--- title: "Pricing" description: "Free, Builder, and Enterprise plans, with MCP Gateway, AI Gateway, and the developer portal included on every one. Compare tiers and estimate your monthly cost." canonicalUrl: "https://zuplo.com/pricing" sourceUrl: "https://zuplo.com/pricing" pageType: "pricing" generatedAt: "2026-10-08" --- # Plans & Pricing > Don't pay for a long list of features you'll never use. MCP Gateway, AI > Gateway, and the developer portal are included in every plan. ## Estimate your monthly cost Slide to your real volume to get custom pricing. The page has an interactive calculator: monthly requests (10K, 100K, 1M, 10M, 50M; default 100K), plus toggles for what you need (SSO + RBAC, audit logs, SLA guarantee — all Enterprise; developer seats; custom domains). Included on every plan: - **MCP Gateway** — Authenticate, route & govern MCP servers. - **AI Gateway** — Routing, caching & cost tracking. - **Developer Portal** — Hosted on your domain. - **Monetization** — Usage-based metered billing for your API. Developer seats are your team, not your API's consumers: 2 included; more needs Enterprise. Custom domains: Free has none, Builder has 2; more needs Enterprise. Default recommendation (100K requests/month): **Starter / Free** — for individuals evaluating Zuplo or shipping a side project. $0/mo, free forever for ≤ 100K req/mo, no credit card. Includes 100K requests/month, 1 day of analytics, live logs & traces, up to 2 developer seats, and GitOps with GitHub. Analytics, logs & traces included. ## Switching from Kong, Apigee, or AWS API Gateway? Most teams cut gateway spend by 40–70% in the first quarter. Here's what changes. ### Zuplo vs Kong - Typical pain: self-managed control plane; plugins in Lua, hard to share across teams; manual scaling and cluster ops. - What Zuplo does: fully managed — 60s to deploy; TypeScript-native policies in your repo; auto-scaled across 300+ edge locations. - [See the full Kong comparison](/api-gateways/kong-alternative-zuplo) ### Zuplo vs Apigee - Typical pain: XML & JSON-string policy config; long onboarding & GCP lock-in; per-seat developer pricing. - What Zuplo does: code-first config in your IDE; free tier, deploy from GitHub in minutes; pay per request, not per seat. - See the full Apigee comparison ### Zuplo vs AWS API Gateway - Typical pain: region-bound and AWS-only; plumbing required for auth, rate limit, portal; cost grows fast with custom integrations. - What Zuplo does: edge-native, multi-cloud and on-prem; batteries included — auth, keys, portal, monetization; transparent usage pricing — no surprise egress. - See the full AWS API Gateway comparison ## Real teams. Real numbers. 4.8 on G2. > The move to Zuplo from our existing API Management vendor was easy — just over > 2 months to switch mission critical systems, and we're saving over 70% on > costs. > > — Ryan Waites, Senior Director @ Blockdaemon (70% lower gateway costs) > We didn't touch a line of code, it's just plug and play. In just a couple of > hours we had a great result and a fully working MCP server. > > — Miguel Madeira, CTO & Co-Founder @ Finsolutia (<24h to first MCP server) > With rate limiting, API key management, and documentation hosting, it saved us > weeks of engineering time and let us focus on solving problems unique to our > mission. > > — Tom Carden, Head of Engineering @ Rewiring America (Weeks of engineering > saved) > Zuplo gives us the flexibility to scale efficiently, ensure security and > compliance, and reduce operational complexity so we can focus on building new > capabilities. > > — Daryl Benzel, Staff Software Engineer @ Yext > Built-in policies, route editing, custom code, and Github version control make > surfacing our backend APIs to the world a breeze. > > — Reece Preston, Managing Director @ iTicket > Setting up an API in Kong was a lot of work. In Zuplo, it is very fast — you > can do it in 10 seconds. > > — Gary Sommerhalder, CEO @ Copilot Travel ## Compare every feature One platform, one bill. | Plan | Price | For | | ---------- | ------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------- | | Free | Free/mo, no credit card | Individuals evaluating Zuplo or shipping a side project | | Builder | $25/mo | Solo entrepreneurs & hobbyists going live — not for teams | | Enterprise | From $1,000/mo, annual contract | Teams, scaling APIs & mission-critical workloads | | Feature | Free | Builder | Enterprise | | ------------------------------------------- | ----------------- | ----------------------------- | --------------------------------------- | | **Usage & Limits** | | | | | Monthly requests | 100K | 100K included ($100 per 100K) | Custom, volume discounts available | | Custom domains | None | $25/mo for 2 domains (max) | Custom | | Environments | 5 | 10 | Custom | | Consumers & API Keys | 100 | 1000 | Custom | | Projects & Services | 2 | 2 | Custom | | Data centers | 300 | 300 | Custom | | Self-hosted / Dedicated | — | — | Available | | Developer seats | 2 | 2 | Custom | | **MCP Gateway** | | | | | MCP Users | Development | 5 | Up to Unlimited | | Upstream MCP servers | Development | 3 | Up to Unlimited | | Virtual MCP servers | Development | 3 | Up to Unlimited | | Tool invocations / month | 1K | 10K | Up to Unlimited | | **AI Gateway** | | | | | AI Gateway Users | Development | 5 | Custom | | AI Gateway Teams | 1 | 1 | Custom | | Route to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google & more | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Real-time token usage & cost tracking | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Universal AI API | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Fallbacks, load balancing, retries, routing | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Semantic Caching | Yes | Yes | Yes | | **Platform** | | | | | Developer Portal | Yes | Yes | Yes | | MCP Servers | 1 | 1 | Custom | | GitOps integration | GitHub | GitHub | GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, Azure DevOps | | Analytics | 1 day | 7 days | 30 days (custom available) | | Log & trace history retention | Live (15 minutes) | 1 day | 3 days (up to unlimited) | | Audit logs | — | — | Add-on | | API Usage Audit logs | — | — | Add-on | | Monetization | 100K events | 100K events | Add-on | | Observability | — | — | 1 plugin included, optionally add more | | Federated Gateways | — | — | Add-on | | Secure tunnels, mTLS, VPC Peering | — | — | Add-on | | DDoS Protection | Basic | Basic | Add-on | | **Service & Support** | | | | | Service Level Agreement (SLA) | — | — | 99.5% (up to 99.999%) | | Single Sign-On (SSO) & Role-Based Access | — | — | Add-on | | Community Support & Chat | Yes | Yes | Yes | | Email & Ticketed Support | — | — | Yes | | Premium Support (24x7x365) | — | — | Add-on | | Support SLA | — | — | Add-on | | SOC 2 Type 2 Compliance | — | — | Add-on | | Business Associate Agreement (BAA) | — | — | Add-on | | Custom Contracts & Redlines | — | — | Add-on | | Consulting & Onboarding Services | — | — | Add-on | Builder is designed for solo entrepreneurs and hobbyists as a way to go live — it is not a team plan. It caps at 2 custom domains, 2 developer seats and 1M requests/mo. Teams, or anyone who needs SSO, an SLA or more headroom, need an Enterprise agreement. Enterprise pricing starts at $1,000 per month on an annual contract. The base level Enterprise package includes an entry-level SLA of 99.5%, 1 million requests, and 1 Observability integration. Volume discounts available on more than 1M requests per month. ## Pricing FAQ ### Who is the Builder plan for? Builder is designed for solo entrepreneurs and hobbyists — it's the $25/mo way for one person to take an API live, not a team plan. It caps at 2 custom domains, 2 developer seats and 1M requests per month, and it doesn't include SSO, RBAC, audit logs or an SLA. If you're a team, or you need more headroom than those ceilings, you need an Enterprise agreement. ### How much does Enterprise cost? Enterprise pricing starts at $1,000 per month on an annual contract. The base package includes an entry-level 99.5% SLA, 1 million requests per month, and 1 observability integration. Volume discounts apply above 1 million requests per month, and add-ons such as SSO + RBAC, audit logs, premium support, monetization and secure tunnels are priced individually — so the final number depends on your usage and which add-ons you need. ### What happens if I exceed my request limit? On the Free tier, requests beyond your limit will be rate-limited until the next billing cycle. On the Builder tier, you can purchase additional request capacity as needed - there's no hard cutoff - if you go over we'll reach out to help you right size your plan. On Enterprise plans, usage limits are customized to your needs with flexible overage options. Your API will never suddenly stop working due to limits. ### How quickly can I get started? You can deploy your first API in minutes. Sign up, connect your GitHub repo, and Zuplo automatically deploys to 300+ edge locations. No credit card is required for the free tier, and you get 100K requests per month to build and test your API. ### Can I try enterprise features before committing? Yes! Most enterprise features are available to try out without commitment - if we see a lot of usage we'll reach out to help right size your plan. Some features like SSO, analytics, and secure tunnels can be enabled in trial mode for development and testing. This lets you validate that Zuplo meets your requirements before signing an enterprise agreement. Contact us to enable a trial. ### What deployment options are available? Zuplo offers three deployment options: Managed Edge (default) runs across 300+ data centers worldwide and scales to handle any traffic volume. Managed Dedicated runs on isolated infrastructure on your choice of cloud provider (AWS, GCP, Azure, Akamai, and more) with custom networking like VPC peering and PrivateLink. Self-Hosted lets you run Zuplo on your own Kubernetes cluster for complete control. All options provide the same features and developer experience. ### How is AI Gateway different from API Management? AI Gateway is optimized for LLM API traffic with features like semantic caching, token-based rate limiting, and model fallback. API Management is our general-purpose solution for REST APIs with features like key management, analytics, and developer portals. Many customers use both together. ### What support options are available? All plans include community support via Discord. Enterprise plans offer email and ticketed support, customizable support SLAs with response times as fast as 30 minutes, and 24/7/365 availability for critical issues. ## Next steps - [Start for free](https://portal.zuplo.com/signup) — deploy your first API in 5 minutes. Free tier includes 100K requests/month. No credit card. No sales call. - [Talk to an Architect](/schedule-call)