Catalyst pricing
Quick answer
- 01What is it?
- Catalyst pricing, free tier limits, pay-as-you-go rates, GB-seconds calculation, and cost estimation for functions, storage, and other services. It stands out by giving go-to-market work a defined shape, so the agent asks for better context and returns a more usable result.
- 02Inputs
- Context for go-to-market work: your goals, audience, constraints, and any source material the skill asks for.
- 03Output
- A ready-to-use result for go-to-market work: the analysis, copy, or recommendations the agent produces.
Add this skill
Install as a package
Installs this one skill package for your coding agent, including any supporting files that skill ships with — not every skill in the repository. Read the tutorial.
$ npx skills add catalystbyzoho/agent-skills --skill catalyst-pricingSkill instructions
The instruction file for this skill. The skill also includes other files you need to install to use it.
How It Works
- Load
references/pricing-basics.md— for free tier limits, pay-as-you-go rates, and the GB-seconds formula. - Free tier first — Always present free tier limits before pay-as-you-go rates. Most hobby projects stay within free tier.
- GB-seconds calculation —
(memory in GB) × (execution time in seconds) × (invocation count). Present as a worked example with the user's expected usage. - Estimate honestly — Flag that serverless cost depends on real traffic patterns; give a range rather than a single number.
Triggers
Use this skill for: "pricing", "cost", "free tier", "how much does Catalyst cost", "GB-seconds", "billing", "pay-as-you-go", "subscription model", "trial credits", "$250 credits", "function cost", "storage cost", "will this be free", "Catalyst pricing plans", or "DataStore pricing".
References
| Reference | Load when the query is about… |
|---|---|
references/pricing-basics.md | Free tier limits, pay-as-you-go rates per service, GB-seconds formula, $250 trial credits, subscription vs PAYG |
Supporting file: references/pricing-basics.md
Pricing data last verified: May 2026. Always verify current rates at https://catalyst.zoho.com/pricing.html before quoting estimates to clients.
Overview
- Pay-per-use model with generous monthly free tiers.
- Free trial: New customers get $250 USD in credits, valid for 60 days from the date claimed.
- Minimum billing: $5/project/month once any free tier limit is exceeded.
- No upfront commitments. Subscription option also available.
- Free tier is account-wide (shared across all projects).
Pricing Table (USD)
Serverless
| Component | Unit Price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Functions | $0.000016 | per GB-second |
| Circuits | $0.00002 | per state transition |
| AppSail | $0.08 | per GB-hour |
Data Store
| Operation | Unit Price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| SELECT | $0.00006 | per request |
| INSERT | $0.0001 | per request |
| UPDATE | $0.00008 | per request |
| DELETE | $0.00008 | per request |
| Storage | $0.02 | per GB/month |
Cache
| Operation | Unit Price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| GET | $0.00004 | per request |
| PUT | $0.00006 | per request |
| UPDATE | $0.00006 | per request |
Stratus (Object Storage)
| Operation | Unit Price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Upload | $0.000005 | per request |
| Download | $0.0000004 | per request |
| Storage | $0.02 | per GB/month |
Other Backend
| Component | Unit Price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| API Gateway | $0.000001 | per request |
| Web Client Hosting | $0.0000004 | per request |
| $0.001 | per email | |
| Push Notifications | $0.00002 | per notification |
| Search | $0.00004 | per query |
SmartBrowz
| Operation | Unit Price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Headless Browser | $0.1188 | per hour |
| PDF Conversions | $0.0033 | per PDF |
| BrowserLogic | $0.000002 | per invocation |
DevOps
| Operation | Unit Price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| APM | $0.00002 | per request |
| Automation Testing | $0.005 | per test case |
| Application Alerts | $0.0005 | per alert |
| Pipeline Build & Deploy | $0.00016 | per GB-second |
Zia AI/ML APIs
All Zia operations: $0.001 per request (OCR, Face Analytics, Image Moderation, Object Recognition, Barcode Scanner, AutoML Prediction, Text Analytics)
ConvoKraft
Messages: $0.0006 per message
QuickML
| Operation | Unit Price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Model Inference (0–25K) | $0.0025 | per API call |
| Model Inference (25K–100K) | $0.002 | per API call |
| Model Inference (>100K) | $0.001 | per API call |
| LLM Input Tokens | $0.2 | per million |
| LLM Output Tokens | $0.4 | per million |
Slate
| Operation | Unit Price | Unit |
|---|---|---|
| Build & Deploy | $0.00016 | per GB-second |
| Hosting Storage (CDN) | $0.0001 | per MB |
| Requests (CDN & Origin) | $0.000004 | per request |
| ISR Read | $0.0000003 | per request |
| ISR Write | $0.000003 | per request |
Free Tier (Monthly, Account-Wide)
Serverless
| Component | Free |
|---|---|
| Functions | 25,000 GB-seconds |
| Circuits | 2,000 state transitions |
| AppSail | 15 GB-hours |
Data Store
| Operation | Free |
|---|---|
| SELECT | 10,000 requests |
| INSERT | 5,000 requests |
| UPDATE | 1,000 requests |
| DELETE | 1,000 requests |
| Storage | 5 GB |
Cache
| Operation | Free |
|---|---|
| GET | 1,000 requests |
| PUT | 5,000 requests |
| UPDATE | 5,000 requests |
Other
| Component | Free |
|---|---|
| Stratus Upload | 2,000 requests |
| Stratus Download | 10,000 requests |
| Stratus Storage | 5 GB |
| API Gateway | 100,000 requests |
| Web Client Hosting | 300,000 requests |
| 100 emails | |
| Push Notifications | 500 notifications |
| Search | 1,000 queries |
| SmartBrowz Headless | 5 hours |
| SmartBrowz PDFs | 50 PDFs |
| BrowserLogic | 25,000 GB-seconds |
| Zia APIs (all combined) | 100 calls |
| ConvoKraft Messages | 1,000 messages |
| QuickML Inference | 500 API calls |
| Slate CDN Requests | 300,000 requests |
| Slate Storage | 500 MB |
Billing Rules
- Free tier is account-wide — shared across all projects.
