PlanetScale Pricing 2026
Plans, hidden costs, and cheaper alternatives compared
Is PlanetScale worth the price?
PlanetScale removed its free tier in 2024, making it a harder sell for hobbyists.
But for production MySQL workloads, the managed Vitess offering with zero-downtime migrations is unmatched. Postgres support starting at $5/mo is competitive.
Pricing Plans
Free TrialPostgres (Single Node)
$5/month
Development and low-traffic
- PostgreSQL database
- 10 GB storage included
- 100 GB bandwidth included
- Dev branches: $5/mo each
- Autoscaling storage
Vitess PS-10 (Base)
$39/month
MySQL-compatible, smallest cluster
- 1/8 vCPU, 1 GB RAM
- 10 GB storage included
- 100 GB bandwidth included
- Production + dev branches
- Online schema migrations
Vitess HA (3-zone)
$39/month starting
Primary + 2 replicas across 3 AZs
- 99.99% SLA
- Automatic failover
- Zero-downtime migrations
- Horizontal sharding available
Metal
$50/month starting
NVMe local storage
- Unlimited IOPS
- Ultra-low latency
- High-performance workloads
Enterprise
Custom
Bring-your-own-cloud available
- Single-tenant deployment
- Technical account manager
- PCI compliance (Managed)
- Migration assistance
- Custom SLA
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
No free tier — even development databases cost $5/mo minimum
HA storage costs 3x single-node ($1.50/GB vs $0.50/GB) because of replicas
Bandwidth overage at $0.06/GB can surprise high-traffic apps
New accounts are size-capped at PS-160 until you pay $100+
Read replicas and additional branches each incur cluster-equivalent costs
Which Plan Do You Need?
Teams needing zero-downtime schema migrations
MySQL-heavy production workloads
Companies scaling beyond single-node databases
Organizations requiring horizontal sharding
Our Recommendation
startup
Postgres single node at $5/mo for development. Vitess PS-10 at $39/mo for production MySQL. Budget for storage overages beyond 10 GB.
enterprise
Enterprise plan for single-tenant deployment and PCI compliance. Negotiate volume pricing for multiple databases.
freelancer
Consider Neon or Supabase for free-tier development databases. PlanetScale only makes sense for production MySQL needs.
How PlanetScale Compares to Competitors
Neon offers a free tier with 0.5 GB storage and autoscaling Postgres — much better for development. Supabase includes 500 MB free Postgres plus auth and storage.
Turso (LibSQL) offers 9 GB free. PlanetScale justifies its premium with Vitess-powered horizontal sharding and non-blocking schema changes that no competitor matches.
PlanetScale Pricing FAQ
How much does PlanetScale cost?
PlanetScale starts at $5/month on the Postgres (Single Node) plan. It offers 4 paid tiers ranging from $5/month up to $50/month.
Does PlanetScale have a free plan?
PlanetScale does not offer a permanent free plan. However, a free trial is available.
Does PlanetScale offer a free trial?
Yes, PlanetScale offers a free trial. No credit card is typically required to start the trial, though this may vary.
What is the cheapest PlanetScale paid plan?
The cheapest paid plan for PlanetScale is "Postgres (Single Node)" at $5/month. Key features include: PostgreSQL database, 10 GB storage included, 100 GB bandwidth included.
Is there a cheaper alternative to PlanetScale?
Yes. Popular alternatives to PlanetScale include Supabase, Neon, CockroachDB, Mongodb Atlas. Free alternatives include Supabase, Neon, CockroachDB. Compare them side-by-side on Toolradar.
Cheaper alternatives to PlanetScale
5 of 6 direct competitors below offer a free plan. Per-seat pricing varies up to 60% across this set.
