Two push notification providers, compared on price, features and ratings, so you can pick fast.
Updated October 2026
THE VERDICT
Expo wins on React Native simplicity. Firebase FCM wins on price and platform coverage.
Expo starts at $99 versus Firebase FCM's Free. Firebase FCM rates higher with developers (4.5 vs 4.0 on G2). Pick based on volume and team, and the scorecard below breaks down where each one leads.
Winner cells are tinted, green where Expo leads, violet where Firebase FCM does.
FAQ
Expo starts at $99 versus Firebase FCM's Free. Compare your expected monthly volume against the per-message rates above.
Yes. The Expo push notification service is free and does not charge per notification. Sends are rate-limited to 600 notifications per second per project. You do not need a paid Expo Application Services (EAS) plan to send push notifications.
FCM has no per-message cost. Push notification sending is free and unlimited on all Firebase plans, including the free Spark plan. You only pay if you use adjacent Firebase or Google Cloud services (such as Cloud Functions to trigger sends), which are billed separately under the pay-as-you-go Blaze plan.
Yes. Many teams route different message types through different providers or fail over between them. Courier lets you send through both behind a single API and switch providers without changing your code.
Why not both?
Use both behind one API.
Route Expo, Firebase FCM, or both, and switch providers without changing your code. Courier sits in front of every channel.
Pricing, plans and feature availability as of October 2026 and may change. Ratings are aggregated from public review platforms. Firebase FCM is a Google product.