Pushwoosh vs OneSignal
Pushwoosh and OneSignal both let a small app start sending push at no cost, yet they measure usage in different units. Pushwoosh treats every messaged person as a monthly active user and puts every feature on every plan. OneSignal bills mobile push per active user, web push per subscriber and email per send, and ties journeys, reporting history and experiments to the plan tier. On company details, the Pushwoosh site states no country of establishment, whereas OneSignal is a Californian company with offices in San Francisco, New York and London. Neither design is wrong, so let the shape of your audience, rather than the headline price, decide which meter suits you.
Sebastiaan SmitsFounderVendors can pay for more visibility on this website, for example a higher place in a ranking or more room on a page. Commercial relationships can also affect which products we feature and how prominently. Every vendor link is marked the same, whatever the arrangement behind it. How that works.
Choose Pushwoosh ifyou want a single per-thousand price with every feature available from the first day. You prefer not to negotiate tiers as your campaigns grow. You can tolerate a vendor that states no country of establishment.
Choose OneSignal ifyou want a free plan with every channel and a self-service signup. You value a vendor whose legal home is plainly stated. You can accept caps on journeys and reporting history until you upgrade.
Pushwoosh and OneSignal side by side
| Pushwoosh | OneSignal | |
|---|---|---|
| Our push notification services rank | #9 of 12 | #11 of 12 |
| Established in | Not stated by the vendor | United States |
| List price, 8 November 2026 | Per 1,000 monthly active users: $13 Omnichannel, $7 Push only, $5 Email only per 1,000 unique recipients; $0 up to 1,000 users | Free plan with all channels; Growth from $19 a month plus usage ($0.012 per mobile active user); Professional and Enterprise by sales |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Self-hostable | — | — |
| Built for | App and web teams wanting one usage price with full features from day one | Small app and web teams starting push with no budget and a self-service signup |
| Not for | Buyers who need a stated company address or a country of establishment | Teams that need long reporting history or many journeys without negotiating |
Both are reviewed in full in our push notification services ranking: Pushwoosh and OneSignal.
Where they differ
Pushwoosh 4 · OneSignal 1 · open 1- 01
Defining an active user
Pushwoosh counts anyone who receives a message on any channel as a monthly active user, deduplicated by user ID, even when there is no push token or app activity. A contact reached only by email therefore adds to the bill. OneSignal divides the meter into parts: mobile push is listed at $0.012 per monthly active user, web push at $0.004 per subscriber, and email by send volume. Pushwoosh is easier to forecast because there is one number to track, while OneSignal lets you keep each channel narrow. Tally your email-only contacts before relying on any free allowance at either vendor, since that audience can quietly use up the band.
Depends on the buyer
- 02
Free tier contents
Pushwoosh's pay-as-you-go plan costs $0 a month with full access for up to 1,000 monthly active users, and includes 20,000 email sends plus unlimited push notifications and in-app impressions. OneSignal's Free plan is likewise $0 and covers all channels, yet active journeys stop at 3 and reporting history at 30 days. The Pushwoosh band holds fewer users but states fewer feature limits, so it takes this round on cost and on clarity. A team that runs only a few journeys at a time might never touch the OneSignal cap, which narrows the gap in practice for small teams.
Edge: Pushwoosh
- 03
Climbing the plan ladder
OneSignal publishes a ladder of plans. Growth starts at $19 a month with 5 active journeys and 90 days of reporting, Professional allows 20 journeys and a year of history, and Enterprise lifts that to unlimited journeys and two years. Pushwoosh states that no feature is gated and every capability sits on every plan, so its site shows no matching ladder of limits. A team whose campaigns grow more complex avoids stepping up tier by tier at Pushwoosh. That matters most once many campaigns run in parallel, because each added capability would otherwise mean another plan to price.
Edge: Pushwoosh
- 04
Paid rates beyond push
Pushwoosh lists Omnichannel at $13 per 1,000 monthly active users, Push only at $7, and Email only at $5 per 1,000 monthly unique recipients. Extra email costs $1.50 per 1,000 beyond 20 sends per user. WhatsApp, SMS and messenger charges come from third-party providers, so the headline rate is not the full cost. OneSignal points mixed programmes to a cost calculator, which is less transparent than three plain rates and harder to compare line by line. Set aside a separate budget line for provider fees, and request a quote from Pushwoosh before committing, because the per-1,000 rates alone will not cover chat channels.
Edge: Pushwoosh
- 05
Named jurisdiction
OneSignal names OneSignal, Inc. in its terms, governed by the laws of the State of California, and lists offices in San Francisco, San Mateo, New York and London plus a partner in Singapore. Pushwoosh identifies Pushwoosh Inc. as the operator, says it was registered in 2014 and lists data centres in the US and Germany, yet its site gives neither an address nor a governing country. A buyer who needs a named jurisdiction on paper gets one from OneSignal. In the Pushwoosh pages we read, no physical office appears anywhere, and that absence is the gap OneSignal fills.
Edge: OneSignal
- 06
Enterprise buying
OneSignal sells Professional and Enterprise as annual plans through contact sales, and Professional adds advanced experiments, all integrations and advanced permission management. A large buyer must negotiate to unlock those features, which slows a purchase down and adds a sales conversation to the timeline. Pushwoosh describes no Enterprise-only layer, so a buyer sees identical capabilities at any size and pays by monthly active users. The pricing page does not show whether volume discounts exist. If your volumes are high, request a written quote from either vendor before you plan on a rate, since scale can change the maths.
Edge: Pushwoosh
When neither fits
If you want a developer-first notification API with workflow tooling instead of a campaign tool, neither vendor is the natural fit. Novu is the open-source route in our category. Firebase suits a team that needs only basic delivery to mobile devices. Weigh both against the metering described above.
Pushwoosh or OneSignal: questions
3 answersIf a newsletter subscriber has never installed our app, do they count at Pushwoosh?
Yes, if they receive a message on any channel. Pushwoosh counts that person as a monthly active user even with no push token or app activity, deduplicated by user ID.
Once the total passes 1,000 you move off the $0 band onto the per-thousand rates. Email-only contacts are the usual surprise.
What does OneSignal's Free plan stop at, if it covers every channel?
The pricing page lists Free at $0 a month with all channels. Its limits sit in features, at 3 active journeys and 30 days of reporting history.
Growth, from $19 a month, raises these to 5 journeys and 90 days. Mobile push is metered at $0.012 per monthly active user.
Where do the two vendors keep their data centres or offices?
Pushwoosh's about page lists data centres in the US and Germany, and says Pushwoosh Inc. was registered in 2014. It shows no address or country.
OneSignal lists offices in San Francisco, San Mateo, New York and London, plus a Singapore partner. Its terms fall under California law.
Sources
Checked 8 November 2026- Pushwoosh pricing page: the three per-1,000 rates, the $0 band, 20 free email sends and the counting rule for active users.
- Pushwoosh about page: 2014 registration, US and German data centres and the missing country.
- OneSignal pricing page: Free and Growth prices, per-user and per-subscriber push rates, journey caps by tier.
- OneSignal terms: OneSignal, Inc. governed by California law.
- OneSignal about page: offices in San Francisco, San Mateo, New York, London and a Singapore partner.