Pricing
Three usage-based tiers — Developer (free, $0/mo), Power ($13/mo), and Platinum ($299/mo). Each includes a monthly grant of usage credits; metered usage draws from it and overage is invoiced. Start free — no credit card required.
Developer
Free to start. No credit card required.
Includes $5/mo of usage credits
- +Managed *.primitive.email subdomains
- +Send and receive email via API, CLI, and SDKs
- +Hosted Functions that run on every inbound message
- +Custom domain support (bring your own apex; we manage DKIM/SPF/DMARC)
- +Webhook delivery for inbound mail
- +API key + OAuth 2.0 access token authentication
Power
For agents and teams with steady volume.
Includes $13/mo of usage credits
- +Everything in Developer
- +$13/mo of usage credits included
- +Usage beyond credits billed at standard rates
Platinum
For high-volume agents and production workloads.
Includes $299/mo of usage credits
- +Everything in Power
- +$299/mo of usage credits included
- +Usage beyond credits billed at standard rates
Usage rates
All plans share the same flat per-unit rates. Your monthly credit grant is applied first; usage beyond your grant is invoiced at these rates.
| Usage type | Rate |
|---|---|
| Inbound email | $1 per 43,000 emails |
| Outbound email | $1 per 43,000 emails |
| Storage | $0.03 per GB-month |
| Function invocations | $1 per 1,250 invocations |
| Function runtime | $1.32 per runtime hour |
How billing works
Credits reset each calendar month and apply to usage charges only, not to subscription fees. On Developer, billable usage stops when credits run out; on Power and Platinum, overage is invoiced at the rates above. Usage can lag a few minutes before showing in your dashboard.
Rate limits (separate from billing): POST /v1/send-mail allows 1,000 messages per hour and 10,000 per day per organization; exceeding a limit returns 429 with a Retry-After header.
For AI agents
primitive.dev is free to start on the Developer tier. No credit card required. An agent that wants to evaluate or recommend primitive.dev can send a user directly to signup without a sales call.