Novu vs Pushwoosh
An independent, review-free comparison compiled by the SaaSTracker editorial team. Both products are profiled in full, and neither can pay for placement here.
Still shortlisting? Browse the best in Notification Infrastructure for every option we track, with award winners called out.
The short answer
Both sides assessedNovu compared with Pushwoosh
Pushwoosh is a hosted consumer engagement platform, free up to 1,000 MAU and then $7 or $13 per 1,000 MAU, that runs its own mobile and web push delivery and gives marketers a journey builder; Novu stays the better fit for developers who want open-source, self-hostable notification infrastructure with an in-app inbox inside a SaaS product.
Pushwoosh compared with Novu
Novu is open source and self-hostable, with a free cloud tier and Pro at $30 a month, and it is built for developers wiring an in-app inbox, preferences, and multi-provider routing into their own product. Pushwoosh is a hosted engagement platform that runs its own push delivery and gives marketers a journey builder. Choose Novu for developer-owned notification infrastructure in a SaaS product; choose Pushwoosh for consumer app push and lifecycle campaigns.
Choose Novu if
Engineering teams who want notification infrastructure they can read, fork, and self-host if they need to, and small companies who want a real paid plan at $30 a month rather than a $250 floor.
Choose Pushwoosh if
Consumer mobile apps and content or ecommerce websites (games, media, delivery, fintech, subscription apps) that want mobile and web push, in-app messages, and lifecycle journeys on one predictable per-MAU bill, with a genuinely usable free tier up to 1,000 monthly active users.
Side by side
16 attributes| Attribute | Novu | Pushwoosh |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Notifications | Notifications |
| Starting price | $0 (Free or self-hosted), then $30 per month (Pro) | $0 up to 1,000 MAU, then $7 per 1,000 MAU (Push only, limited offer) or $13 per 1,000 MAU (Omnichannel) |
| Pricing model | Usage-based on workflow runs (one run per triggered workflow regardless of how many channels it fans out to), with a free tier, two published paid tiers, quoted enterprise pricing, and a free open-source self-hosted option. | Pay-as-you-go, metered on monthly active users (anyone messaged on any channel in the month, deduplicated by user ID). Free up to 1,000 MAU. Three self-serve plans differ only by channel: Push only, Omnichannel, and Email only. No feature gating between plans. Custom plan once the estimated bill exceeds $3,000 a month. No annual toggle is published. |
| Free plan | 10,000 workflow runs per month, up to 20 workflows, two environments, three team members, and 24 hours of activity feed retention, across every channel. | Free while the project stays within 1,000 monthly active users, with every feature included and no credit card required. |
| Free trial | No time-limited trial; the free cloud plan and the open-source distribution both serve as evaluation paths | No |
| Best for | Engineering teams who want notification infrastructure they can read, fork, and self-host if they need to, and small companies who want a real paid plan at $30 a month rather than a $250 floor. | Consumer mobile apps and content or ecommerce websites (games, media, delivery, fintech, subscription apps) that want mobile and web push, in-app messages, and lifecycle journeys on one predictable per-MAU bill, with a genuinely usable free tier up to 1,000 monthly active users. |
| Setup time | An afternoon for a cloud integration with the Inbox component. Self-hosting is a different project: a day or two to a working Docker deployment and considerably longer to something a team would trust in production, with MongoDB and Redis to operate afterwards. | The vendor says the SDK integrates in about 15 minutes and a typical production rollout, including importing users and gathering push subscribers, takes 2 to 10 days. Web push can go live with a snippet, npm package, or Google Tag Manager plus a hosted service worker. |
| Learning curve | Low for engineers. Subscribers, workflows, steps, and providers are clean concepts and the CLI quickstart gets a first notification flowing in minutes. Workflows as code is the part teams take longest to adopt, because it changes who owns a message change. | Moderate. Sending a campaign is quick, but the Customer Journey Builder, RFM segments, Liquid templates, and event taxonomy take a few weeks to use well. Marketers can run most of it without code once developers have instrumented events. |
| Platforms | Web dashboard, REST API, CLI, React Inbox component, Self-hosted via Docker or Kubernetes, Private cloud deployment | iOS, Android (FCM, Huawei HMS, Amazon ADM), Web push (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, Opera, Samsung Internet), iOS and iPadOS PWAs (Safari 16.4+), Flutter, React Native, Unity, Cordova, Expo, MAUI .NET, OutSystems SDKs, Web dashboard |
| Compliance | SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA support | ISO 27001:2022, SOC 2 Type 2, HIPAA, GDPR and ePrivacy, EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (with UK extension and Swiss DPF) |
| Founded | 2021 | 2014 |
| Headquarters | Tel Aviv, Israel | Fairfax, Virginia, United States (contact address in the website privacy policy); fully distributed team |
| Ownership | Venture-backed, open-source core | Not disclosed on the vendor site |
| Free tier volume | 10,000 workflow runs per month | Up to 1,000 monthly active users, all features, no card |
| First paid tier | $30 per month (Pro) | $7 per 1,000 MAU (Push only, limited offer); $13 per 1,000 MAU (Omnichannel) |
| Self-hosting | Yes, open source and self-hostable | Not self-serve; private cloud and on-premise options through enterprise sales |
Strengths and limitations
Novu
Strengths
- Genuinely open source with a self-hostable core, which is the only real answer in this batch to data sovereignty, embedding, and vendor risk concerns.
