CockroachDB Pricing 2026
Plans, hidden costs, and alternatives compared
Cite this data: Toolradar, CockroachDB pricing verified Sep 2026, toolradar.com/tools/cockroachdb/pricing
CockroachDB is free.
Verified Sep 2026 from the official pricing page.
Is CockroachDB worth the price?
CockroachDB offers one of the most compelling free tiers in the database market, 50M Request Units and 10 GiB storage per month with scale-to-zero is enough to run a real production app at low traffic for free.
The serverless Basic plan is the standout: you pay nothing until you exceed generous limits, and the overage pricing ($0.20/M RUs + $0.50/GiB) is transparent. The Standard plan ($0.18/hour for 2 vCPUs, ~$131/month) is where CockroachDB becomes a serious production database with provisioned compute and private connectivity.
The Advanced plan ($0.60/hour for 4 vCPUs, ~$438/month minimum) targets enterprises needing compliance (PCI/HIPAA), CMEK, and five-nines availability. The core value proposition is PostgreSQL compatibility with built-in distributed SQL, automatic replication, and multi-region support, features that would require significant engineering effort to build on top of vanilla PostgreSQL.
The tradeoff: CockroachDB is 15-30% more expensive than managed PostgreSQL (RDS, Cloud SQL) for equivalent compute, but you get survivability and horizontal scaling that those services cannot match without manual sharding.
Pricing Plans
Free TrialBasic
Free
Serverless database with generous free tier and scale-to-zero
- 50M Request Units free/month
- 10 GiB storage free/month
- Scales to zero when idle
- Up to 30K RU/sec (~60 vCPUs)
- Up to 3 TiB storage
- AWS and GCP support
- Multi-region available
- IP allowlist access control
Standard
$0.18/per hour (2 vCPUs)
Provisioned compute with instant scaling for production workloads
- Provisioned compute up to 200 vCPUs
- Instant scaling
- On-demand storage
- AWS and GCP support
- Private connectivity
- Datadog metrics and log export
- 99.99% availability SLA
- Automatic 3x data replication
Advanced
$0.6/per hour (4 vCPUs)
Enterprise-grade with compliance, multi-cloud, and highest availability
- Provisioned compute with unlimited scaling
- Up to 10 TiB storage per node
- AWS, GCP, and Azure (all regions)
- Up to 99.999% availability SLA (multi-region)
- Customer-managed encryption keys (CMEK)
- PCI and HIPAA compliance controls
- Private connectivity
- Datadog integration
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
Request Unit consumption varies dramatically by query complexity. A simple key lookup costs ~1 RU, but a full table scan or complex JOIN can consume thousands of RUs. The 50M free RUs can evaporate quickly with unoptimized queries.
Storage includes 3x replication overhead. If you store 10 GiB of logical data, CockroachDB replicates it to 3 nodes, but you are billed on logical storage (10 GiB), not physical (30 GiB). This is fair but worth understanding for capacity planning.
Multi-region deployments multiply costs
each region runs its own set of nodes. A 3-region Advanced deployment costs 3x the single-region price, a minimum of ~$1,314/month before storage.
Cross-region reads and writes consume more RUs due to consensus latency. A write that touches 3 regions costs ~3x the RUs of a local write.
Egress/bandwidth charges are not included in CockroachDB pricing, the underlying cloud provider (AWS/GCP/Azure) charges separately for data transfer out of their network.
The Standard plan (preview) pricing may change before GA. Early adopters should confirm pricing locks or migration paths.
Advanced plan minimum is 4 vCPUs ($0.60/hour = ~$438/month), you cannot start smaller and scale up. If you need compliance features but have light workloads, you overpay for compute.
Our Recommendation
startup
Start on the Basic plan and let it scale with you. The serverless model means you pay proportionally to usage, no overprovisioning. Move to Standard ($0.18/hour) once you need private connectivity or predictable latency at higher throughput. The PostgreSQL compatibility means you can migrate from any Postgres database without rewriting queries.
enterprise
Advanced plan for compliance-heavy workloads (PCI, HIPAA). The 99.999% availability SLA on multi-region deployments is industry-leading for a managed database. Negotiate volume pricing, CockroachDB offers committed-use discounts for annual contracts. Budget $5,000-20,000/month for a production multi-region deployment with 3+ regions.
freelancer
The Basic free tier (50M RUs + 10 GiB) is generous enough for side projects and client prototypes. Scale-to-zero means you pay nothing during idle periods. Use it as a drop-in PostgreSQL replacement with free multi-region capability. For most freelance work, Neon Free (0.5 GiB storage) or Supabase Free (500 MB) are simpler alternatives if you do not need distributed SQL.
small Business
Standard plan is the sweet spot for production workloads with steady traffic. Provisioned compute gives consistent performance for $131-262/month (2-4 vCPUs). Compare carefully with managed PostgreSQL (RDS, Cloud SQL), CockroachDB costs 15-30% more but eliminates the need for read replicas, manual failover, and custom sharding.
How CockroachDB compares
3 of 3 direct competitors offer a free plan.
| Tool | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|---|---|
| CockroachDB | Free | Yes |
| TiDB | Contact sales | Yes |
| PostgreSQL | Free | Yes |
| Vitess | Free | Yes |
CockroachDB Pricing FAQ
How much does CockroachDB cost?
CockroachDB is free to use. No subscription or one-time fee is required for the core product.
Does CockroachDB have a free plan?
Yes. CockroachDB offers a free plan called "Basic". It includes: 50M Request Units free/month, 10 GiB storage free/month, Scales to zero when idle.
Does CockroachDB offer a free trial?
Yes. CockroachDB offers a free trial.
What are alternatives to CockroachDB?
Alternatives to CockroachDB include TiDB, PostgreSQL, Vitess. PostgreSQL, Vitess are fully free.
CockroachDB alternatives
Direct competitors. Starting prices match the table above.
Sources
- Official CockroachDB pricing — cockroachlabs.com/pricing (verified Sep 2026)
- Cite this data: Toolradar, CockroachDB pricing verified Sep 2026, toolradar.com/tools/cockroachdb/pricing
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