● Start · Read before you launch
Services and costs
what you pay others for.
The item price covers the source code and this documentation only. The app relies on outside services that you sign up for and pay yourself. This page lists each one, whether you need it, and what drives its cost. It quotes no prices: check each provider's pricing page.
01In one paragraph
You create every account below yourself, enter your own keys in the operator console and pay each provider directly under its own terms. No API keys, accounts or service credits ship with the download. Free tiers have limits and production traffic may need a paid plan. What you pay depends on your traffic and the plans you choose, so check each provider's current pricing page before you launch and set budget alerts where the provider offers them.
Try it first for free
You can run the whole backend on your computer (keyless CoinGecko, Firebase emulators) without any paid account: Quick start and emulators.
02Service by service
| Service | Needed? | What it does here | What drives the cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Firebase (Google): Cloud Functions, Cloud Scheduler, Firestore, Authentication, Cloud Messaging | Required | Runs the /v1 API and four scheduled jobs (price alerts every 5 minutes, news every 15, market brief every 60, push campaigns every 5), stores data, cache and settings, signs users in and sends push. Firebase Hosting is optional, only to serve the API on your own domain. | Cloud Functions, Cloud Scheduler and outbound network calls need the Blaze pay-as-you-go plan with a billing account. Google bills usage above the free quota: function invocations and run time, Firestore reads and writes, outbound traffic. Set a budget alert in Google Cloud Billing. |
| CoinGecko | Required | Prices, charts, candles, coin pages, search, trending, fiat rates, community votes. Called only from your backend. | The keyless public API is for testing and strictly rate-limited. For production use at least a free Demo key; a busy or commercial app may need a paid CoinGecko API plan. The console's budgets and cache times keep the call count down (Budgets). |
| CoinMarketCap | Optional | Failover for market lists and global data when CoinGecko fails or is rate-limited. | The free Basic plan has monthly and per-minute credit limits; more volume needs a paid plan. |
| AI provider: Anthropic, OpenAI or an OpenAI-compatible API | Optional, off by default | The AI market brief and per-coin AI reports. | You supply your own key and the provider bills your account for every AI call. AI is off in the shipped settings and no key is included. Without a key the app shows the rules-based "Automatic summary" at no AI cost. With AI on, the console caps calls per day (200 by default, setting "AI calls per day (most)"), and each coin report is generated once per coin, language and day. See AI cost control. |
| Alternative.me, RSS feeds, public RPC nodes | No key | Fear & Greed index (credited in the app), headlines from CoinDesk, Decrypt, Cointelegraph and The Block, read-only wallet balances (public RPC nodes and mempool.space). | Free public endpoints with rate limits and their own terms. For heavy wallet traffic you can enter your own RPC endpoints, which a paid RPC provider may bill you for. Fear & Greed and news can be switched off in the console. |
| Ad networks: AdMob, AppLovin MAX, Unity Ads, ironSource LevelPlay | Optional, off by default | Ads in the app. | Free to join; each network reviews your app and pays you under its own terms. Joining costs nothing; what an ad network pays depends on your traffic and is not predictable. |
| Google Play and Apple Developer Program | Required to publish | Publishing, and selling Pro and packs in the stores. Purchase verification uses the Google Play Developer API and the App Store Server API with credentials from your own store accounts. | Each charges its own developer fee, and takes its commission on in-app sales under its own terms. |
| Console hosting | Required | Runs the operator console (Node 22) behind HTTPS. | Any host you pay for: a VPS, a container platform or similar, plus an optional domain. Optional Postgres on serverless hosts. |
| Privacy policy and terms pages | Required | The stores and ad networks require them; you set their URLs in Console → Legal. | Any web hosting. |
03Keeping costs predictable
- Set a Google Cloud budget alert before you switch the project to Blaze.
- Leave AI off until you have users, then lower "AI calls per day (most)" to what you are willing to pay for (AI summaries).
- Use the console's provider budgets and cache times so the backend stays inside your CoinGecko and CoinMarketCap plans; watch Console → Provider usage (Budgets).
- Optional: serve the API through Firebase Hosting so the CDN answers repeated requests from its cache (Hosting rewrite).
Earning features are described in How the app earns. These docs do not estimate income.