Comparison
Every price we could find, including the ones that beat ours.
Vendors price in units that refuse to compare: per device, per message, per datapoint, per event, in blocks. So every figure here is the same device, normalized to what one costs for a month, with each vendor on the cheapest tier that genuinely fits.
Where a vendor publishes nothing we could use, this page says so rather than estimating.
Reporting every five minutes
A real device, not a thought experiment: our own departure board, one report every 300 seconds. Each price is the cheapest tier that genuinely fits that fleet.
Figures are per device / month.
| Platform | 1 device per device / month | 1,000 devices per device / month | 10,000 devices per device / month |
|---|---|---|---|
PidgeIoT Perch is free to ten devices, Scale covers a thousand, Fleet ten thousand. our own published pricechecked 23 Aug 2026 | 1 device $0 free tier | 1,000 devices $0.349 | 10,000 devices $0.150 |
Golioth · Pay as you go Golioth charge a flat $0.25 for every device that connects, plus data, which comes to about $0.285 a device each month at a report every five minutes and does not fall as a fleet grows. Below roughly 1,225 devices that beats our price: $14.25 against our $29 at fifty devices, $142.50 against $186.50 at five hundred, $285 against $349 at a thousand. Above that line ours is the cheaper number. What their price does not include is a multi-tenant dashboard, organizations and access control, or alerting, so the question worth answering is whether you would build those yourself or do without them. | 1 device $0.285 | 1,000 devices $0.285 | 10,000 devices $0.285 |
ThingsBoard Cloud Meters datapoints rather than messages, so several readings per report hit the cap early. thingsboard.iochecked 23 Aug 2026 | 1 device $0 free to 5 | 1,000 devices $0.749 | 10,000 devices $0.200 |
Balena Container fleet management for Linux boards, not device telemetry, and its overage never falls. | 1 device $0 free to 10 | 1,000 devices $3.219 | 10,000 devices $2.122 |
Memfault Crash and firmware observability, not a telemetry platform, and its free tier is Nordic parts only. Growth starts at $3,495 and Scale at $6,695, both including a thousand devices with no overage rate published, which is why ten thousand has no figure. memfault.comchecked 25 Aug 2026 | 1 device $0 free to 10, Nordic | 1,000 devices $3.495 | 10,000 devices not published |
Particle Sold in whole $299 blocks of 100 devices; there is no per-operation overage at all. | 1 device $0 free tier | 1,000 devices $3.887 | 10,000 devices $3.648 |
Blues · Essentials A flat charge per event whatever its size, so small frequent reports are its worst case. | 1 device $2.86 | 1,000 devices $6.604 | 10,000 devices $6.607 |
TagoIO Their plans do reach ten thousand devices, from $199 a month, but every tier is a starting price plus usage beyond it and no rate for that usage is published anywhere, so neither larger fleet reduces to a figure we could stand behind. tago.iochecked 25 Aug 2026 | 1 device $49.00 starting price | 1,000 devices not published | 10,000 devices not published |
Datacake · device tiers Priced in euro and left that way rather than converted at a rate that would be stale by the time you read it. Their tiers are device ceilings, so a thousand devices is the 659 euro Plus tier and only reaches 0.659 each if you fill it; above a thousand is quote-only. Read from the vendor's own page by hand, because automated fetches were refused twice. datacake.cochecked 25 Aug 2026 | 1 device €25 Hobby, up to 25 devices | 1,000 devices €0.659 Plus, a full tier | 10,000 devices not published |
Golioth is cheaper than us up to about 1,225 devices and we are cheaper above it: 18% at 1,500, 21% at 2,000, 47% at ten thousand. Our per-device price falls as each tier fills; a flat rate per device never does.
AWS and Azure are cheaper than us, and we will not pretend otherwise. What they sell is a message bus: the device list, shadow editor, graphs, log viewer, OTA orchestration and alerting are all yours to build, and then to keep running.
Per device per month at 1,000 devices:
- AWS IoT, one stored item per reading$0.045Time-series writes are 59% of it, on a service that is not on the IoT pricing page.aws.amazon.com, checked 12 Aug 2026
- AWS IoT, readings batched per report$0.029The same build with each report batched into one write, which a competent team would do.aws.amazon.com, checked 12 Aug 2026
- Azure IoT Hub, messaging only$0.010Messaging alone, before any device management.azure.microsoft.com, checked 12 Aug 2026
- Azure IoT Hub, with Device Update$0.150Device Update adds $70 a month per instance plus $0.07 per device.azure.microsoft.com, checked 12 Aug 2026
The same device, every ten seconds
Nothing changes but the cadence. This is where a meter denominated in datapoints, events or blocks stops agreeing with one denominated in devices.
Figures are per device / month.
| Platform | 1 device per device / month | 1,000 devices per device / month | 10,000 devices per device / month |
|---|---|---|---|
PidgeIoT A thousand chatty devices fit inside Fleet's own message pool, so $1,499 buys the fleet at $1.50 each; ten thousand overrun that pool and pay overage on the difference. Golioth is still cheaper here and we are not going to pretend otherwise. our own published pricechecked 23 Aug 2026 | 1 device $0 inside the free pool | 1,000 devices $1.50 Fleet, pool covers it | 10,000 devices $7.03 Fleet plus overage |
Golioth · Pay as you go Their rate is flat at any fleet size and stays below ours at this reporting rate, and it does not include a multi-tenant dashboard, organizations and access control, or alerting. | 1 device $0.665 | 1,000 devices $0.665 | 10,000 devices $0.665 |
ThingsBoard Cloud At five readings per report one device emits 1.3 million data points a month against the free tier's one million ceiling, and a thousand devices force Private Cloud at $1,499 a month even though the device count fits Business exactly. Ten thousand of them break the throughput cap on the tier they land on, and the next tier up publishes no message ceiling we could price against. thingsboard.iochecked 23 Aug 2026 | 1 device $49.00 | 1,000 devices $1.499 $1,499/mo across the fleet | 10,000 devices not published |
Particle One chatty device eats an entire $299 block by itself. We could not reduce their block arithmetic to a figure we would stand behind at ten thousand, so we are not printing one. | 1 device $299.00 | 1,000 devices $31.15 | 10,000 devices not published |
Blues · Essentials 259,200 tiny events a month, each charged the same as a large one. | 1 device $190.65 | 1,000 devices $194.40 | 10,000 devices $194.40 |
Blues at $194 a device is why a flat charge per event is the wrong model for small frequent reports.
AWS is cheaper here too, and still a message bus.
Per device per month at 1,000 devices:
- AWS IoT, assembled yourself$1.241Time-series writes are 73% of it at this cadence.aws.amazon.com, checked 12 Aug 2026
One option has no row above because it has no price list: free software on a server of your own. What self-hosting actually costs, on its own page →
Check the arithmetic yourself.
Every figure links to the page it came from and says when we last read it. If one has moved, tell us and we'll fix it.