This article uses publicly available information to help readers compare services. It is not intended to disparage any company or service. The right choice depends on your needs and how your team works.
When you choose a headless CMS, the monthly price alone does not tell you enough. How many people can edit on the free plan? Does the cost change when you add more types of content? How many images can you store? These are the conditions that matter once you are up and running.
microCMS and genko.me are both services for editing content in a dashboard and showing it on your own site through an API. This post sets out how to choose between them for running a blog or an updates page.
This post is written by the team behind genko.me. Prices and limits are based on the official microCMS pricing (Japanese) and genko.me plans and limits as of October 6, 2026. microCMS prices are in yen excluding tax; genko.me prices are in yen including tax. Check the latest terms of each before you sign up.
Start by comparing the number of editors and APIs
The number of APIs here does not mean the number of requests. It means how many containers you create to manage content, such as "Blog", "News", and "Case studies".
Item | microCMS Hobby | microCMS Team | genko.me Free | genko.me Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Monthly price | Free | From ¥4,900 (excl. tax) | Free | ¥980 (incl. tax, per subscription) |
Members | Up to 3 | 3; each extra member ¥1,200/month (excl. tax) | Up to 3 | Up to 10 |
Number of APIs | Up to 5 | 10; each extra API ¥2,000/month (excl. tax) | No limit on the number | No limit on the number |
Storage | Unlimited media storage | Unlimited media storage | 5 GB for content and media combined (shared, with conditions) | 30 GB for content and media combined (shared, with conditions) |
Bandwidth | 20 GB/month (the API stops when exceeded) | 200 GB/month (¥20 per extra GB) | Fair use | Fair use |
The storage row does not count the same thing. The microCMS columns are media storage; the genko.me columns are content and media combined. Even without a limit on the number of APIs, genko.me has separate limits on storage and on the delivery API's request rate.
genko.me's member limits include the owner. For larger teams there is Pro (¥4,980/month incl. tax) with up to 30 members and 100 GB; beyond that, contact us. "No extra charge per member" is not the same as "unlimited members".
Starting with 3 people, or running with 5
If 3 people start with a few APIs, both services let you start for free. The difference is that microCMS Hobby allows up to 5 APIs and 20 GB of bandwidth a month, while genko.me Free allows up to 5 GB of content and media combined. Which fits better depends on how many APIs you need and how many images you keep.
If 5 people run 8 APIs, microCMS Team costs the ¥4,900 base price plus ¥2,400 for 2 extra members, ¥7,300 a month (excl. tax). With genko.me, one Plus team covers that many members for ¥980 a month (incl. tax). This example counts only members and APIs; it does not show that other conditions such as bandwidth, or the features you need, are equivalent.
For image-heavy sites, estimate storage first
genko.me counts the body text of your content together with images and attachments. The 5 GB on Free is shared between the owner's personal workspace and their free teams. Creating another free team does not add another 5 GB.
When the personal workspace is on Plus or Pro, its storage is also shared with the owner's free teams. The free teams' member limits and features do not change, though. If you put the team itself on Plus or Pro, it gets its own storage (30 GB or 100 GB). For details, see the storage sharing rules.
For sites that accumulate images over years or handle many large files, estimate your current total and how much it grows each year. However low genko.me's monthly price is, it is not the right choice if what you need does not fit.
Storage and bandwidth are also separate. genko.me's bandwidth is subject to fair use, and the delivery API is limited to 300 requests per minute per key. For busy sites, design page caching and how you serve images as well. It is not unlimited in the sense of taking any load unconditionally.
Compare the features you need and how each is run
On genko.me, image transformation, draft preview, scheduled publishing, export, and viewing edit history are available even on Free. Restoring from edit history requires Plus or above. For Next.js, there are components that connect through the CLI and show lists and detail pages. See Use a headless CMS with Next.js for the setup.
microCMS, on the other hand, offers IP restrictions, multiple environments, and single sign-on with SAML on its higher plans. If you need those, check the conditions of the relevant plan. genko.me's lower-priced plans may not meet the same requirements.
genko.me is developed and run by an individual. If your organization is adopting it, check beyond the feature table whether support, contract terms, incident communication, and how to export your data fit the way you work.
Try it with real posts before you sign up
Putting in a few of the posts you actually write tells you more about fit than a comparison table.
Create a post with headings, images, and links, and see how easy it is to edit.
Connect your site and take it through a list, a detail page, and a draft preview.
Apply your real number of editors and the content types you plan to add.
Check storage, delivery volume, and the permissions and contract terms you need.
Export your content and make sure you can keep it in a form other tools can read.
If you want to store media without worrying about space, or you have organizational management requirements, the microCMS plans are worth a close look. If you run a small blog or updates page that fits within genko.me's storage, member, and feature limits, genko.me is a candidate too.
If you already use microCMS, weigh not only the price difference but also the work of moving fields and images and updating your site. What is covered is in the microCMS migration guide.