- Minimum $5/project/month once any free tier limit exceeded. If usage = $7 across 2 projects: $7 + $5 = $12.
- Billable = Max(0, Usage - Free Tier). Cost = Billable × Unit Price.
- Free trial credits ($250) applied against invoices. After 180 days, normal billing begins.
GB-Seconds Calculation
GB-seconds = (Memory in MB / 1024) × Execution Time in Seconds × Number of Invocations
Example: 500 invocations, 512 MB, 2 seconds each:
GB-seconds = (512/1024) × 2 × 500 = 500 GB-sec
Cost = (500 - 25,000 free) = 0 billable → $0.00
Cost per invocation at each memory tier (1-second duration)
| Memory (MB) | Cost per invocation | 10K/month | 100K/month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 128 | $0.000002 | $0.02 | $0.20 |
| 256 | $0.000004 | $0.04 | $0.40 |
| 512 | $0.000008 | $0.08 | $0.80 |
| 1024 | $0.000016 | $0.16 | $1.60 |
Key insight: 128 MB is 8× cheaper per second than 1024 MB. Choose the smallest memory that doesn't cause failures.
Typical Monthly Costs
| App Type | Range | Primary Drivers |
|---|---|---|
| Simple web app (< 1K users) | $0–$10 | Within or near free tier |
| API backend (10K req/day) | $5–$50 | Data Store, Functions, API Gateway |
| Data processing (1M rows/mo) | $50–$500 | Data Store writes, Job Scheduling |
| Data processing (100M rows/mo) | $2,000–$30,000+ | Data Store writes dominate |
| ML-powered app | $10–$200 | Zia APIs, QuickML, Data Store |
| Chat application | $5–$50 | ConvoKraft, Functions, Cache |
Cost Estimation Pitfalls
- Processing multiplier — one user action triggers multiple ops. E.g., "save record" = 1 INSERT + 2 SELECTs + 1 Cache PUT + 1 event.
- DataStore is often the dominant cost for data-heavy apps. INSERT at $0.0001/request adds up fast.
- Cache reduces DataStore costs — higher cache hit rate = fewer SELECT calls.
- APM costs scale with executions — at millions of executions, $0.00002/req becomes material.
- Free tier erodes at scale — don't over-optimize for free tier savings in large projections.
INR & Regional Pricing
Catalyst invoices in the currency attached to the credit card:
- US DC → USD, IN DC → INR, EU DC → EUR
For INR rates, visit https://catalyst.zoho.com/pricing.html from an India DC account. All estimates in this skill are in USD. For INR pricing, direct users to the official pricing page.
Common Errors
| Error | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Cost estimate doesn't match invoice | Free tier resets monthly; partial months billed at full rate | Always calculate based on full month usage; free tier is per calendar month |
| INR pricing differs from USD estimate | Separate regional pricing applies to India DC accounts | Direct India DC users to catalyst.zoho.com/pricing.html for accurate INR rates |
| Unexpected GB-seconds charge | Cold start overhead counted toward execution time | Cold starts add ~100–300 ms; factor this in for high-frequency functions |
| Free tier exhausted earlier than expected | Multiple environments (Development + Production) share the same free tier quota | Each Catalyst project counts as one quota pool across all environments |
Common questions
How do I install Catalyst pricing in Cursor, Claude Code, or Codex?
Run npx skills add catalystbyzoho/agent-skills --skill catalyst-pricing in the project where you want it, then ask your agent for the skill by name. The --skill flag installs only Catalyst pricing, not every skill in the repository.
Where does Catalyst pricing come from and what license is it under?
Catalyst pricing comes from the catalystbyzoho/agent-skills repository on GitHub. That repository has 51 GitHub stars. The skill is published under the Apache-2.0 license.
Prefer plain text? Read the Catalyst pricing guide as markdown.