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Managed Postgres and MySQL (Vitess)

PlanetScale

Managed Postgres and Vitess-based MySQL on dedicated clusters, with NVMe-backed Metal instances, per-environment branches and sharding for very large workloads, from $5 a month.

Visit planetscale.com ↗ Alternatives Paid EU region
PlanetScale homepage
§1

Overview

PlanetScale sells dedicated database clusters rather than a shared or serverless tier. It offers three engines: PlanetScale Postgres, Vitess for horizontally sharded MySQL, and Neki, a newer sharded Postgres architecture. Clusters run in AWS or GCP, and a PlanetScale Managed option deploys into your own cloud account.

The entry point changed in November 2025, when single-node, non-HA Postgres clusters became available from $5 a month (PS-5, 512 MiB RAM). Highly available clusters with a primary and two replicas across three zones start at $15 a month, and Metal clusters on local NVMe drives with unlimited IOPS start at $50 a month with storage included. Vitess clusters start at $39 a month.

Billing is per branch: every development or production branch is its own cluster with its own compute, storage, backups and egress, prorated to the millisecond. That makes branch-per-environment workflows easy but means each extra branch adds cost. Network storage includes 10 GB per cluster and backups include twice the disk size before per-GB charges apply.

PlanetScale publishes SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type 2 reports with HIPAA coverage, can sign BAAs, and has PCI DSS attestation for its Managed option. Its SLA is 99.99% for single-region and 99.999% for multi-region deployments.

§2

Pricing and plans

Plan Price What you get
Postgres single node PS-5 $5/mo 1/16 vCPU, 512 MiB RAM, non-HA; 10 GB network storage included
Postgres single node PS-10 $10/mo 1/8 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM (arm64); $13 on x86-64
Postgres HA PS-5 $15/mo Primary plus 2 replicas across three availability zones
Postgres HA PS-10 $30/mo 1/8 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM, 3 nodes (arm64); $39 on x86-64
Postgres Metal M-10 $50/mo 3 nodes on local NVMe, 10 GiB storage included, unlimited IOPS
Vitess (MySQL) PS-10 $39/mo 1/8 vCPU, 1 GiB RAM, 3 nodes, x86-64
Enterprise / Managed Custom Single-tenant or deployed in your own AWS/GCP account; PCI DSS on Managed

Prices shown are for AWS us-east-1 and vary by cloud and region. Each branch runs on its own cluster and is billed separately, prorated to the millisecond. Network-attached storage includes the first 10 GB per cluster, then is billed per GB at region-specific rates that were not captured; extra IOPS and throughput on AWS are billed separately. Backup storage equal to twice the disk size is included, then $0.023 per GB-month. Egress beyond an included amount per branch is billed; the included amount and rate were not captured. There is no free plan; the pages read mention no trial or credit. The region list comes from a docs page dated 2023 and may be incomplete.

Source: planetscale.com/pricing · prices as published, excluding tax.

§3

What it does

Single-node and HA clusters
Start on a $5 single node, then resize or switch to a primary plus two replicas across three availability zones from the clusters page.
PlanetScale Metal
Clusters on locally attached NVMe drives with unlimited IOPS, with storage included in the instance price, from $50/mo.
Vitess and Neki sharding
Horizontal sharding for MySQL through Vitess and for Postgres through Neki, routed through a single connection.
Branching
Each branch runs on its own dedicated cluster for development, staging or restore, priced to the millisecond.
Connection pooling
PgBouncer on port 6432 with buffered failovers to reduce the impact of primary changes.
Query Insights and Traffic Control
Per-query metrics, schema recommendations and budgets on query traffic to contain runaway queries.
§4

Strengths and limitations

Strengths

  • Dedicated clusters with predictable performance instead of shared compute
  • $5 single-node entry price with a path to HA, Metal and sharding without changing vendor
  • NVMe-backed Metal instances with unlimited IOPS
  • Vitess sharding proven on very large MySQL deployments
  • SOC 2 Type 2 with HIPAA, BAAs and PCI DSS (Managed)

Limitations

  • No free plan
  • Single-node clusters are not highly available; HA starts at $15/mo
  • Every branch is a separately billed cluster
  • No scale to zero; clusters bill while running
  • Prices vary by region and cloud, and storage and egress rates must be checked per region
§5

Who it suits

Good for

  • Production apps that need a highly available Postgres or MySQL cluster
  • High-throughput workloads that benefit from local NVMe storage
  • MySQL applications that need horizontal sharding
  • Side projects willing to pay $5/mo for a dedicated Postgres node

Look elsewhere if

  • Hobby projects that need a free database
  • Many mostly idle databases, where scale-to-zero services cost less
§6

Pricing history

  • $5 single-node Postgres

    Effective 2025-11-14 (announced 2025-10-30): a single-node PS-5 Postgres at $5/mo became available; before, the entry point was a 3-node cluster at $30/mo. Development branches dropped from $10 to $5/mo. Source ↗

§7

Alternatives to PlanetScale

Tool From Free option Stages
Redis Cloud Managed Redis
$5/mo Free tier
Aiven Managed open-source data platform (PostgreSQL, MySQL, Kafka, Valkey, OpenSearch, ClickHouse)
$5/mo Free tier
Clever Cloud European managed PaaS
€6/mo Trial
Render Managed PaaS
$7/mo Free tier
Google Cloud SQL Managed PostgreSQL, MySQL and SQL Server
$0.0105/hr Trial
Scalingo European managed PaaS
€7.20/mo Trial

All managed databases →

§8

Questions

Does PlanetScale have a free tier?

No. The cheapest option is a single-node PS-5 Postgres cluster at $5 a month in AWS us-east-1.

Does PlanetScale support Postgres?

Yes. PlanetScale Postgres is generally available alongside Vitess for MySQL and Neki for sharded Postgres.

How much is a highly available PlanetScale database?

A three-node Postgres cluster starts at $15 a month (PS-5), and a PS-10 HA cluster at $30 a month on arm64 in AWS us-east-1.

Is PlanetScale HIPAA compliant?

PlanetScale reports under SOC 2 Type 2 plus HIPAA and can sign Business Associate Agreements with qualifying customers.

Sources read for this page