What Are the Daily Quota Limits for FCM Free Tier on Android Push Notifications?

Below is an overview based on Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) guidelines:

FCM Charges and Quotas

• FCM is free: Sending push notifications via FCM does not incur a charge regardless of whether you are on a free plan or not.
• Usage Limits Are Quota Based: Instead of a "daily" limit, the quotas are managed on a per‑minute basis. The default limit is 600,000 messages per minute per project. For most projects, including those sending 100K–500K messages daily, this is more than sufficient.

What This Means for Your Use Case

• Daily Volume: With plans to send between 100K and 500K messages daily, you’re well within the default per‑minute quota even if messages are clustered. Just ensure that messages aren’t sent as an uneven spike.

• Even Distribution Matters: Since the quota is enforced each minute (and the minutes are not aligned to the clock), spreading out your messages helps avoid hitting the quota and receiving HTTP 429 (QUOTA_EXCEEDED) errors.

• Monitoring and Practices:

  • You can monitor your quota usage via the Google Cloud Console.
  • Use FCM best practices for message delivery, especially if the traffic pattern is spiky.

Summary

For a daily push notification volume of 100K–500K on Android, the free tier of Firebase Cloud Messaging is more than capable. Just ensure that you manage traffic to avoid transient quota exceedances, and monitor usage regularly on the Cloud Console.