Today, we’re launching the second iteration of our pricing plan. We’re walking through the details so you can see how we’re making our authorization and tool management platform accessible to even more developers and their agents.
Our goal is to get your agents into production. This involves not just calling well-designed, LLM-consumable tools, but also authorizing many end users into your agent, which is not yet possible with MCP Servers. Our first pricing plan charged based on the number of monthly active users authenticating and calling tools within your agent. While this worked well to model the value your agent delivered to end-users in production and provided predictability in monthly costs, we listened to your feedback that $50 for a starter plan felt too high while prototyping and experimenting with different toolkits. We want developers like you to focus on experimenting with our tools while building on the edge of AI, and not spending time worrying about accidentally entering a new pricing tier when your agent goes viral. That’s why we're introducing usage-based pricing that scales with your agent's resource consumption.
We’re also releasing a generous free tier to allow hobbyists to experiment with any number of tools while finding product-market fit.
We acknowledge resource-based pricing can make it trickier to calculate monthly costs, which is another reason why we’ve built a generous free tier and low per-resource prices. We think this is the best pricing to achieve our goal of getting more agents into production in an easy, scalable, and secure way.
Here are the key changes we're making to better support your agents in scaling from prototype to production:
- A generous free tier (valued at $76/mo) to test all of our pre-built toolkits at no cost
- Pay just $0.05 per scope change for us to handle authorization complexity while you focus on building
- Get $100 worth of user challenges, tool executions, and workers for just $25/month
- Tool executions that start at just $0.01 each on our growth plan
- The ability to pay $0.01 for Pro tool executions if you bring your own credentials (e.g. API key). Or, use Arcade’s credentials for $0.50 per Pro tool execution
- Scale your agent securely into production with unlimited self-hosted workers on the Growth plan when you’re ready. Or, use Arcade’s workers for $0.05 per server-hour.
You can find more details on our updated pricing page here.
If you are an existing paid customer, you will automatically be migrated to this new system.
Our free tier is designed to get your agents ready to take action. If you are a non-profit or start-up with less $15 million in funding , reach out at startups@arcade.dev to be enrolled in our start-up plan.
Our goal in writing this article is to share our rationale openly with developers so that we can hear even more feedback to make our pricing a win-win for everyone. Maybe we’ll even help other early-stage tooling companies who are figuring out pricing along the way :)
We’ll answer our most frequently asked questions about this pricing approach below.
Happy building!
Frequently Asked Questions
When will existing customers be migrated to the new pricing?
All existing paid customers will be automatically migrated to the new system. We'll notify you via email before the migration happens and provide details on how your usage patterns will be affected.
What happens to my usage in the migration month?
During your migration month, your usage metrics reset, and you’ll receive the full free tier allocations (100 user challenges, 1,000 standard tool executions, 50 pro tool executions) in your first month under the new system, even if you're on the Growth plan. This means most customers will see immediate savings in their migration month.
We will also prorate your existing monthly (or annual) fee and use that toward your new plan's costs (e.g., if you paid $50 for a monthly starter plan and migrate halfway through the month, you'd have $25 in prorated credit to apply toward your new plan). If the prorated amount is more than the cost of the new plan, the remainder will be available as credits that apply to future months and usage for up to 1 year.
Will my current usage cost more or less under the new system?
Most developers will see lower costs, especially during prototyping. The new system is designed to be more generous. Our free tier alone provides $76/month in value. Our Growth tier provides $100 in value for just $25/month, and usage-based pricing means you only pay for what you actually use.
Can I stay on the old pricing plan?
No, all customers will be migrated to the new usage-based system to ensure everyone benefits from the improved pricing structure and new features.
What exactly is included in the $76/month value of the free tier?
The free tier includes:
- 100 user challenges (valued at $5)
- 1,000 standard tool executions (valued at $10)
- 50 pro tool executions (valued at $25)
- 1 Arcade-hosted worker (valued at ~$36)
- 5 self-hosted workers
- Access to all pre-built toolkits
- Community support via GitHub
Are there usage limits on the free tier?
