What Changed on OneSignal’s Free Plan in 2026, and Does It Affect Web Push?

OneSignal’s Free plan changed in 2026: it now limits mobile push and in-app messaging to organisations with up to 1,000 monthly active users (MAU), from September 1 for new customers and October 1 for existing ones. Web push and email keep working under the existing Free plan limits, so website-only senders are mostly unaffected.

I track OneSignal’s pricing closely because it’s the default choice for many websites. So when the OneSignal free plan change was announced, my first question was simple: does it touch web push? The short answer is no, not directly. In this post I explain what changed, who is affected, and what website owners should check. Everything here comes from OneSignal’s own announcement, its billing FAQ and its pricing page, checked on November 1, 2026.

What is the OneSignal free plan change in 2026?

The OneSignal free plan change adds a 1,000 MAU cap for mobile push and in-app messaging, while adding features to the Free plan. OneSignal published the notice on September 1, 2026. It applies per organisation, so the MAU from all apps in one organisation is added together.

At the same time, OneSignal moved several features down into Free. According to the announcement, Free now includes OneSignal AI capabilities, 3 Journeys with unlimited message steps, and more Data Tags. The Growth plan also gets 5 Journeys at no extra cost.

Key facts at a glance

• Announced: September 1, 2026, on the OneSignal blog.
• New organisations: the 1,000 MAU limit applies from September 1, 2026.
• Existing Free customers: the limit applies from October 1, 2026.
• Channels capped: mobile push and in-app messaging (Live Activities also show the same cap on the pricing page).
• Channels not capped by MAU: web push, email and SMS, which keep their existing plan limits.

Does the OneSignal free plan change affect web push?

No, the MAU cap doesn’t apply to web push. OneSignal’s billing FAQ states that web push, email and SMS subscriptions do not count toward MAU. It also says that if you go over 1,000 MAU, “other channels continue to work, including web push notifications”, within the same plan limits as before.

However, web push on Free was already limited before this change. The pricing page lists Free web push as “Max 10,000 subscribers per send”. That cap is unchanged. So a site with 50,000 web push subscribers still can’t reach all of them in one send on Free.

In short, if you only use OneSignal for website notifications, your day-to-day sending works the same way it did in August.

Who is affected by the new 1,000 MAU limit?

Organisations on the Free plan that send mobile app push or in-app messages to more than 1,000 monthly active users are affected. That mainly means app publishers, not website owners.

A few details from the billing FAQ matter here:

• MAU means mobile only: iOS, Android, Huawei, Amazon, macOS, Windows and Chrome Extension subscriptions count. Web push does not.
• It’s a trailing 30-day count: for the Free limit, MAU is measured over the last 30 days, not your billing cycle.
• Each device counts: one person on two devices counts as 2 MAU.
• It’s per organisation: MAU from every app in the organisation is summed.

So a publisher with a website and a small companion app should check the app’s MAU, even if the website is the main channel.

What happens if you go over 1,000 MAU on Free?

If you go over 1,000 MAU, mobile push and in-app messages pause until you upgrade. OneSignal says you get 24 hours to upgrade after crossing the limit before sending stops.

Here’s how the process works, based on OneSignal’s documentation:

1. OneSignal notifies you as you approach the limit (the blog mentions 75%, 90% and 100%; the FAQ mentions 80%, 90% and 100%).
2. Once you cross 1,000 MAU, you have 24 hours to upgrade.
3. If you don’t upgrade, mobile push and in-app messages stop sending. Journeys skip mobile push and in-app steps.
4. Web push, email and SMS keep working within Free plan limits.
5. Deleting mobile subscriptions doesn’t fix it right away. You need to stay under 1,000 MAU for 30 days before sending re-enables.

That last point catches people out. Because the count is a trailing 30 days, you can’t simply delete users and send again the same afternoon.

What does upgrading cost after the change?

Upgrading means moving to Growth, which starts at $19 a month plus usage. According to OneSignal’s pricing page, checked November 1, 2026, Growth charges $0.012 per mobile MAU and $0.004 per web push subscriber. Professional and Enterprise plans are custom annual contracts.

For a mobile app with 5,000 MAU, that works out to about $19 + (5,000 × $0.012) = $79 a month on Growth, before tax. For web push, the subscriber charge only applies if you upgrade. I worked through web push numbers at 100k and 1M subscribers in a separate post on OneSignal cost per subscriber.

What should website owners do now?

Website-only users don’t need to do anything because of this change. Still, it’s a good moment to check whether Free fits your list size. Here’s the checklist I’d run:

1. Check your organisation’s MAU: open the Organizations page in the OneSignal dashboard. If you never added the mobile SDK, it should be zero.
2. Count your web push subscribers: if you’re above 10,000, remember that each send on Free reaches at most 10,000 of them.
3. Review data retention: on Free, OneSignal keeps subscription records active in the past 18 months, and analytics for 30 days.
4. Estimate Growth costs: multiply your web subscribers by $0.004 and add $19 a month.
5. Compare pricing models: per-subscriber SaaS, free with ads, and one-time self-hosted licences each scale differently. My push notification pricing models guide explains the trade-offs.

If you decide the change is a reason to look around, my list of the best free push notification services shows the real free limits of each option.

Is this the end of OneSignal’s free web push?

No. Based on the current pricing page, OneSignal still offers web push on its Free plan, with the 10,000-subscribers-per-send cap. The company describes the change as making more features available while “aligning plans with the scale of platform use”.

That said, pricing pages change. Free plans are a business decision, not a promise. So if push is a core traffic channel for you, it makes sense to know your exit options before you need them. I explain what actually happens to subscribers when you switch or a provider closes in what happens to your subscribers when a push provider shuts down.

Where does LaraPush fit?

LaraPush is a self-hosted web push panel, so it isn’t affected by OneSignal’s plan rules at all. You pay once, from $499 (see LaraPush pricing for the current price), and install it on your own VPS. There’s no per-subscriber or per-MAU fee, and subscribers, campaigns and API calls are unlimited.

The trade-offs are real, though. There’s no free plan, you run and maintain the server, and one licence covers one server. LaraPush also focuses on web push, not native mobile app push. So if your main need is mobile push for an app, the MAU change is the one to plan around, and LaraPush isn’t the direct replacement. For a side-by-side view, see the OneSignal vs LaraPush comparison, or browse the full feature list.

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