Expo
Expo's free push service: one API call delivers to iOS and Android through Apple and Google for React Native apps.
- Price
- Push is free. Expo's paid plans (builds, updates) start at $19/month.
- Free plan
- Yes
- Setup
- Needs a developer
- Up and running
- Android push in a day; iOS waits on Apple Developer enrollment, which for a company needs a D-U-N-S number.
What Expo is for
If your mobile app is built with Expo (React Native), Expo's push service lets your server send a notification to iPhone and Android with one call. Expo talks to Apple and Google for you, and sending costs nothing.
How it plugs into your product
- 1Join Apple's paid developer program and create a Firebase project; Expo needs both credentials to reach each store's phones.
- 2Add the notifications library to the app and make a development build; the Expo Go test app no longer receives push.
- 3When the user allows notifications, save their Expo push token in your database.
- 4From your server, send up to 100 messages per request and check the delivery receipts 15 minutes later.
Does it fit your idea?
It fits if
- You built your app with Expo and want push on both stores without setting up Apple and Google push by hand.
- A delivery or booking app whose server fires push on events, like 'your order left' or 'your appointment is in 1 hour'.
- You want push at zero cost while the app is small, with no per-user fee.
Look elsewhere if
- Your product is a website: Expo's push only reaches native iOS and Android apps.
- Marketing wants to build segments and campaigns without code: OneSignal has that dashboard.
- Your app isn't built with Expo or React Native: use Firebase Cloud Messaging directly.
What people only find out after building
Read this before you build on it. Each item links to the official page that says so.
Since SDK 53, push doesn't work in the Expo Go test app. You need a development build, which goes through Expo's build service or your own machine.
Official source: docs.expo.deviOS credentials require a paid Apple Developer account.
Official source: docs.expo.devEach project can send 600 notifications per second; above that, requests fail and your server has to slow down and retry.
Official source: docs.expo.devDelivery is best effort: an 'ok' receipt doesn't mean the user saw it, and you must read receipts to stop sending to uninstalled apps.
Official source: docs.expo.devThe free build plan has a low-priority queue that can wait 90+ minutes at peak; faster builds start at $19/month.
Official source: expo.dev
Price
Push is free. Expo's paid plans (builds, updates) start at $19/month.
Sending push through Expo costs nothing; the limit is 600 notifications per second per project.
- Free tier
- Unlimited (600/second per project)
- Paid plans
- Push is free; Expo plans from $19/month
- Platforms
- iOS and Android
Checked on Oct 28, 2026 · official pricing
What it costs in practice
App sending 50,000 push a month: $0 to Expo. You still pay Apple $99/year, and builds on the free plan; with Starter, $19/month includes $45 of build credit (an iOS build is $2 to $4). Estimated.
Estimate from the official price. Check it before you decide.
At a glance
- Free plan: yes
- Open source: no
“Not stated” means the official site doesn’t say.
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