Infura IPFS and Infura IPFS Pricing 2026: When to Use IPFS via Infura

Summary: A 2026 field guide for CTOs and product leaders: how Infura’s IPFS actually works now, who can get access, the exact rate limits and billing model (including the $5/month minimum and per‑GB overages), and when Infura beats alternatives like Pinata, Web3.Storage, and Cloudflare IPFS. Includes traffic modeling, cost calculators, and architecture patterns to deploy with confidence. (support.metamask.io)

TL;DR for 2026

Access is gated: new IPFS usage on Infura requires approval; the public gateway was deprecated and dedicated gateways are the path forward. (infura.io)
Pricing: a $5/month minimum applies to active IPFS subscriptions (5 GB storage + 5 GB ingress + 5 GB egress included), with overages at $0.08/GB storage and $0.12/GB bandwidth. (support.metamask.io)
Throughput: 150 RPS write API, 1500 RPS read API, 100 RPS per dedicated gateway read. Plan caps also apply via credits-per-second. (docs.metamask.io)
Operations: both API and gateway traffic count toward stats/billing; credit quotas reset daily at 00:00 UTC. (docs.metamask.io)

What changed since last time you evaluated Infura IPFS

Decision-makers who last looked at Infura’s IPFS in 2023–2024 will find three important changes in 2025–2026:

Dedicated, project‑specific gateways replace the legacy public gateway; each gateway has its own subdomain you control. (docs.metamask.io)
Access is no longer open sign-up: Infura limits IPFS service to pre‑qualified use cases; you must contact support for approval (Ticket Type “IPFS API/Gateway”). (infura.io)
Billing tightened: as of September 1, 2025, a $5 monthly minimum applies to active IPFS subscriptions; the included pool is 5 GB storage + 5 GB ingress + 5 GB egress, with overages at $0.08/GB (storage) and $0.12/GB (bandwidth). First invoices under this policy started October 1, 2025. (support.metamask.io)

For context, Infura previously announced the public IPFS gateway deprecation, which completed long ago; the current model emphasizes authenticated use and dedicated subdomains. (infura.ghost.io)

How Infura’s IPFS works in 2026: the actionable details

API and gateway split

Upload/pin via authenticated HTTP API endpoints (for example, /api/v0/add, /api/v0/pin/add). These are subject to write rate limits. (docs.metamask.io)
Read content via:
- API reads (e.g., /api/v0/cat) with higher RPS ceilings, or
- Your Dedicated Gateway subdomain for browser-friendly retrieval. (docs.metamask.io)

Key note: dedicated gateways are read-only; you still upload via the API. (docs.metamask.io)

Throughput limits you have to engineer around

Writes: 150 requests/second for add/pin/dag.put.
Reads (API): up to 1500 requests/second for read-only methods.
Reads (Dedicated Gateway): 100 requests/second per gateway.
If you need custom RPS limits, Infura invites you to contact them. (docs.metamask.io)

In addition to endpoint‑level ceilings, your Infura plan enforces credits-per-second caps (e.g., 2,000 cps on Core; 4,000 cps on Developer; 40,000 cps on Team). If you saturate this, you’ll be throttled even if the IPFS endpoint-specific limit isn’t hit yet. (support.infura.io)

Dedicated Gateway specifics you can set and rely on

URL shape you’ll distribute to clients:

https://<CUSTOM-SUBDOMAIN>.infura-ipfs.io/ipfs/<CID>/<optional-path>

You control the subdomain; format must match ^[a-z0-9-]*$ and be ≤ 63 chars. (docs.metamask.io)

One active subdomain per project; up to 20 unique subdomains across all your IPFS projects per account; subdomains are reusable. (docs.metamask.io)
“Pinned content only” switch restricts the gateway to serve only what your project pins—useful to reduce abuse and ensure predictable bills. (docs.metamask.io)
Gateway traffic is billed the same as API traffic and counted together in stats/billing. (docs.metamask.io)