Yes, you're limited to 100 user challenges, 1,000 standard tool executions, and 50 pro tool executions per month. You also get 1 Arcade-hosted worker and up to 5 self-hosted workers. There's a rate limit of 1,000 API calls per minute. Once you exceed one of the limits on the free tier, you will be prompted to upgrade to the Growth plan ($25/month).
What happens if I exceed the free tier limits?
You'll be prompted to upgrade to the Growth plan ($25/month) when you hit any usage threshold. Once you upgrade, you get additional monthly allocations and then pay per-use for anything beyond those limits.
Can I stay on the free tier forever?
Yes, the free tier has no time limit, and your allocations reset each month. As long as you stay within the monthly limits, you can use it indefinitely. We've designed this tier to be generous enough for hobbyists and developers finding product-market fit, and we're committed to keeping it accessible.
How do I estimate my monthly costs?
Start with the $25 Growth plan platform fee, which includes 600 user challenges, 2,000 standard tool executions, and 100 pro tool executions, inclusive of the free plan’s monthly allocations. Beyond that, pay $0.05 per user challenge, $0.01 per standard tool execution, and $0.50 per pro tool execution. Most developers will stay well within the included limits.
What's the difference between "user challenges," "tool executions," and "workers"?
- User challenges: The number of times a user is challenged for new permissions (i.e. granting or updating, but not checking, a user’s scope).
- Tool executions: Each time your agent calls one of Arcade's tools (like sending an email, reading a file, etc.)
- Workers: Isolated compute environments where your tools run (think of them as containers).
Check out our Glossary for the latest definitions of all our terms.
How do I track my usage in real-time?
You can monitor your usage through your Arcade dashboard, which shows your current consumption across all metrics.
What are "Pro tools" and how are they different?
Pro tools are advanced capabilities with higher infrastructure costs or unique intellectual property. Examples include tools like Firecrawl, E2B, and SerpAPI tools, which require Arcade to maintain an API key for use across developers. They cost $0.50 per execution, but can be lowered in some cases to $0.01 if a developer inputs their own credential to power the tool. We call this “bring your own credentials” (BYOC), and encourage this as it helps developers avoid shared rate limits with other developers.
How does "Bring Your Own Credentials" (BYOC) work?
For Pro tools, you can provide your own API keys/credentials instead of using Arcade's. This reduces your cost to just $0.01 per execution (same as standard tools) and helps you avoid shared rate limits.
What tools support BYOC? Currently, Firecrawl, E2B, and all SerpAPI tools (Google Finance, Google Flights, Google Hotels, Google Jobs, Google Maps, Google News, Google Search, Google Shopping, YouTube, Walmart) support BYOC.
Do I have to use BYOC?
No, it's optional. You can use Arcade's credentials for convenience, but BYOC saves money on Pro tools and gives you dedicated rate limits.
What happens after I use my initial allocation of resources (valued at $100) in the Growth plan?
You pay per-use at $0.05 per additional user challenge, $0.01 per standard tool execution, and $0.50 per pro tool execution. You pay for the exact amount you consumed at the end of every month.
What's the total allocation in the Growth plan?
The Growth plan gives you everything from the free tier plus 500 additional user challenges, 1,000 additional standard tool executions, and 50 Pro tool executions. So you get 600 total user challenges, 2,000 total standard tool executions, and 100 Pro tool executions each month before paying per-use.
What's the difference between self-hosted and Arcade-hosted workers?
- Self-hosted workers: You run them on your infrastructure without paying extra to Arcade
- Arcade-hosted workers: We manage them for you at $0.05 per server-hour
When should I choose self-hosted vs Arcade-hosted workers?
Use Arcade-hosted workers for convenience and automatic scaling. Use self-hosted workers for privacy, cost control, compliance requirements, or when you need many concurrent workers.
How often am I billed?
You pay the $25 platform fee monthly, and usage charges are billed at the end of the month as you consume resources beyond your included allocations.
Is there a rate limit?
Yes, 1,000 API calls per minute across all tiers. Contact us at contact@arcade.dev if you need higher limits.
Do my existing integrations still work?
Yes, all existing API keys and integrations continue to work with no code changes required.
