CockroachDB Pricing 2026
Plans, hidden costs, and alternatives compared
Prices last confirmed on Oct 21, 2026 on cockroachlabs.com. Same data as Markdown or JSON.
Cite this data: Toolradar, CockroachDB pricing verified Oct 2026, toolradar.com/tools/cockroachdb/pricing
CockroachDB starts at $0.18/month on the Standard plan.
Verified Oct 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 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
- 99.99% availability SLA
- Automatic 3x data replication
- Vector data and AI-ready tools
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
- Vector data and AI-ready tools
- No credit card required
Advanced
$0.60/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
- Automatic 3x data replication
- Vector data and AI-ready tools
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.
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.
How CockroachDB compares
3 of 3 direct competitors offer a free plan.
| Tool | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|---|---|
| CockroachDB | $0.18/month, billing unit not specified | Yes |
| TiDB | Contact sales | Yes |
| PostgreSQL | Free | Yes |
| Vitess | Free | Yes |
CockroachDB Pricing FAQ
How much does CockroachDB cost?
CockroachDB starts at $0.18/month on the Standard plan. It offers 2 paid tiers ranging from $0.18/month to $0.60/month. A free plan is also available.
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 is the cheapest CockroachDB paid plan?
The cheapest paid plan for CockroachDB is "Standard" at $0.18/month. Key features include: Provisioned compute up to 200 vCPUs, Instant scaling, On-demand storage.
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 Oct 2026)
- Cite this data: Toolradar, CockroachDB pricing verified Oct 2026, toolradar.com/tools/cockroachdb/pricing
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