# Restate review (2026): is the free plan enough? > Durable execution runtime for backends and AI agents Checked Nov 13, 2026 ยท graded Nov 13, 2026 by ToolGPA. Restate is a durable execution runtime that keeps functions, workflows and agent loops running across failures by journaling each step. It is open source and can be run on your own servers, or used as Restate Cloud, a managed service billed by durable actions, with a bring-your-own-cloud option. - **Category:** Automation - **Made by:** Restate - **Website:** https://restate.dev - **Runs on:** Web - **Who should skip it:** Skip it if you don't write backend code. - **Facts last checked:** Nov 13, 2026 ## Pricing As of Nov 13, 2026, Restate has a free plan, and paid plans start at $75 per month for 5M actions. - **Pricing model:** Free plan - **Free plan:** 100k durable actions a month with community support, no credit card required. - **Free trial:** None listed. | Plan | Price | What you get | | --- | --- | --- | | Free | $0 | 100k actions a month, 10 actions per second, 1 GB virtual object storage, 1-day history, community support. | | Starter | $75 per month for 5M actions; billing basis not stated | 50 actions per second, 5 GB storage, 3-day history, 99.9% SLA. Extra actions $25 per million. | | Business | $300 per month for 20M actions; billing basis not stated | 200 actions per second, 20 GB storage, 7-day history, email support. Extra actions $25 per million. | | Premium | $1,000 per month for 50M actions; billing basis not stated | 500 actions per second, 50 GB storage, 30-day history, dedicated Slack channel. Extra actions $15 per million. | | Enterprise | Custom | Custom volume, up to hundreds of thousands of actions per second, 99.99% SLA, 24/7 P0 support, legal review. | Read from https://restate.dev/pricing on Nov 13, 2026. Prices change, so confirm with Restate before buying. ## Ways to pay less - **Startup and high-volume discounts on request** (Startups): The pricing FAQ says higher tiers include volume discounts and that startups should get in touch to ask about discounts. Source: https://restate.dev/pricing ## Key features - **Durable actions:** The unit of billing is a durable action: a call, completion, step, sleep, awakeable, RPC, promise or state access. Each started 64KiB of payload adds one. - **Virtual objects:** Stateful virtual objects keep their data in Restate, with storage included per plan and extra billed at $0.50 per GB a month. - **Bring your own cloud:** BYOC runs the managed service inside your own cloud account and VPC, so data stays in your infrastructure. - **Self-hosting:** The Restate server is open source under a license that allows production use, and can be run for free. - **Security options:** A HIPAA BAA is available for $300 on the higher plans, and SAML SSO and SCIM are listed for the top tiers. ## Good for - Backend teams that need workflows and agents to survive crashes and restarts - Teams that want to start free and self-host the open source server ## Worth knowing - Throughput is rate-limited per plan, with burst headroom, and actions past the allotment are billed as overage. - Multi-AZ redundancy and a HIPAA BAA cost extra: $200 to $500 and $300 respectively. - The Free plan has no overage option and keeps only 1 day of history. - The pricing page does not say whether the monthly prices are billed monthly or annually. ## ToolGPA grades **GPA: 2.0 out of 4**, graded Nov 13, 2026. Restate is durable execution for backend code, priced by durable actions. The free plan gives 100,000 actions a month and 1 day of history with no overage option; Starter is $75 for 5 million, and multi-AZ and HIPAA are extra. - **Value for money: C.** Starter is $75 a month for 5M actions, Business $300 for 20M and Premium $1,000 for 50M. The page doesn't say whether billing is monthly or annual. - **Free plan and trial: B.** Free plan: 100k durable actions a month, no card, though only 1 day of history and no overage option. - **Features: C.** Durable workflows and agents. Throughput is rate-limited per plan; multi-AZ redundancy and a HIPAA BAA cost extra. - **Ease of use: D.** No store rating on record. It's a code-level service for backend developers. - **Platforms and integrations: C.** Web console on the listing, with no integrations named. These are ToolGPA's own grades. Graded from this listing, whose facts were read from Restate's own pages on 13 November 2026. Not based on using the product, and shorter than our full reviews. ## Where it stands among automation tools - Restate's GPA of 2.0 is higher than 26 of the 134 other automation tools we grade, and level with 27. - It stands best on free plan and trial (B, above 100 of 134) and worst on ease of use (D, above 0). - Its paid plans start at $75 a month, against a middle price of $22.17 for the category: 50 of the 65 others that charge start lower. - On features, ease of use and platforms it scores 1.7 out of 4. 57 tools score higher and cost less. The category's chart of price against score: https://toolgpa.com/charts/automation ## Keep it, or make your own? **Keep it.** To replace Restate you would be making connections to other products, each kept working as those products change. That is not a weekend's work, with an AI app builder or without one. That makes this kind of software worth paying for, not this one in particular: 81 of the 134 other automation tools grade higher. It costs $900 a year. Restate is open source, so there is a third way: take its code and run it yourself. - You could not: Connections to other products, each kept working as those products change. - You could not: An AI agent, with the models and the safeguards behind it. - You could not: What a company asks for before it lets staff use something: single sign-on, SCIM and HIPAA. A judgement by ToolGPA from this listing, by rules that are the same for every tool. Nothing was built to test it. **Tags:** Workflow automation, AI agents, Open source, Self-hostable ## Alternatives - [Hatchet](https://toolgpa.com/tools/hatchet): Open-source task queue and durable workflow engine. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/hatchet-vs-restate) - [Inngest](https://toolgpa.com/tools/inngest): Durable execution for background jobs, event-driven apps and agents. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/inngest-vs-restate) - [Trigger.dev](https://toolgpa.com/tools/trigger-dev): Open-source platform for long-running background tasks and AI agents. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/restate-vs-trigger-dev) - [Camunda](https://toolgpa.com/tools/camunda): BPMN process orchestration, self-hosted or as a cloud service. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/camunda-vs-restate) - [Prefect](https://toolgpa.com/tools/prefect): Python workflow orchestration with an open-source core and a cloud. [Compare](https://toolgpa.com/compare/prefect-vs-restate) ## Sources The prices, plans, platforms and features above were read from these pages on Nov 13, 2026: - https://restate.dev/pricing - https://restate.dev/ Page: https://toolgpa.com/tools/restate Listed by ToolGPA (toolgpa.com).