- Pro at $30 a month is the cheapest meaningful paid tier among developer notification tools and fills the gap Knock's plan structure leaves wide open.
- The workflow-run meter is cheaper than per-message billing for any notification that fans out to more than one channel.
- The React Inbox component ships a real-time notification centre with preferences, snooze, and quiet hours in an afternoon, with a headless option for teams that want their own UI.
Limitations
- Self-hosting is free in licence terms only; running MongoDB, Redis, and the surrounding services is a permanent operational cost that small teams routinely underestimate.
- The free plan's 20-workflow, 2-environment, and 3-seat caps constrain growing teams before the run count does.
- Multi-tenancy, per-customer branding, and enterprise access controls are less developed than Knock's, which matters for B2B products with tenant-specific configuration.
- Small company on $7M raised holding a critical path position, mitigated but not eliminated by the open-source licence.
Pushwoosh
Strengths
- One transparent meter (monthly active users) with no feature gating: journeys, segmentation, A/B testing, analytics, API, and the AI copilot are on every plan, including the free one.
- Broad device reach from a single integration, including Huawei HMS and Amazon ADM alongside APNs and FCM, plus web push on every major browser and iOS PWAs.
- Deep segmentation for this price range: real-time behavioral segments, RFM, geo targeting, and one year of event history by default.
- A REST API with dashboard parity, event streaming out, inbound webhooks in, and a hosted MCP server for AI agents.
Limitations
- Marketing-oriented rather than developer-first: there is no published equivalent of the embeddable in-app notification feed and user preference centre that define Knock, Novu, or Courier.
- No annual billing option is published, and the $7 push-only rate is a time-limited offer.
- SMS and WhatsApp are billed by providers on top of the plan, so the true Omnichannel cost depends on channel mix.
- The free tier stops at 1,000 MAU, far below OneSignal's free mobile push allowance.
Pricing compared
Novu
Usage-based on workflow runs (one run per triggered workflow regardless of how many channels it fans out to), with a free tier, two published paid tiers, quoted enterprise pricing, and a free open-source self-hosted option.
- Free$0
- ProFrom $30
- TeamFrom $250
- EnterpriseCustom
Novu is the best-value paid plan in the developer notification category and the only one with a self-hosting escape hatch. Pro at $30 for 30,000 workflow runs is an order of magnitude cheaper than Knock's $250 floor, and the workflow-run meter is more forgiving than a per-message meter the moment you send to more than one channel. At 100,000 runs a month you are paying around $114 against Courier's $500 for a comparable message count. What you give up is maturity: the enterprise controls, multi-tenancy depth, and operational polish of Knock are ahead, the company is small, and self-hosting is only free if your engineers' time is worthless. For teams weighing cost against maturity, Novu is the value pick and Knock is the safe pick.
Pushwoosh
Pay-as-you-go, metered on monthly active users (anyone messaged on any channel in the month, deduplicated by user ID). Free up to 1,000 MAU. Three self-serve plans differ only by channel: Push only, Omnichannel, and Email only. No feature gating between plans. Custom plan once the estimated bill exceeds $3,000 a month. No annual toggle is published.
- Free$0
- Push only$7
- Omnichannel$13
- Email only$5
- CustomCustom
For consumer apps, Pushwoosh is strong value. The free tier is small at 1,000 MAU but complete, and the per-MAU price includes journeys, RFM segmentation, a year of event history, and the API, which competitors often reserve for higher tiers. At 10,000 MAU the push-only plan is $63 a month and Omnichannel is roughly twice that, which undercuts most engagement suites. The value weakens in two places: when SMS and WhatsApp volume matters, because those costs sit outside the plan, and for B2B SaaS teams whose real need is an in-product notification feed and preference centre, where a developer-first router gives more for the money.
Editorial verdict on each
Novu
Best ValueNovu is the value and control pick in developer notification infrastructure. Pro at $30 a month for 30,000 workflow runs undercuts every closed competitor by an order of magnitude, the workflow-run meter is more forgiving than per-message billing the moment a notification touches two channels, and the React Inbox component delivers the thing most teams actually came for in an afternoon. The open-source licence is not decoration: it is the only credible answer in this batch to data sovereignty requirements, to embedding notifications into a product you sell, and to the reasonable worry about putting critical path infrastructure on a company that has raised $7M. The costs are honest ones. Self-hosting is free only if your engineers' time is, multi-tenancy and enterprise controls trail Knock, and there is no marketing surface at all. For a five-person startup that needs an in-app notification feed and digests without a $250 monthly floor, Novu Cloud is the sensible first purchase in this batch, and the ability to self-host later is worth having even if you never use it.
