Price checkMonthly
freeFreepostgres_single$5/mops_5$15/mo
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Quick Answer
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PlanetScale costs Free to $50 per month as of March 2026, with 5 plans available including a free tier. Plans: free (free), postgres_single at $5/month, ps_5 at $15/month, and metal_ha at $50/month. Enterprise pricing is available on request. Pricing depends on your chosen tier, contract length, and negotiated discounts.

Use the interactive pricing calculator to estimate your exact cost based on team size and requirements.

  • Free tier: Yes

PlanetScale offers 5 pricing tiers: free, postgres_single, ps_5, metal_ha, enterprise. A free plan is available. Paid plans include postgres_single at $5/month, ps_5 at $15/month, metal_ha at $50/month. The postgres_single plan is low-traffic production.

Compared to other database as a service software, PlanetScale is positioned at the budget-friendly price point.

  • Median contract: $180/yr from 0 purchases
  • Average negotiated discount: 92%
  • 2 documented hidden costs beyond list price
Last verified: | Sources: 1 pricing pages and reviews

How much does PlanetScale cost?

PlanetScale offers 5 pricing plans, starting with a free tier and scaling to custom enterprise pricing. Plans include free (free), postgres_single at $5/month, ps_5 at $15/month, metal_ha at $50/month, enterprise (custom pricing).

PlanetScale Pricing Overview

PlanetScale has 5 pricing plans, including a free tier. Paid plans range from $0 to $50/month. The free plan is free and is best for development. The postgres_single plan costs $5/month, best for low-traffic production. The ps_5 plan costs $15/month, best for production workloads. The metal_ha plan costs $50/month, best for high-performance applications. The enterprise plan requires contacting sales for a custom quote and is designed for large-scale deployments.

The median PlanetScale customer pays $180/year, with an average 92% discount available through negotiation.

There are at least 2 documented hidden costs beyond PlanetScale's list price, including implementation, training, and add-on fees.

This pricing was last verified in February 4, 2026 from 1 independent sources.

Visit PlanetScale Pricing

PlanetScale pricing starts with a free tier at $0/month for hobby projects. Paid plans begin at $5/month for the postgres_single tier, $15/month for the ps_5 tier, and $50/month for the metal_ha tier with high availability. Enterprise pricing is custom-quoted. PlanetScale uses a unique row-based pricing model with $1 per billion reads and $1.50 per million writes, plus $2.50/GB for storage.

How PlanetScale Pricing Compares

Compare PlanetScale pricing against top alternatives in Database as a Service.

CockroachDB $0-$0.6/user/mo View pricing → Neon $0-$0/user/mo View pricing → Supabase $0-$599/user/mo View pricing →

All PlanetScale Plans & Pricing

Plan Monthly Annual Best For
free Free Free Development
postgres_single $5 /month $5 /year Low-traffic production
ps_5 $15 /month $15 /year Production workloads
metal_ha $50 /month $50 /year High-performance applications
enterprise Contact Sales Contact Sales Large-scale deployments
View all features by plan

free

postgres_single

  • Postgres single node

ps_5

  • 1/16 vCPU, 512MB memory

metal_ha

  • Metal with NVMe storage

enterprise

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Compare PlanetScale vs Alternatives

Before committing to PlanetScale, compare pricing with these 3 alternatives in the same category.

VSCockroachDB
Free

Smaller, bursty workloads

Compare pricing
VSNeon
Free

Prototypes and side projects

Compare pricing
VSSupabase
Free

Passion projects and simple websites

Compare pricing

All PlanetScale alternatives & migration guides

What Companies Actually Pay for PlanetScale

The median PlanetScale buyer pays $180/year based on 0 verified purchase transactions, with an average 92% savings through negotiation.

What companies actually pay $180/yr Median across 0 purchases
92% avg. savings
with negotiation
Review scores
Top pricing complaints
Confusing pricing modelNo foreign key supportExpensive storage costs
Source: Vendr buyer database — median calculated from 0 real purchase transactions. Savings figure reflects negotiated discounts reported by buyers.
Visit PlanetScale Pricing

How PlanetScale Pricing Compares

Software Starting Price Top Price
PlanetScale Free $50/month
CockroachDB Free $0.6/month
Neon Custom Custom
Supabase Free $599/month
Turso Free $416.58/month

Browse all Database as a Service pricing →

2 PlanetScale Hidden Costs Beyond the List Price

Beyond the listed price, PlanetScale has at least 2 documented hidden costs that can significantly increase total cost of ownership.

Watch for 2 hidden costs
  • High storage costs compared to competitors $2.50/GB storage (vs $0.34-$1/GB competitors)
    medium 1 source
    Hacker News "Given the expensive storage at $2.50/GB, how big things are seems to matter. Cockroach charges $1/GB (60% less), Google charges $0.34/GB for Cloud SQL HS storage"
  • Confusing row-based pricing model 10-30% of license costs
    medium 2 sources
    Hacker News "I looked at Planetscale thinking I might be willing to just take a risk with their confusing pricing"
    Hacker News "I'm guessing the "difficult to understand and hard for you to predict" is around how the read pricing is based on how many rows MySQL needs to read in order to serve your query."
Tip

Ask your PlanetScale sales rep about these costs upfront. Getting them in writing before signing can save you from surprise charges later.

Full hidden costs breakdown →

Intelligence sourced from 2 independent sources
Hacker News Tech community Vendr Verified buyer transactions
Key claims include inline source attribution. Data verified against multiple independent sources. 4 source citations total.

PlanetScale Pricing FAQ

01 How much does PlanetScale cost?

Pricing varies by plan. Check the official pricing page for current rates.

02 Does PlanetScale have a free tier?

Check the pricing section above for free tier availability.

03 What are the main features of PlanetScale?

Key features include the items listed in the pricing tiers above.

04 Is PlanetScale worth the price?

Value depends on your specific needs and use case. Compare features across plans.

05 Does PlanetScale support foreign keys?

No, PlanetScale does not support foreign keys. This is a significant limitation mentioned by developers evaluating the platform, particularly those migrating from traditional MySQL databases that rely on foreign key constraints for referential integrity.

06 How does PlanetScale pricing compare to traditional cloud databases?

PlanetScale uses a row-based pricing model ($1 per billion reads, $1.50 per million writes) rather than the traditional CPU/RAM allocation model used by AWS RDS, Google Cloud SQL, Azure, and IBM. Storage costs $2.50/GB, which is higher than competitors like CockroachDB ($1/GB) or Google Cloud SQL ($0.34/GB). This makes costs harder to predict but can be more economical for read-heavy workloads with good query optimization.

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