How Bridgefy charges
Bridgefy sells a mesh networking SDK for iOS, Android, React Native, and Flutter that lets phones exchange messages over Bluetooth without internet access. Its pricing page counts usage in monthly active users. The FAQ on that page defines a MAU as “a unique user that has interacted with your app thanks to the Bridgefy SDK, in a 30-day period”, and says users who never touch the offline features do not count.
According to the same FAQ, Starter plans have a limit of 200 MAU that renews every 30 days, and Pro plans have a limit too, where going over does not stop the SDK but triggers an Extra User fee. Check the current plan prices on that page before comparing.
Per-user pricing is simple to start with. The concern for teams with a large or seasonal audience is that cost rises with adoption, including in exactly the situations where an offline feature gets used most: a festival, a storm, a network outage.
Alternatives with no per-user fee
Google Nearby Connections. A free peer-to-peer API from Google for advertising, discovering, connecting to, and exchanging data with nearby devices without internet access. It has libraries for Android and for Swift on iOS, and the source is on GitHub under Apache-2.0. It connects devices that are in range of each other; passing messages on across several hops is something you would build on top.
Apple Multipeer Connectivity. Free and built into Apple’s platforms, for discovering and exchanging data with nearby Apple devices. It does not reach Android phones, and Apple’s technote TN3213 says Xcode 27 deprecates the framework in favour of the Network framework.
Berty’s Wesh Network toolkit. The protocol behind the Berty messenger, released as a toolkit for “privacy-based, off-grid, peer-to-peer communication”. The core is written in Go, apps talk to it over gRPC, and the repository is licensed Apache-2.0 or MIT at your option. It is a lower-level building block than a drop-in mobile SDK, so plan for integration work.
Bitchat’s source code. Bitchat is an app, not an SDK, but its iOS and macOS code is in the public domain and its Android code is GPL-3.0. Teams that want a Bluetooth mesh plus Nostr design can study or adapt it, accepting that they then maintain a fork of an app.
Briar. An open-source peer-to-peer messenger that connects over Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or Tor. Its maintainers announced in July 2026 that the project is in maintenance mode, with only essential security updates and bug fixes, which matters if you were thinking of building on its libraries.
The Offline Protocol mesh SDK. A React Native SDK, with a Rust core on crates.io, for messaging, shared documents, and service calls between nearby devices over Bluetooth LE and other transports, with multi-hop relay and MLS encryption. It is free under AGPL-3.0-only, including in production and for a business, when your app meets the AGPL obligations, such as offering users the corresponding source. Local peer-to-peer traffic is never metered on any plan. The comparison page Offline Protocol vs Bridgefy sets the two SDKs side by side.
What “no per-user fee” still costs
A missing MAU line does not make an option free. Check these before choosing:
- License obligations. GPL and AGPL code asks you to share your app’s source under the same terms when you distribute it, and the AGPL extends that to users who reach it over a network. Apache-2.0, MIT, and public-domain code asks very little. If your app is proprietary or goes through the Apple App Store, a copyleft license may rule an option out unless a commercial license is available. For the Offline Protocol mesh SDK, a commercial license covers proprietary apps, closed firmware, and App Store distribution; it is annual and priced on request.
- Platform reach. Multipeer is Apple only. Check what each option supports on the exact iPhone and Android pair you need.
- Relaying. Direct links reach only the phones in range. If messages must hop across a crowd, either the option includes multi-hop relay or you build it.
- Hosted extras. Sign-in, a fallback relay over the internet, or telemetry are separate services. In Offline Protocol’s case these are metered: OfflineID sign-in is counted per monthly active user (1,000 included on the Free plan, $0.02 per user beyond the quota), and the hosted relay is counted per delivery (10,000 included on Free, $0.50 per 1,000 beyond it). Pro is $99 a month and Scale $499 a month with larger quotas.
- Engineering time. Lower-level toolkits shift work to you: discovery, reconnection, encryption, background behaviour, and testing across devices.
A short way to decide
- If every device is an iPhone or a Mac, start with Multipeer Connectivity.
- If you need direct links between nearby devices and no relay, try Nearby Connections.
- If you need a Bluetooth mesh across iOS and Android with encryption and relaying, compare mesh SDKs on license, encryption design, and what they meter.
- Whatever you pick, read the license and the pricing page on the day you decide, since both change.