Ably Realtime
Ably Realtime scores 87/100 on xpay's Agent-Ready Index v2: partial pricing visibility; self-serve checkout is available; a public API exists with documentation; usage-based / per-token pricing is published; a free entry path exists.
Ably Realtime pricing
Free
Free
foreverStandard
$29/mo
flatPro
$399/mo
flatEnterprise
Contact sales
How Ably Realtime scores on the agent-ready dimensions
Public pricing visibility
15 / 15
Self-serve checkout
15 / 15
Public API + docs
18 / 20
Usage-based / metered pricing
20 / 20
Free entry path
7 / 7
No sales call required
7 / 7
Card / wallet / x402 payment
5 / 6
Machine-readable bonus (MCP / OpenAPI)
0 / 10
Total
87 / 100
What it actually costs at typical scale
Free tier usage within limits
$0/mo
Standard tier with moderate usage
$59/mo
Pro tier with high usage
$649/mo
Can an autonomous agent transact here?
Can create account
Can enter payment method
Can upgrade plan
Can buy more usage
Can cancel online
Payment methods
Human approval recommended
Pricing transparency
full
Purchase motion
self_serve
Demo required
Quote required
Annual commit required
Auto-renewal mentioned
Cancellation policy visible
Refund policy visible
Invoice payment available
Unknown
Purchase orders supported
Unknown
MSA required
Unknown
DPA available
Security review required
Unknown
Trial
Available, no card
API & developer surface
API-first product
Sandbox present
Unknown
Webhooks
MCP mentioned
Trust & compliance
Certifications
SSO / SAML
RBAC
Unknown
Audit logs
Data residency
Positioning & ecosystem
“Pricing built for scale”
Buyer persona
Six-step check: can an agent actually buy from Ably Realtime?
Discover price
Select a plan
Pay per task
Avoid a sales call
API docs without auth
Estimate cost upfront
Pros and cons for AI agents
Observational summary written by xpay from the signals captured on 2026-05-06. Not a review of the product — only of its current pricing posture for agent buyers.- Pricing is publicly visible on an indexable page — agents can read tiers without scraping past auth.
- Every advertised tier is self-serve; no tier requires scheduling a call.
- No per-unit price was advertised, so an agent has no way to estimate the cost of a single task.
- API documentation is gated or absent; an agent cannot inspect the integration surface without authentication.
- No /.well-known/ai-pricing.json or equivalent machine-readable pricing manifest is published — agents must rely on HTML scraping.
How Ably Realtime could lift its score
Add at least one self-serve paid tier with a checkout link, so an agent can pay without a sales call.
| pricing_visible | true |
| headline_phrasing | Pricing built for scale — Choose the model that suits you best. |
| tier_count | 6 |
| lowest_paid_entry_usd | 29 |
| free_tier | false |
| free_tier_terms | null |
| per_unit_price | $0.25 / GiBLimitsMax message |
| annual_required | false |
| self_serve_paid_tiers | 0 |
| sales_only_tiers | 1 |
| public_api_docs_url | https://ably.com/docs |
| api_docs_auth_walled | false |
| ai_pricing_json_present | false |
| agents_txt_present | false |
| anonymous_purchase_path | false |
| per_unit_classification | {"unit_class":"message","confidence":"medium","agent_task_price_forecastable":"yes","rejected_reason":null,"evidence_text":"$0.25 / GiBLimitsMax message"} |
| usage_headline_present | false |
| custom_tier_present | true |
| agent_friendly | {"ai_pricing_json":false,"agents_txt":false,"llms_txt":true,"sitemap_xml":false,"mcp_server_card":false,"agent_skills_index":false,"x402_supported":false} |
View raw extracted page text →
Claim this scorecard & lift your score.
Get the breakdown of every signal we measured, the one-line fix, and how your peers in Application Development stack up.
Compare the agent-ready picks in Application Development.
If you're building or running an AI agent that needs to buy from this category, see who's scoring highest right now.
See agent-ready picksAbly Realtime
87
/ 100 (rubric v2.0)Application Development
Pricing built for scale — Choose the model that suits you best.
6
No
$29/mo
$0.25 / GiBLimitsMax message
0 / 1
Public
No
Not published
2026-05-09
Tier-based subscription
Ably Realtime pricing starts at $0/mo for the Free plan; paid plans from $29/mo (Standard) to $399/mo (Pro), with usage fees of $2.50 per million messages and $1.00 per million connection or channel minutes. Billed monthly.
Free plan (Free)
Discovery files and protocols
Side-channel signals — informational, not part of the score. Each protocol is independent; adoption signals the publisher is thinking about agent buyers.ai-pricing.json
agents.txt
llms.txt
sitemap.xml
MCP Server Card
Agent Skills
x402 / MPP
Compare Ably Realtime with peers
Highest-scoring companies in the same category that an AI agent might evaluate as an alternative.Catalyst by Zoho
85
Vercel
83
Firebase
81
KintoHub
81
Retool
71
Appwrite
71
Gadget
69
Mobincube
69
Explore the Agent-Ready SaaS Index
25,480+ SaaS scored on agent-buyability — browse by readiness band, category, or jump straight to a pay-per-run tool on xpay.tools.