I’m sure Backendless has a good reason for this, but it has become a reason to drive me away to find other backend alternatives. It is way too unpredictable and unfair for small apps and the Scale Variable Fixed plan is still a fix in the wrong direction in my opinion. It made me wish people using the app but just not too many
I’ve found that other pricing models that limit total requests per month which is much friendlier for developers to react to traffic change, and it gives enough time to make a decision after unexpected traffic instead of immediately overcharge or block user requests and make the app unusable. There are platforms that offer unlimited requests which is even better.
Anyway I don’t know if others feel this way but I think this kind of pricing makes it less competitive rather than more profitable.
Quick note for anyone reading this thread: the safeguard described here already exists. On the Billing page there’s a Scale Plan Tier Threshold setting that caps the maximum tier the app can scale to. Requests above the cap are rejected with an error, so monthly cost has a hard upper bound that the developer sets - exactly the “don’t surprise me with a bill, don’t silently scale past what I want” behavior.
It’s a different shape than a flat monthly request quota, which is a fair preference, but it solves the specific problem of unpredictable charges or sudden blocks from a traffic spike.
Always reachable via support if anyone wants help configuring it.
The threshold can limit usage and bill, but even a little spike in a minute can cause blocks, which is a worrying user experience. So I end up with choosing either surprising bills or blocked users. The monthly quota would not have this problem with a short time spike.