Read the full Novu profilePushwoosh
Pushwoosh is a mature, reasonably priced choice for consumer apps and websites that want push at the center of their lifecycle messaging. Its best qualities are the single MAU meter with nothing gated, delivery reach that includes Huawei and Amazon devices, and segmentation depth (RFM, real-time behavior, a year of event history) that usually costs more elsewhere. At 10,000 monthly active users the push-only plan is $63 a month, and even Omnichannel is modest by engagement-suite standards. Know what it is not: it is not a developer-first notification router with an embeddable feed and preference centre for a SaaS product, there is no annual pricing, the $7 rate is a limited-time offer, and SMS and WhatsApp costs sit outside the plan. Start on the free tier, lock the push-only rate before December 31 if push is your main channel, and look to Knock, Novu, or Courier instead if your notifications live inside a B2B product.
Read the full Pushwoosh profileNovu profile last reviewed 2026-09-07; Pushwoosh last reviewed 2026-09-27. Pricing is compiled from public sources and can change without notice. See our methodology.
The best in Notification Infrastructure
9 trackedNotification infrastructure platforms sit between an application and its delivery providers, turning one API call into orchestrated in-app, email, push, SMS, and chat notifications with batching, digests, preference centres, and per-tenant routing, so product teams stop rebuilding that logic in application code.
Batching, preference centres, and multi-tenancy are first-class rather than roadmap items, and workflows-as-code with environments and rollback makes a notification change a normal deploy.
$30 a month for 30,000 workflow runs, or nothing at all self-hosted, against a category whose next cheapest real plan is $110 and whose leader jumps from free to $250.
Founded in 2022 on roughly $1M, SuprSend shipped nine channels on the free tier, CLI environment promotion, an MCP server, and an Agent SDK while larger rivals were still writing about them.
The delivery planner turns cross-channel escalation into configuration: try in-app, fall back to email only if it goes unread, set as a rule rather than written as application code.
A visual designer that previews every channel on one canvas, and a bill that is $0.005 a send with no seats or channel fees, let a non-developer own the message end to end.
Frequently asked questions
6 questionsWhat is the difference between Novu and Pushwoosh?
Pushwoosh is a hosted consumer engagement platform, free up to 1,000 MAU and then $7 or $13 per 1,000 MAU, that runs its own mobile and web push delivery and gives marketers a journey builder; Novu stays the better fit for developers who want open-source, self-hostable notification infrastructure with an in-app inbox inside a SaaS product.
Is Novu or Pushwoosh cheaper?
Novu starts at $0 (Free or self-hosted), then $30 per month (Pro). Pushwoosh starts at $0 up to 1,000 MAU, then $7 per 1,000 MAU (Push only, limited offer) or $13 per 1,000 MAU (Omnichannel). The billing models differ, so the entry price is rarely the whole cost. Novu pricing model: Usage-based on workflow runs (one run per triggered workflow regardless of how many channels it fans out to), with a free tier, two published paid tiers, quoted enterprise pricing, and a free open-source self-hosted option. Pushwoosh pricing model: Pay-as-you-go, metered on monthly active users (anyone messaged on any channel in the month, deduplicated by user ID). Free up to 1,000 MAU. Three self-serve plans differ only by channel: Push only, Omnichannel, and Email only.
Does Novu or Pushwoosh have a free plan?
Novu has a free plan. 10,000 workflow runs per month, up to 20 workflows, two environments, three team members, and 24 hours of activity feed retention, across every channel. Trial terms: No time-limited trial; the free cloud plan and the open-source distribution both serve as evaluation paths. Pushwoosh has a free plan. Free while the project stays within 1,000 monthly active users, with every feature included and no credit card required.
Who should choose Novu?
Engineering teams who want notification infrastructure they can read, fork, and self-host if they need to, and small companies who want a real paid plan at $30 a month rather than a $250 floor.
Who should choose Pushwoosh?
Consumer mobile apps and content or ecommerce websites (games, media, delivery, fintech, subscription apps) that want mobile and web push, in-app messages, and lifecycle journeys on one predictable per-MAU bill, with a genuinely usable free tier up to 1,000 monthly active users.
What are the best alternatives to Novu and Pushwoosh?
SaaSTracker profiles 9 products in Notification Infrastructure. The Summer 2026 awards in the category went to Knock (Category Leader), SuprSend (Momentum), MagicBell (Innovation). Every profile is compiled from primary sources, so a shortlist can be built from pricing, limitations, and fit rather than from star ratings.