Availability and operational signals

Infura publishes per-service uptime. Over the most recent 90-day window, “Infura IPFS Services” showed 99.82% uptime, and “IPFS Dedicated Gateway” 99.65%, with real‑time incident notices and subscriptions (email/SMS/Slack/webhook/RSS). Use this in your SLOs. (status.infura.io)

Access reality check in 2026

New IPFS key creation is currently disabled; access persists for keys active in late 2024, and new projects must go through the approval path. Factor this into timelines. (support.metamask.io)
Official product pages reiterate that IPFS service is for pre‑qualified customers; use the support flow to review your use case. (infura.io)

Pricing: what you will actually pay in 2026

Minimum monthly charge: $5 for IPFS when active, which includes 5 GB storage + 5 GB ingress + 5 GB egress. First invoice reflecting this policy was generated October 1, 2025 (covering September). (support.metamask.io)
Overage rates: $0.08/GB for additional storage; $0.12/GB for additional bandwidth (ingress or egress). Charged usage-based beyond the included pool. (support.metamask.io)
Plan context: your broader Infura plan remains priced by credits, not “requests”—Core (Free), Developer ($50/mo), Team ($225/mo), Enterprise (custom). You can buy +55M extra credits for $200 on paid plans—useful if your dapp is heavy on blockchain APIs and occasionally pushes IPFS stats. (infura.io)
Daily reset: credit quotas reset at 00:00 UTC; hitting a cap returns HTTP 402 and can sever WebSocket connections until the reset. Build alerting before you get there. (docs.metamask.io)

Billing nuance: “API vs gateway” traffic rolls up together for IPFS on your dashboard/invoices, so budget by bytes and cache hit rates rather than by endpoint. (infura.ghost.io)

Should you use Infura IPFS? A decision framework

Choose Infura IPFS when:

You need a dedicated gateway tied to your projects, with strict subdomain controls, “pinned-only” serving, and predictable rate ceilings you can design around. (docs.metamask.io)
Your stack already uses Infura’s blockchain APIs and you want unified billing/limits and monitoring in one dashboard (plus the option to buy credit packs). (infura.io)
Your security posture prefers authenticated reads and per‑project isolation over public gateways. (docs.metamask.io)

Reconsider if:

You can’t obtain approval quickly (new keys are gated) or you need mass self‑serve onboarding across many ephemeral projects. (infura.io)
Your workload is read‑heavy with highly bursty public traffic where a CDN‑fronted, usage‑based gateway with higher included egress makes more sense (e.g., Cloudflare’s free plan includes 50 GB egress; paid tiers scale). (developers.cloudflare.com)
You prefer a simpler “storage+egress” subscription (e.g., Web3.Storage or Pinata) without the credits model elsewhere in your stack. (web3.storage)

Cost modeling examples (use these to budget)

Assumptions:

1 GB = 1024 MB; bandwidth prices apply to both ingress and egress.
You will put a CDN in front of the dedicated gateway to reduce origin egress.
Use your own numbers in these formulas; we provide step-by-step math.

Example A: NFT drop, image + metadata, first 30 days

10,000 items
Each asset: 400 KB image + 2 KB JSON
50,000 unique viewers; avg 3 asset views each; CDN 80% hit rate after warmup

Compute bytes from gateway (origin egress):

Total asset bytes requested = 50,000 × 3 × ~402 KB ≈ 60.3 GB gross.
With 80% CDN hit rate, origin egress ≈ 12.06 GB.
Ingress for initial upload ≈ 10,000 × 402 KB ≈ 3.8 GB.

