Yes — Azure Event Grid has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans. The free plan includes free usage per month: 1,000,000 MQTT operations in Event Grid Standard tier, free usage per month: 1,000,000 event operations in Event Grid Standard tier, and free usage per month: 100,000 operations in Event Grid Basic tier.
About
Azure Event Grid is a fully managed publish-subscribe message broker for real-time, event-driven, and serverless applications. It supports MQTT messaging, pull delivery, and push delivery so applications, Azure services, devices, and third-party systems can exchange discrete events and messages.
The service includes an Azure Event Grid namespace for MQTT broker capability and event delivery, with throughput units used to control capacity. The pricing page lists a perpetual free usage allowance of 1,000,000 MQTT operations per month and 1,000,000 event operations per month for the Standard tier, plus 100,000 operations per month for the Basic tier. Each billable operation is measured per 64 KB of data.
- Publish-subscribe event broker
- MQTT broker capability
- Push delivery over HTTP
- Pull delivery over HTTP
- 1,000,000 MQTT ops monthly
- 1,000,000 event ops monthly
- 100,000 Basic tier ops monthly
- 64 KB billable operation unit
Free Tier Value
This free tier is usage-capped rather than unlimited, but the included monthly allowances are substantial: 1,000,000 MQTT operations, 1,000,000 event operations, and 100,000 Basic operations, plus free event retention for 7 days in Standard and 1 day in Basic. Because the page does not publish concrete per-unit prices for these meters, a defensible monthly dollar value cannot be computed from the information shown, so the best estimate is left unset; a credit card is still required to create the Azure account.
What's included in the free tier
- Free usage per month: 1,000,000 MQTT operations in Event Grid Standard tier.
- Free usage per month: 1,000,000 event operations in Event Grid Standard tier.
- Free usage per month: 100,000 operations in Event Grid Basic tier.
- Free event retention for 7 days on namespace topics in Standard tier.
- Free event retention for 1 day in Basic tier.
See Azure Event Grid pricing for current limits.
Paid plans
Event Grid Basic Tier
- free usage per month
- 100,000 operations
- Publish and subscribe discrete events
- Custom topics
- System topics
- Partner topics
- Domains
- Advanced filtering and delivery attempts
Event Grid Standard Tier
- free usage per month - MQTT operations
- 1,000,000 operations
- free usage per month - event operations
- 1,000,000 operations
- MQTT broker capability
- Pull delivery
- Push delivery
- Namespace resource
- Throughput units for capacity control
- Discrete event delivery
Pricing extracted from Azure Event Grid's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.
Common questions
Is Azure Event Grid free forever?
Yes. Azure Event Grid has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans, though the allowance typically resets each month.
Does Azure Event Grid require a credit card?
Yes. Azure Event Grid asks for a card at signup, even for the free tier.
