Is the Playfab really free for unlimited players?

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gregtom6 asked Nov 22, '17

Is the Playfab really free for unlimited players?

I ask this, because I found these:

https://playfab.com/pricing/#plan-essentials-desktop

Here there's no description of limitation for players.

Then, if I rotate upwards, I can see this:

PlayFab is completely free during development. When do I need to start paying?

PlayFab is free for all customers up until 1,000 players. Once you hit 1,000 players, you need to decide which plan is right for you. If you're on the Essentials plan, you may stay there without paying.

Then I found this:

https://community.playfab.com/questions/12767/what-is-total-player-limit-in-free-tier.html

He asks: "How many player's data I can save using Playfab free tier?"

Accepted answer: "Technically, there isn't a limit currently"

So what is the actual situation? Do I need to pay after 1000 players? I'm also confused about are the Playfab essentials (free) and the mentioned free tier the same thing or not...

pricing

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gregtom6 commented · Nov 22, 2017 at 10:11 PM

I don't know why it was posted two times... But I can't modify my own question.

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brendan gregtom6 commented · Nov 22, 2017 at 10:23 PM

Fixed it. :)

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Answer 1 · 2017-11-22T22:21:17Z

brendan answered Nov 22, '17

Yes, the Essentials tier is the "free tier", and it has no cost, apart from: third-party add-ons you choose to use, use of the Content service (our CDN), custom game server hosting, and any limit upgrades you select. Have a look at the answer to the "Do I have to pay money to use PlayFab?" question in the FAQ on our pricing page: https://playfab.com/pricing/.

Obviously, it's not free for us to run PlayFab. So if your question is why and how we can have a free tier, it's simple.

The why is: we're passionate about making sure that everyone has the ability to get their games to market with a world-class backend, even if they're a hobbyist trying out some experimental ideas. Not having to worry about getting a huge bill frees them up to actually try something they might not, otherwise.

The how is: realistically, if you have a ton of players, you're going to want to capitalize on that and maximize your title's potential, and you need the professional (or enterprise) tier to do that.

In addition to the lower limits on the free tier, we cannot provide dedicated resources to free or indie tier titles, since we have no MAU-based revenue from them. So they are only supported via the forums, and they have no Service Level Agreement (SLA). We work hard to make sure the service is stable and available for everyone, but in cases where (either due to a bug in your code, a hacker trying to mess with your game, etc.) the game has an issue, having an SLA means that we are going to take whatever action we can to minimize any issues your title is having.

As you can imagine, if the games you produce are your sole source of income, you're going to want some guarantee for the services you rely upon. So professional developers - whether they're indies with hit titles or corporations with multiple teams producing/publishing games - choose the professional or enterprise tier.

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sickshark commented · Jan 10, 2019 at 10:34 PM

so what happens after 1000 mau ? can one stay in the free tier there? or one is forced to pay after 1000 mau?

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Andy ♦♦ sickshark commented · Jan 11, 2019 at 01:56 AM

The free tier continues to be free after 1000 MAU. We have titles with millions of MAU using the free tier. We tend to believe that moving into a paid tier enables you to better engage with your users, but we don't require that for any number of MAU.

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sickshark commented · Jan 11, 2019 at 05:52 PM

Dear Andy. I really love playfab but i can't not admit that ganespark did an amazing thing:

They give you everything for free until 100000mau and they charge you only if you go over it! It's incredibly better for a dev to build a good game with no worries and good expectations. If the games rockets everything is already set. No need to re code and one simply just pays according to the success!!

I would like you to have the free multiplayer with a similar business model. It's better for us as devs so we just code once and if the game goes we simply pay for it on success! Instead with you, one is forced to learn photon to have a multiplayer. And then if scale one has to upgrade both photon and playfab isnt it? Instead one could just code everything for playfab and if the games is a success one pays.

I love playfab support but gamespark model is damn easy and comfortable for little devs like me.

Will you consider my feedback and introduce the multiplayer for the free tier ?

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brendan sickshark commented · Jan 11, 2019 at 08:01 PM

As with the other thread where we're discussing this, this is an apples and oranges comparison. PlayFab's multiplayer server hosting is a service where you upload a build which we host in our scalable hosting model. The Gamesparks offering you're talking about ("real-time services for multiplayer") is another example of a relay service - you cannot upload your own custom game executable and host it there.

As for pricing in general, we're constantly re-evaluating the service costs and our pricing, to see if we can improve. There aren't any pending changes in that space at the moment, but if we do have any updates to pricing, you can bet that we'll be posting extensive information in our blog about it.

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