Pricing Notes

This section provides more details about the mesibo pricing described above. We highly recommend reading through it; understanding these details will help you make the best out of mesibo's services and managing your budget effectively.

Free Trial

mesibo offers a free trial to help you get started without any initial cost. Upon signing up, your account will receive sufficient free credits to test and develop using the service. These free credits allow you to explore mesibo's capabilities such as real-time messaging, audio/video calling, conferencing, user management, etc. to know if mesibo meets your requirements. You can switch to the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) plan anytime during or after the trial period by adding credit balance to your account.

Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) Plan

You can transition to the PAYG plan at any time by adding a credit balance of at least $50 to your account. Charges are deducted from your credit balance based on your usage of various services and the credit expiry period. You can monitor your credit balance, usage stats and validity in the 'My Account' section of the mesibo console. You can also set up webhook notifications to monitor billing updates in real-time.

Users and Groups

This section outlines various metrics and limitations related to users and groups. By understanding these metrics, you can better manage your users and groups to optimize billing.

• Monthly Active Users (MAU)

  A user is considered active (MAU) if any real-time or backend API operations are performed on that user within a monthly billing cycle. For example, establishing a real-time connection, sending or receiving messages, making or receiving calls, etc. For on-premise deployments, all messaging, calls, backend operations are free as they go through your own servers. The user is counted as one MAU regardless of how many operations are performed within the billing cycle.

• Concurrent Users (or peak connections or simultaneous connection)

  There is no limit on concurrent users in an on-premise deployment. In Cloud deployment, the concurrent user limit will be 10% of the MAU. In our experience, simultaneous users are generally less than 5% of MAU and hence you are unlikely to cross that limit. However, in case you cross the 10% limit, it will be compensated by billing you for MAU = ( concurrent users X 10).

• Total Users

  There is no limit on the total number of users you can create. Since we do not charge for the total users, an app can misuse and load the system by creating unlimited users without any active users. Hence to avoid misuse and to ensure fair usage, we require that your monthly active users (MAU) should be at least 25% of the total users, if not more. If your MAU are less than 25%, MAU will be counted at least (total users x 25)/100.

• Total Groups

  There is no limit on the total number of groups you can create. However, for the cloud deployment, the number of groups should not exceed four times the monthly active users (MAU). This is a practical and generous limit only to prevent misuse by any app creating unlimited groups without any active users (generally an app shouldn't require more groups than the active users). In case, the total groups exceed 4 times the MAU, the MAU will be counted at least (total groups / 4). There is no such limit on on-premise deployment.

Realtime Bandwidth

This section helps you understand bandwidth consumption. While mesibo does not charge for bandwidth when using on-premise, this information will assist in managing your server infrastructure. For cloud deployments, mesibo charges for bandwidth as described above. Following are some of the few quantities contributes to bandwidth

• Messages

  mesibo does not charge for number of one-to-one or group messages. Instead, mesibo charges for bandwidth consumed in sending and receiving messages. You can view statistics of your traffic and storage usage in mesibo console.

• Real-time Connection

  A real-time connection is counted every time when your client connects to mesibo server. Your client may connect multiple times in a day because of the way mobile operating systems work. When the screen goes OFF on your mobile device, Android and iOS usually move apps to sleep state within some duration and then disconnect all the network connections to conserve system resources and battery life. Hence, apps will need to reconnect when they come out of the sleep state. While mesibo client API takes care of reconnection and your app doesn't have to do anything extra, it is worth knowing why it happens and protocol/encryption overheads associated with it.

• TLS and End-to-End encryption overhead

  There is an overhead associated with the secure encrypted connection (TLS) and End-to-End encryption. On an average, TLS cost is approximately 3.5KB to 6KB for the initial handshake, and approximately tens of bytes for TLS record headers plus padding on each outgoing message. For most apps, this is a small percentage of your traffic. However, it can grow large if your client makes frequent connections for a short duration. This shouldn't contribute a lot to overall traffic, however it can be a substantial if your client connects frequently for the short duration.

• Protocol overhead

  There is additional bandwidth overhead from signaling and protocol operations, such as initiating group calls, establishing one-on-one calls, synchronizing user profiles and message histories, generating URL previews for shared links, and other similar functionality.

Realtime Storage

This section helps you understand realtime database storage.

• Message Storage

  mesibo uses cut-through switching to deliver your messages in real-time with minimum latency. However, if the destination is not online, mesibo stores the messages till the user is online. If you decide not to save the messages in the database, you can do so by setting a flag while sending messages using Real-time APIs.

• Message Retention

  mesibo offers an unlimited message retention period, only limited by the storage quota and usage. You can anytime clear storage from the mesibo console or by using Backend APIs.

• Users, Groups, Profiles and other data

  In addition to messages, mesibo also stores users, groups, profiles, location, call logs, etc, that contributes to database usage.

