TiDB Serverless Pricing 2026
Plans, hidden costs, and alternatives compared
Prices last confirmed on Oct 24, 2026 on pingcap.com. Same data as Markdown or JSON.
Cite this data: Toolradar, TiDB Serverless pricing verified Oct 2026, toolradar.com/tools/tidb-serverless/pricing
TiDB Serverless starts at Starts from $0.22/hr.
Verified Oct 2026 from the official pricing page.
Is TiDB Serverless worth the price?
TiDB Serverless offers a very generous free tier with 25 GiB storage and 250M RUs, making it highly accessible for new projects and small applications.
The Essential tier's 'typical small prod: ≈$20 / day' suggests a reasonable entry point for production, while Dedicated starts at a significant $1376/month. This pricing is fair, offering options from free to enterprise-grade, catering well to a wide range of users from hobbyists to large enterprises.
Pricing Plans
Free TrialTiDB Cloud Starter
$0 / month
- Fully-managed cloud DBaaS for applications with variable workloads
- Available on AWS and Alibaba Cloud
- 25 GiB of row storage
- 25 GiB of column storage
- 250M Request Units (RUs) for free per month for each organization
- $0.20 per additional GiB of storage
- $0.10 per additional 1M RUs
- Pay only for the storage and capacity you use
- Set spend limits
- Scale down to zero
TiDB Cloud Essential
Usage-based
- Fully-managed cloud DBaaS for production workloads that need performance, security, and scale
- Provisioned compute with autoscaling up to 100K Request Units
- Point-in-time backup and up to 30-day retention
- Encrypted in transit and at rest
- 99.99% availability with multi-zone protection
- Usage-based pricing with predictable costs
- Typical small prod: ≈$20 / day
TiDB Cloud Dedicated
Starts from $0.22/hr
- Fully-managed cloud DBaaS for applications with predictable traffic and advanced requirements
- Available on AWS, Google Cloud and Azure
- 4 vCPU to 32 vCPU per node available
- PCI-DSS and SOC 2 Type II compliant
- Starts from $1376 / month
TiDB Self-Managed
Pricing upon request
- Self-managed database for applications with advanced configuration requirements
- Runs on nearly any infrastructure or cloud provider
- Deploy on infrastructure of choice, across multiple cloud platforms (public or private), on-prem data centers, or hybrid environments
- Highly compatible with Kubernetes; integrations available with Apache Spark, Apache Kafka, Apache Flink, and others
TiDB Community
Free
- The most advanced, open-source, distributed SQL database with core capabilities
Hidden Costs & Gotchas
Overage fees for storage/RUs on Starter
How TiDB Serverless compares
2 of 3 direct competitors offer a free plan.
| Tool | Starting price | Free plan |
|---|---|---|
| TiDB Serverless | Starts from $0.22/hr | Yes |
| PlanetScale | $5/month, billing unit not specified | No |
| Supabase | $25/month, billing unit not specified | Yes |
| Neon | $0.11/month, billing unit not specified | Yes |
TiDB Serverless Pricing FAQ
How much does TiDB Serverless cost?
TiDB Serverless starts at Starts from $0.22/hr.
Does TiDB Serverless have a free plan?
Yes. TiDB Serverless offers a free plan called "TiDB Cloud Starter". It includes: Fully-managed cloud DBaaS for applications with variable workloads, Available on AWS and Alibaba Cloud, 25 GiB of row storage.
Does TiDB Serverless offer a free trial?
Yes. TiDB Serverless offers a free trial.
What are alternatives to TiDB Serverless?
Alternatives to TiDB Serverless include PlanetScale, Supabase, Neon. PlanetScale starts at $5/month, billing unit not specified; Supabase starts at $25/month, billing unit not specified; Neon starts at $0.11/month, billing unit not specified.
TiDB Serverless alternatives
Direct competitors. Starting prices match the table above.
Sources
- Official TiDB Serverless pricing: www.pingcap.com/pricing (verified Oct 2026)
- Cite this data: Toolradar, TiDB Serverless pricing verified Oct 2026, toolradar.com/tools/tidb-serverless/pricing
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