Billable beyond included pool:

Included egress/ingress: 5 GB + 5 GB; storage included: 5 GB. (support.metamask.io)
Overages: egress ~7.06 GB × $0.12 ≈ $0.85; ingress ~0 GB if within 5 GB; storage: 10,000 × 402 KB ≈ 3.8 GB (fits in 5 GB).
Minimum charge applies: $5 baseline covers the included pools; total ≈ $5.85 for IPFS that month, assuming approval/access. (support.metamask.io)

Throughput check:

Peak traffic bursts must respect 100 RPS per dedicated gateway; use multiple subdomains if needed, within the 20‑subdomain limit. (docs.metamask.io)

Example B: On-app content feeds, 5M daily reads of small assets

5,000,000 asset reads/day of 5 KB JSON
CDN 95% hit rate after warmup
Peak 2,000 requests/second

Egress:

Gross daily bytes ≈ 23.8 GB; origin egress at 5% ≈ 1.19 GB/day → ~35.7 GB/month.

Cost:

After included 5 GB egress, ~30.7 GB × $0.12 ≈ $3.68 + $5 minimum = ~$8.68/month. (support.metamask.io)

Throughput:

Origin read RPS that escapes CDN ≈ 100 RPS (5% of 2,000). That sits right at the per‑gateway 100 RPS ceiling—use two gateways to maintain headroom. (docs.metamask.io)
Also ensure your Infura plan’s credits-per-second (cps) cap supports bursts (Developer: 4,000 cps; Team: 40,000 cps). (support.infura.io)

Example C: Archive 1 TB of media, low read traffic

Store 1,024 GB, minimal downloads (just integrity checks)

Storage:

1,024 GB − 5 GB included ≈ 1,019 GB overage × $0.08 ≈ $81.52/month, plus $5 minimum = ~$86.52. (infura.ghost.io)

Comparison (for perspective, not a recommendation):

Pinata “Fiesta”: $100/mo includes 5 TB storage and 2.5 TB bandwidth; overage storage $0.035/GB, bandwidth $0.08/GB. For pure storage at this scale, Pinata’s plan could be cheaper. (pinata.cloud)
Web3.Storage Business: $100/mo includes 2 TB storage and 2 TB egress; storage/egress overage $0.03/GB. Also favorable for large cold storage. (web3.storage)

Alternatives you’ll be asked about (with current numbers)

Pinata: Free, $20 (Picnic), $100 (Fiesta), enterprise; generous included storage/requests and usage-based overages; recent updates raised plan storage limits and cut overage rates. Consider for public-heavy traffic and creator tooling. (pinata.cloud)
Web3.Storage: Starter (free) 5 GB; Lite $10/100 GB; Business $100/2 TB; simple per‑GB overages. Good for straightforward cost predictability. (web3.storage)
Cloudflare IPFS Gateway: usage-based with 50 GB included egress on Free plans; strong CDN controls and analytics if you already run on Cloudflare. (developers.cloudflare.com)
NFT.Storage: one‑time $4.99/GB for long‑term storage backed by an onchain endowment—interesting for NFT permanence economics. (nft.storage)

Use these as negotiation/reference points, but match to your performance/security needs.

Implementation patterns and emerging best practices (2026)

Plan for gateway sharding:
- Each dedicated gateway tops out at 100 read RPS. If you need 500 sustained RPS from origin, partition traffic across five subdomains. Keep within the 20‑subdomain per‑account cap. (docs.metamask.io)
Enable “Pinned Content Only”:
- Prevents your gateway from becoming a general-purpose IPFS exit path (reducing risk of abuse and surprise bills). (docs.metamask.io)
Put a CDN in front of your gateway:
- Tune cache keys by full path; set long TTL for immutable CIDs; use stale‑while‑revalidate to smooth origin load. Your cost line item becomes cache miss bytes × $0.12/GB, which you can actively control. (docs.metamask.io)
Budget to plan caps, not just endpoint limits:
- Watch both endpoint RPS ceilings and your plan’s credits-per-second and daily credit budget; hitting cps or daily quota triggers throttling/402s until 00:00 UTC. Set alerts at 75/85/95% and pre‑buy add‑on credits if launches or mints are scheduled. (support.infura.io)
Subscribe to status updates:
- Treat IPFS Dedicated Gateway and API as dependencies with SLOs. Wire status.infura.io into your incident channels. (status.infura.io)
Separate keys per environment and app surface:
- Distinct API keys/gateways per product area make blast‑radius and analytics manageable when you tune caching or rate limits. (docs.metamask.io)
Approval lead time:
- Because new access is gated, initiate the “IPFS API/Gateway” support ticket early in your project plan. (infura.io)