Audio/Video calling

Audio and Video calling minutes are unlimited in both free and paid plans. Typically, 5 to 8 messages are exchanged to setup or re-connect a voice or a video call. In addition to that, minimal messages are exchanged from each end every few seconds to keep call alive, exchange quality and control information etc. The bandwidth consumed by those messages will be counted in your billing (approx ~50 Kbytes). There are no other charges for the duration of the call or the bandwidth unless you use our TURN (relay) service.

Backend API Invocations

Each backend API invocation is counted when your server sends a backend API request to the mesibo server. There is absolutely no limit on the number of backend API invocations or any kind of rate limit when invoked for creating new users, new groups, and adding new members, subject to your account balance and validity. However, for any other operations, the number of monthly invocations should not exceed ten times the number of monthly active users (MAU). This is a practical and generous limit only to prevent misuse by any app sending unlimited requests (for example, to keep getting tokens from backend APIs instead of saving them locally). In such case, the total invocations exceeding 10 times the MAU, the MAU will be counted at least (total invocations / 10). This limit does not apply to on-premise deployment for group and messaging operations. Also, there are no charges for monthly up to 1000 invocations for free accounts and 10,000 invocations for paid accounts, irrespective of MAU.

Charges & Billing Cycle

Your account will be charged at the Pay-As-You-Go rates described in the pricing table above. The usage charges start from the billing date and consist of charges for all the chargeable resources consumed in a calendar month. All the pricing and charges are in US dollars ($).

Cancellation Policy

You may cancel this PAYG subscription at any time by stop using it. There is no refund of the credit balance.

Support

We have a great support team if you have any specific questions. You can reach us at https://mesibo.com/support

Pricing FAQ

Q: How much does the mesibo costs?

Mesibo is free to start. Mesibo gives you free Credits worth $50 on sign-up which is valid for 30 days. After that, Mesibo offers you Pay as you go pricing for both its On-Premise and Cloud offerings. That means you only pay for the services you consume, and once you stop using them, there are no charges or termination fees. Refer to the Mesibo pricing page to know more about pricing.

Q: Is there any agreement that we have to sign to use mesibo?

There is a Master Service Agreement / Terms document available which is applicable to all the mesibo users. You or mesibo will not require to sign (e-sign or physically), accept, or otherwise agree to any other documentation to use mesibo services.

Q: What are the limits on free tier usage?

The free tier/credits are offered for evaluation only and hence there are fair usage limits.

• Free credits MUST be used for development only and not for commercial usage.
• To avoid abuse, free credits are spread across the evaluation period and hence there are limits on daily usage.
• There are limits on the number of users, groups, group members, and group call duration. However, these limits are reasonable and will not hamper you from evaluating any of the mesibo features.

Q: What is 'Monthly Active Users' (MAU)?

Monthly Active User (MAU) represents the unique monthly active users for a monthly billing cycle.

MAU is counted only when a user connects to a mesibo server (cloud or on-premise) within a monthly billing cycle, sends a message or a message is received for the user, or any real-time or backend API operations are performed on the user, for example, create, edit, group membership, etc. In the case of on-premise, all messages and real-time API operations are performed through your server and hence not charged for. To further clarify, it will be only counted as one even for multiple operations within a monthly billing cycle.

Q: What is Concurrent Users (peak connections/simultaneous connection)?

Concurrent Users is a metric of the maximum users connected to the mesibo server at the same time at any given moment. Typically, CU is 10% of daily active users (DAU) which is typically 50% of MAU. However, these metrics vary between apps depending on the nature of the app. Calculating and watching CU will help you determine the right mesibo plan for your app today and in the future.

Concurrent users are also referred to as peak or simultaneous connections.

Q: How are the monthly active users (MAU) counted when utilizing the mesibo multi-device feature?

mesibo multi-device feature allows your users to log in from multiple devices (app or web) simultaneously and automatically sync messages, calls, etc between them. This offers your users a consistent and seamless experience across all devices. If the multi-device feature is used, mesibo needs to maintain a real-time connection and sync database from each device and hence each additional device will be counted as a separate MAU.

If your application doesn’t require the multi-device feature, your users can still log in from multiple devices without incurring extra charges for additional users. In this scenario, when a user logs in from a new device, the connection from other devices will be terminated, allowing the user to maintain only one active connection at a time.

Q: What is Message Rate Limit?

Message rate limit (throttling) is referred to as a total number of messages that can be sent by all your users in any given second. Typically, a message rate/second for an application like WhatsApp is 0.05% of MAU (based on public stats). mesibo assigned much higher rate limit than that so you should encounter rate limit only in rare circumstances.

Q: Do Voice and Video call quality differ in FREE and PAYG Plan?

Absolutely not - quality remains the same whether you are in free or a premium plan.

