Shut out of development for a month

Need Help With My Project
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1

Just as an intro, I am a total IoT noob. That being said, I do know my way around computers, starting way back in the 1980s as an IBM MVS, MVS-XA, VM, VM-CMS systems programmer.

I’m in the proof-of-concept stage for a new ESP32/IoT project. I have been using the Arduino IoT cloud up until now and things were going simingly. I was ready to take it to the next level from single user to multi user and someone suggested Blynk. I moved my code and had the project running… for a couple hours. I then got a message from Blynk saying I used up my entire monthly allotment of 30,000 messages in just a couple hours and if I wanted to continue the project in less than 30 days, I needed to fork over $100.

My question is: what constitutes a “message”, and how could I have possibly used up 30,000 in a couple hours? I’m working under a strict NDA and cannot post my code. I’m just looking to be pointed to where I can learn about how message counts work.

2

A message is communication from your device to the Blynk server.
Every Blynk.virtualWrite, Blynk.setProperty or Blynk.syncVirtual executed by your device creates a message.
There are also a few messages exchanged at startup to verify the device.

It’s obviously very easy exceed the monthly limit in a couple of hours by updating multiple datastreams at a fairly high frequency.

The Blynk Free account is crippled in this way to reduce its appeal in the long term. If you’re going to use Blynk on a long-term basis, or want proper multi-user functionality then you’ll need a Pro subscription, which is going to cost you around $1,200 per year. If you aren’t prepared to pay that once your POC phase is over then probably best to walk away now and cut your losses.

Pete.