0.40 per GB.
Optional CDN
CDN bandwidth is $0.17 per GB, storage is $0.07 per GB and resized images cost $5.80 per 1,000 images.
Unpriced upgrades
AI moderation, Datadog integration and the 99.999% SLA are listed as upgrades, but the vendor does not publish their prices.
03Which plan should you buy?
| If you are… | Get | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Side project or prototype | Build | The free Chat plan includes 1,000 MAU, 100 concurrent connections and community support. |
| Startup in production | Start | It raises capacity to 10,000 MAU and 500 concurrent connections, with up to 5M stored messages and 500K channels. |
| Team needing multi-tenancy | Elevate | It includes up to 10M stored messages and 1M channels, plus multi-tenancy and advanced search. |
04Is Stream worth the money?
Build is a reasonable starting point for a small Chat integration if 1,000 MAU and 100 concurrent connections cover expected usage. For a production app, compare the annual and monthly prices for Start and Elevate, then estimate each overage meter using realistic traffic and retention. Enterprise is the listed route for custom limits, dedicated servers and 24/7 support. Stream can be worth paying for when its hosted services and SDKs replace substantial in-house work, but ask for video, feeds, moderation and upgrade pricing before treating the listed Chat plans as a full-stack budget.
Stream pricing FAQ
Is Stream Chat free?
The Build Chat plan is free and includes 1,000 MAU, 100 concurrent connections and community support. The listed plan requires no credit card. Check expected usage against those limits, and confirm whether video, feeds or moderation use separate pricing.
How much does Stream Start cost?
Start costs $399 per month when billed annually or $499 per month with monthly billing. It includes 10,000 MAU, 500 concurrent connections, up to 5M stored messages and up to 500K channels. Usage above allowances can incur additional charges.
What are Stream’s usage overage rates?
The listed rates include $0.09 per extra MAU, $0.99 per extra concurrent connection, $5 per 1M stored messages and $100 per 1M channels. API calls, query-channel calls and bandwidth also have separate rates. Optional CDN usage is billed separately.
Are Stream’s video and feeds included in these plans?
The listed Build, Start and Elevate prices are described as Chat plans. The pricing details do not establish whether video, feeds or moderation are included at those prices. Ask Stream for product-specific pricing and any shared usage allowances before estimating total cost.