Q: I will be using TURN servers. How much the TURN server cost for a 60-minutes call?

The mesibo charges only for the TURN bandwidth and not per-minute usage. The reason is that the TURN server is only active for a short duration, and hence it is not fair to charge for the entire call duration. Generally, the TURN server is active during the call initialization and then becomes inactive once the peer-to-peer connection is established. Hence, you will only be charged for bandwidth consumed during the active duration. The active duration can be longer if the participants are behind no-cooperative NATs/firewalls or can be a fraction of the total duration (say 30 seconds for a 60-minute call).

The bandwidth consumption depends upon the call quality and the active duration. Typically an HD (720p) call for 100 minutes will consume around 1 GB of bandwidth per participant. A non-HD call for 250 minutes consumes around 1GB per participant. Hence, depending on your call quality and TURN active duration, you can estimate the TURN bandwidth and the cost. You can use the mesibo console to monitor TURN usage and charges.

Q: Is there any limitation on the number of applications, users, or groups? What happens if I exceed the limitations?

There are no limitations once you are a paid user. However, mesibo has intelligent algorithms to detect unfair usage and abuse patterns and in such conditions, requests from your users may be throttled.

The free trial has a limitation on the number of users and groups.

Q: Are there any feature differences between the PAYG and FREE plan?

No, all the features are available in all the plans.

Q: What happens if my apps exceed the credits?

We usually do not throttle your app immediately, unless in extreme situations. We will send you an email and also inform your backend using the webhook when your app usage exceeds available credits. We will throttle or temporarily disable your app only if you do not take any action in 24 hours even after these notifications. We will further wait for 7 more days before we delete your data.

Q: How do I know how much I am spending?

The Mesibo console is the best way to keep a tab on your usage and charges. The Mesibo console is updated at regular intervals with the usage and corresponding charges.

Q: How do I know which pricing plan is right for me?

You are free to use Mesibo APIs and Services, within free tier limits for testing and development. Our demo apps and source code is an ideal testing ground for you to evaluate what Mesibo can do for you. You can move to the PAYG plan once your evaluation completes or the free tier limit expires, whichever is early.

Q: Do I need to change my app if I move from free to PAYG plan?

Absolutely not! There are zero changes to the way you deploy your application or use our APIs irrespective of you are using our free or PAYG plan.

Q: What kind of support do you receive in PAYG vs Free plan?

We have 24-hour support and monitoring available from our Singapore and United States offices. For any queries, you can contact us via email at support@mesibo.com.

Q: Do you offer Educational discounts?

Yes, refer to the next question.

Q: How to avail of free offer for students, educational institutes and non-profit organizations?

mesibo is completely free for educational and research institutes, students, non-profit organizations, or other non-commercial apps for a good cause.

To avail of this offer, your app must be completely non-commercial (no charges, no ads), must not use other commercial paid services, and must attribute mesibo for the mesibo services your app is using on all the key screens. You may also need to use mesibo on-premise.

To prevent misuse of our free offer, your mesibo account must use your educational institute or non-profit organization’s email address (not the free or alumni email address). We will also require proof(s) of current affiliation with the educational institute or non-profit organization.

Once your app is ready and live on respective app stores, send us a link to review. If all is good, we will mark your app for free usage.

Q: What Payment Methods do you accept?

Our payment service provider accepts credit cards and GPay. We also accept Wire Transfers to our bank in Singapore for the larger payment (you need to be an existing paid user for making wire transfers).

Q: How long are mesibo credits valid?

The credit validity varies from 30 days to 1 year depending on the payment amount. You will see the exact validity on the payment screen when you initiate a payment and also in your invoice. You can also check validity in Mesibo Console, under “My Account -> Payment History”. Your unused credits do not carry forward and they will be invalid after the validity period.

Q: Can you extend the validity of my mesibo credits?

When you buy credits, we allocate system resources for you to ensure that you have the highest level of service experience using mesibo. Since we have already allocated resources for you, we are unable to extend the validity of your credits. If you require longer validity, we recommend buying credits for a larger amount which gives you the longest duration of validity.

Q: How do I get invoices or receipts for my payments?

Mesibo sends a payment receipt after receiving each of your payments. The payment receipt is sent automatically to the account email address. Please note that we will not send payment receipts to any other email addresses (even if you request them). The payment receipt will have the following information.

• If you make a payment via wire transfer, the payment receipt will have the amount received, the name of your company (as provided by you), address (as provided by you), mesibo account email address, and mesibo account ID.
• For credit card payments, it will have the amount received, the mesibo account email address, and the mesibo account ID.
• We do not generate invoices or send any other documents.

Additionally, all your payment information is available in Mesibo Console, under “My Account -> Payment History” with the payment date and the amount. You can take a print of it if you need it for your records. We do not provide any additional or duplicate invoices other than those sent automatically.