Best IPFS pinning services in 2026, compared honestly

If you are searching for an IPFS pinning service in 2026, the market looks very different from two years ago. Storacha (formerly web3.storage) retired its public gateway, NFT.Storage's classic free tier went with it, and thousands of NFT projects had to find a new home for their images and metadata at short notice.

This guide compares the IPFS pinning services NFT projects actually use, including our own. We built Octopin, so read our section with that in mind. We have tried to say clearly where another provider is the better pick. Prices and limits change, so always confirm on each provider's own pricing page before you commit.

What to look for in an IPFS pinning service

• Bandwidth pricing. Storage is cheap. Bandwidth is where bills explode when a collection gets popular. Check whether bandwidth is capped and what overage costs.
• Standard CIDs and network announcement. Your content should be discoverable by any IPFS gateway, not only the provider's own. Look for IPNI (cid.contact) or DHT announcement.
• Easy exit. Providers shut down. You want to be able to export your data (for example as CAR files) and re-pin the same CIDs elsewhere.
• Signup friction. Some services need a crypto wallet and tokens, others are normal SaaS with card billing.
• Track record. How long has the provider existed and how is it funded? Grant-funded free tiers have a habit of ending.

1. Pinata

Pinata is the mainstream IPFS pinning service and has been around since 2018. It has a mature SDK, a CLI, dedicated gateways with custom hostnames and a long list of enterprise customers. Its free tier is 1 GB of storage with a bandwidth cap, and paid plans start at $20/mo with bandwidth overage billed per GB.

Best for: teams that want the most established vendor and need very large single-plan storage. Octopin vs Pinata, compared in detail.

2. Octopin

Octopin is the IPFS pinning service we built for our own NFT collections (OctoPeeps and Octo Kiddos) after Storacha announced its shutdown. Every plan, including free, has unlimited bandwidth. The free plan is 1 GB and 2,000 files, and paid plans start at $5/mo for 25 GB. Content is stored on Cloudflare R2, served from gateway.octopin.app and announced to the public IPNI indexer so any IPFS gateway can find it. Sign-in is Google, billing is a normal card subscription.

Best for: NFT projects and small teams that want predictable pricing and no bandwidth bills. See plans.

3. Filecoin Pin

Filecoin Pin is the path Storacha pointed its users to. Content is stored through on-chain Filecoin deals, which gives you verifiable storage proofs. The trade-off is setup: you need an EVM wallet and FIL, and retrieval speed depends on the retrieval provider.

Best for: projects that need provable on-chain storage and are comfortable managing a wallet. Octopin vs Filecoin Pin.

4. 4EVERLAND

4EVERLAND bundles IPFS with Arweave and BNB Greenfield storage behind one dashboard, with usage-based credit pricing. If you want several storage networks from a single vendor, it is a reasonable choice.

Best for: multi-network storage strategies. Octopin vs 4EVERLAND.

5. Filebase

Filebase exposes IPFS through an S3-compatible API, so tools that already speak S3 can pin to IPFS without code changes. It is a good fit for developers with existing S3 workflows.

What about web3.storage, Storacha and NFT.Storage?

These were the default free options for NFT projects for years. Storacha retired its gateway on May 31, 2026, and the NFT.Storage free tier wound down with it. If you still have content there, your CIDs are still valid, but they need an active pin somewhere to stay reachable. Our Storacha migration playbook walks through the move step by step, and the web3.storage comparison and NFT.Storage comparison cover the differences.

Quick comparison

• Lowest entry price with unlimited bandwidth: Octopin ($0 free tier, $5/mo paid).
• Most established vendor: Pinata.
• On-chain storage proofs: Filecoin Pin.
• Several storage networks in one place: 4EVERLAND.
• S3-compatible API: Filebase.

Whatever you pick, protect yourself

The provider matters less than how you reference your content. Use ipfs://<CID>/ URIs in your contracts, never a gateway hostname, and keep your original files or a CAR export somewhere safe. Then switching providers is an afternoon of work instead of an on-chain migration. Why ipfs:// URIs matter.