Quick start: standing up Infura IPFS the right way in 2026

Get access approved

From Infura, submit a support request (Ticket Type “IPFS API/Gateway”) with your use case, expected storage/egress, and RPS needs. New key creation is otherwise disabled for net-new users not already active in late 2024. (infura.io)

Create or reuse an IPFS project and keys

Use your Infura dashboard to locate the project ID/secret for API authentication. If you’re migrating, Infura provides tooling and documentation to bring existing IPFS data over. (support.infura.io)

Enable a Dedicated Gateway

In your project’s Settings, toggle “Enable Dedicated Gateways,” claim a unique subdomain, and consider enabling “Pinned Content Only.” Keep your naming within format and character limits. (docs.metamask.io)

Upload and pin via API

Use the authenticated API (for example, /api/v0/add with your project credentials). Infura publishes a simple upload client tool if you prefer a CLI experience. (docs.metamask.io)

Put your CDN in front

Point your CDN origin to the dedicated gateway URL and cache by CID paths. Validate miss rates in your CDN analytics and in the Infura stats dashboard, noting that both API and gateway use roll into billing. (docs.metamask.io)

Monitor and alert

Configure alarms for daily credits, cps, and IPFS egress. Remember daily reset at 00:00 UTC; if you’re near limits, scale gateways or buy add‑on credits ($200 for +55M). Subscribe to status alerts. (docs.metamask.io)

When Infura IPFS is the strategic win

Pick Infura when you want a curated, authenticated IPFS path tightly integrated with the rest of your Consensys tooling, plus clear, enforceable ceilings on throughput and bytes. The dedicated gateway model gives you deterministic behaviors—subdomains, pinned‑only serving, per‑gateway RPS—that make SREs happy and costs forecastable. Just start the approval process early and model your egress with a CDN-first mindset. (docs.metamask.io)

Appendix: head-to-head pricing snapshots you’ll reference in meetings

Infura IPFS: $5/month minimum includes 5 GB storage + 5 GB ingress + 5 GB egress; $0.08/GB storage; $0.12/GB bandwidth; access gated. (support.metamask.io)
Pinata: Free/$20/$100 tiers; e.g., $100 (Fiesta) includes 5 TB storage, 2.5 TB bandwidth; overages down to $0.035/GB storage and $0.08/GB bandwidth after 2025 updates. (pinata.cloud)
Web3.Storage: Free 5 GB; $10 for 100 GB; $100 for 2 TB; overages as low as $0.03/GB. (web3.storage)
Cloudflare IPFS Gateway: 50 GB included egress on Free plan; usage-based thereafter; strong fit if you already standardize on Cloudflare. (developers.cloudflare.com)
NFT.Storage: one‑time $4.99/GB for long‑term storage backed by an onchain endowment. (nft.storage)

These aren’t apples-to-apples (features, SLAs, and performance differ), but they’re the right anchors for your internal TCO discussions.

Final call: our recommendation playbook

Startup, limited ops headcount, moderate reads: Infura IPFS + CDN gives you clean controls and low operational drag; budget $5–$30/month unless you stream a lot of bytes. Start approval early. (support.metamask.io)
Consumer apps with massive anonymous traffic: Consider Pinata or Cloudflare for generous bundled egress and gateway analytics, unless you specifically need Infura’s project isolation and Consensys alignment. (pinata.cloud)
Archives/preservation at TB scale: Compare pure storage $/GB—Pinata Fiesta or Web3.Storage Business often undercut Infura’s $0.08/GB storage for bulk cold storage, but Infura may still win if you need the dedicated gateway controls and unified platform. (pinata.cloud)

If you’re not sure which path fits, model your month-one egress and RPS against the exact limits above and decide with data—not vibes. (docs.metamask.io)