One of the most consistent requests we’ve had since we launched IO Plus (IO+) was for a way to raise the IO+ account limits even further. We’re happy to announce that with an Adafruit IO+ subscription, you can now add data rate and storage time limit upgrades!

The single biggest thing we do to make sure that Adafruit IO is available for as many people as possible 24 hours a day, 365 days a year is rate limiting the messages that pass through the system. For IO Free accounts, the rate limit is 30 messages per minute, or about 1 every 2 seconds. For IO+, we double the available data rate to 60 messages per minute, or about 1 per second. That’s double the data rate for everyone using IO+, but still a hard cap on usage.

The new IO+ subscription upgrades are:

  • Data Rate can be boosted in 10 points per minute increments for $2 per month or $24 per year.
  • Data Storage can be boosted in 30 day increments for $5 per month or $60 per year.

So if you want to double your data rate again from 60 to 120, that would be 6x Data Rate Boost @ $12 per month or $144 per year. If you wanted to double your data storage length from 60 days to 120 days that would be 2x Data Storage Boost @ $10 per month or $120 per year.

You can upgrade or cancel upgrades at any point during your subscription billing cycle, but you will have to pay the full amount for the remaining time on your billing cycle when you activate an upgrade. For example, if you’re subscribed on the IO+ monthly plan and add a 10x Data Rate Boost ($20 per month) halfway through your billing cycle, you’ll be charged about $10 for the time remaining in the current cycle and $30 ($10 for IO+ plus $20 for 10x Data Rate Boost) on your next monthly bill.

You can start the process by clicking “Change your IO+ plan” on your account billing page.

Change your IO+ plan link highlighted

Account changes form

The prorated amounts are calculated when you add a subscription upgrade and you’ll have a chance to preview your new monthly bill before activating it.

Preview account changes

This is our first experiment with a new kind of subscription upgrade for IO+, please stop by the forums or our channel on the Adafruit Discord server and reach out if you have any questions!