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Upstash QStash
California, United States
What it is
Upstash QStash is a cloud service for messaging and scheduling between an application and an API. It supports at-least-once delivery, automatic retries, and scheduled delivery, with the maximum delay set by the plan. URL Groups send a message to multiple endpoints in parallel; queues process messages in enqueue order. Flow Control sets delivery-rate and parallelism limits, placing excess messages on a waitlist. Failed jobs can be retried or managed through a dead letter queue, and deduplication helps prevent duplicate delivery. QStash documents integrations for OpenAI-compatible providers and Anthropic, including batching chat completion requests and sending results to a callback. Requests include an HMAC-SHA256 signed JWT in the Upstash-Signature header for authenticity checks. It runs in separate EU and US regions. The Free plan is free, with 1,000 messages per day and a 1 MB message limit. Pay as You Go is $1 a month, billed at $1 per 100K messages. Fixed 1M is $180 a month; Prod Pack is $200 a month as an add-on.
For and against
For
- Schedules messages for future delivery
- Queues preserve enqueue order
- Retries failed jobs and supports dead letter queues
- Deduplication helps prevent duplicate delivery
- Provides EU and US regions
Against
- Free plan allows 1,000 messages per day
- Free plan limits message size to 1 MB
- Maximum schedule delay depends on the plan
- Prod Pack is a $200/month add-on
The verdict
QStash combines scheduling, queues, retries, and delivery controls in a cloud messaging service. Check plan-specific limits, including message size and schedule delay, against the workload.
Who it suits
QStash suits developers who need scheduled or queued API message delivery, retry handling, or parallel endpoint delivery. Its free plan provides a way to start, while paid plans list higher message and payload limits.
Plans and prices
Free
1,000 messages/day · 50 GB bandwidth · 1 MB max message size · 7-day max delay
Read 5 Oct 2026 · upstash.com
Pay as You Go
Unlimited messages/day · 50 GB bandwidth, then $0.05/GB · 10 MB max message size · 1-year max delay
Read 5 Oct 2026 · upstash.com
Fixed 1M
1M messages/day · 1 TB bandwidth · 50 MB max message size · 10,000 active schedules
Read 5 Oct 2026 · upstash.com
Prod Pack
Add-on · Uptime SLA · Encryption at Rest · SOC-2
Read 5 Oct 2026 · upstash.com
Fixed 10M
10M messages/day · 5 TB bandwidth · 50 MB max message size · 50,000 active schedules
Read 5 Oct 2026 · upstash.com
Enterprise
100M+ messages/day · Unlimited bandwidth · Custom message size and limits
Read 5 Oct 2026 · upstash.com
On the record
- Deduplication
- QStash supports deduplication to prevent duplicate messages from being delivered.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- Failed messages
- QStash supports retrying failed jobs and using a dead letter queue to manage failed messages.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- Fan-out
- URL Groups let QStash publish messages to multiple endpoints in parallel.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- FIFO queues
- Queues can deliver enqueued messages one by one in the order they were enqueued.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- Flow control
- Flow Control sets rate and parallelism limits for endpoint delivery, with excess messages added to a waitlist.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- LLM integrations
- QStash documents integrations for OpenAI-compatible providers and Anthropic, including batching chat completion requests and delivering results to a callback.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- Payload limit
- The Getting Started page states a default message size limit of 1 MB, which can be customized at the customer's request.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- Prod Pack SLA
- Prod Pack accounts include an SLA guaranteeing 99.99% uptime.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- Regions
- QStash is available in EU and US regions, which have independent infrastructure, pricing, resources, logs, and messages.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- Request security
- QStash sends an HMAC-SHA256 signed JWT in the Upstash-Signature header, which customers can verify to check request authenticity.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- Scheduling
- QStash can schedule messages for future delivery, with the maximum delay depending on the plan.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- Support
- Upstash says customers on any subscription plan can contact its team at [email protected] for technical support, questions, and feedback.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
- What it does
- QStash is a serverless messaging and scheduling solution that acts as a middleman between an application and an API to provide delivery guarantees and automatic retries.upstash.com · read 5 Oct 2026
