Yes, LeanCloud has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans. The free plan includes Developer plan includes 30K API requests per day, shared across LeanStorage, LeanMessage, Push Notifications, and other services, Developer plan includes 3 threads, and Developer plan includes 10K full-text search queries per day.
About
LeanCloud is a serverless backend platform that provides database storage, server-side logic with LeanEngine, instant messaging, push notifications, SMS, and multiplayer game services. It supports native SDKs and APIs for Java, JavaScript, Objective-C, Swift, C#, Python, PHP, and curl, and can be deployed across multiple regions to reduce latency.
The Developer plan includes recurring free allowances such as 1 GB of storage space, 30K API requests per day, 3 threads, 10K full-text search queries per day, 100 LiveQuery subscriptions per day, 5K LiveQuery messages per day, 500 daily active users for instant messaging, 10K push notifications per day, and 20 CCU for LeanCloud Play. The pricing page also shows a Client Engine trial with 1 free compute unit, but the main free offering is a perpetual developer tier with usage caps.
- 1 GB free storage space
- 30K API requests per day
- 500 instant messaging DAU
- 10K push notifications per day
- 20 CCU game quota
- 3 backend threads
- 100 LiveQuery subscriptions daily
- 5K LiveQuery messages daily
Free Tier Value
This free tier is genuinely usable, but it is capped across several services: 30K API requests/day, 500 DAU for messaging, 10K push notifications/day, and small storage/traffic allowances. Compared with the cheapest paid option, which starts at a $5/day minimum charge, the free tier is worth about $5/month in practical cost avoidance; it is perpetual and no credit card is called out, but the limits keep it well below a full paid plan.
What's included in the free tier
Verified
- Developer plan includes 30K API requests per day, shared across LeanStorage, LeanMessage, Push Notifications, and other services.
- Developer plan includes 3 threads.
- Developer plan does not support auto backup.
- Developer plan includes 10K full-text search queries per day.
- Developer plan includes 100 LiveQuery subscriptions per day and 5K LiveQuery messages per day.
- Developer plan includes 1 GB of storage space, with overage billed at $0.05 per GB per day.
- Developer plan includes LeanMessage basic features, including conversations, one-on-one chat, group chats, message sending and receiving, editing and recalling messages, push notifications, signing mechanism, and system conversation callbacks.
- Developer plan includes up to 500 daily active users for LeanMessage, with no adjustment allowed.
- Developer plan does not include permission management.
- Developer plan does not include blacklisting.
- Developer plan includes 6 months of message history storage, with no adjustment allowed.
- Developer plan does not include keyword filtering.
- Developer plan includes 30K REST API requests per day, shared across LeanStorage, Push Notifications, and other services.
- Developer plan includes Push Notifications basic features.
- Developer plan does not include Firebase Cloud Messaging.
- Developer plan uses Standard line for Apple devices.
- Developer plan uses Standard queue for processing.
- Developer plan includes 60 push notification QPM.
- Developer plan includes 10K push notifications per day for free.
- Developer plan limits valid devices to active devices in the past 3 months.
- Developer plan includes 30K REST API requests per day for Push Notifications, shared across LeanStorage, LeanMessage, and other services.
- Developer plan includes up to 20 concurrent users for LeanCloud Play multiplayer games.
- Developer plan includes 1 GB free traffic quota per day for LeanCloud Play multiplayer games.
- Developer plan includes 10K requests per day for Leaderboard.
- Developer plan includes 10K free records for Leaderboard, with overage billed at $0.001 per 1K records per day.
- Trial plan includes 1 free compute unit for Client Engine.
- Trial plan includes 1 GB free daily traffic quota for Client Engine.
- Trial plan has auto hibernation enabled.
- Trial plan does not include auto scale.
- Trial plan does not include load balance.
- Trial plan does not include a free staging environment.
See LeanCloud pricing for current limits.
Paid plans
Business
- minimum daily charge
- $5/day
- API requests
- $0.04/1K requests
- threads
- up to 200
- full-text search
- $0.04/1K requests + $0.1/GB/day
- LiveQuery subscriptions
- $1/1K subscriptions/day
- storage space
- $0.05/GB/day
- API requests billed at $0.04/1K
- Threads up to 200
- Auto backup supported
- Full-text search billed separately
- LiveQuery billed separately
- Storage space billed at $0.05/GB/day
Enterprise
- API requests
- contract price
- threads
- contract price
- full-text search
- contract price
- LiveQuery
- contract price
- storage space
- contract price
- Custom pricing
- Auto backup supported
- Higher limits by contract
- Tailored deployment options
Pricing extracted from LeanCloud's pricing page. Always verify current pricing before committing.
Common questions
Is LeanCloud free forever?
Yes. LeanCloud has a permanent free tier alongside its paid plans, though the allowance typically resets each month.
Does LeanCloud require a credit card?
No. You can start on LeanCloud's free tier without entering card details.
What happens when you exceed LeanCloud's free tier?
You move to a paid plan. LeanCloud's cheapest paid plan is Business at $5 / month.
What is LeanCloud's free tier worth?
LeanCloud's free tier is worth about $5.00 per month. That maps to an FTV score of 54/100. The FTV score is explained at freetier.co/ftv.
